Finland for Thought
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27.2.2006

2006 Winter Olympics Population per Medals

Tags: Uncategorized — Author: @ 5:13 pm

This should make Finland feel a little better about their Winter Olympics results…

2006_olympics_medals_per_ca2.gif

  • http://www.finlandforthought.net Phil

    Wait, am I saying that wrong? Should it be like “capita per medals”?

  • M

    I think it should.

  • Correction

    Capita per medals

  • Correction to my correction :p

    Medals per capita

  • Jyrki Sukula

    Syökää hyvät ihmiset makkaraa

  • charles

    Haha! In your face, Sweden!

    :)

  • A Finn

    Now THAT is the correct way to display sports achievements. Put things into perspective nicely.

  • Anonymous

    Rats! If Palander had looked where he was going, we’d have beaten Switzerland, too.

  • gopha

    Medals per capita

    What they said.

  • Topias

    You should at least weight the medals so that a gold earns more than a bronze etc.

  • http://thoughtsfromid.blogspot.com Mikko S�rel�

    Now next, you should make a comparison GNP $/ medal :)

  • bodybag

    Hey, this is the Winter Olympics, you should get points knocked off for actually having access to regular snow!

  • Christian

    “Hey, this is the Winter Olympics, you should get points knocked off for actually having access to regular snow!”

    If that’s the case i think Finland should get extra points in the Summer Olympics because of the lack of summer :)

  • conan

    Estonia is in a third place, holy cow!

  • Antti (the redneck one)

    For the next games, everybody, except the athletes, move to Sweden NOW.

  • Fürst

    I think it was in Lake Placid in 1980 when a couple of alpinists from Liechtenstein earned some medals. THAT year this per capita table would have looked impressive ;-) .

  • Christian

    The true glory days are over but Finland is still the most sucessful country in the Olympics over time per capita. See:
    http://www.olympic.it/english/medal/id_overall.htm

  • http://www.palun.blogspot.com giustino

    Estonia, fuck yeah, comin again to kick your ass in cross country skiing, yeah… (sung to the melody of the theme song for Team America:World Police)

  • Fürst

    Christian, how do you make that from the table? I still bet that would be Liechtenstein. Population: 34,000. Number of medals: 9. That would be altogether less than 3,800 people per an Olympic medal achieved. For the same proportion, Finland should have achieved around 1400 medals instead of the 400+ we do have. Also, GDR (R.I.P.) is ahead of us thinking the period when they could actually participate is far shorter.

    Anyway, these are just stupid statistics. China, India and other big countries will always look bad here. It doesn’t matter if China for example had the best 100 sports(wo)men in a given discipline, there would still be a maximum of 1-2-3-4 athletes from there that would be allowed to participate.

  • jimmmy

    right. in order for the u.s. to have had the same medals per capita, it would have had to won over 500 medals. unfortunately, there are less than 250 available per country per year…

  • runners for sale

    Fürst has a point. And there’s another thing. The latest form of gold-plated human trafficking is for Middle Eastern countries to buy up reasonably talented Kenyan and Tanzanian long-distance runners, a couple of decent coaches, and create a medal-winning track and field team. Oman’s already had success with this format, or was it Bahrain or the U.E.A? I forget. That’s not to say Finland isn’t averse to a bit of the same, though I guess Eduard Hämäläinen did have maybe one or two Finnish genes. And the Brits had a notorious case a while back in Zola Budd, who was South African until the Daily Mail spotted a good story. Of course, Britain has had the advantage of Empire, being able to round up lots of useful runners and others that way. Technically speaking, I guess most tennis professionals and F1 drivers these days ought to be Monagasque citizens, but if they’ve got buckets of loot the rules don’t seem to matter. There have also been quite a few American sprinters who weren’t awfully good (like they were about 55th in the U.S. rankings), who found other countries ever so willing to take them on – and of course THEY liked it, too, because they were guaranteed a run (and a shot at a medal) if they were wearing a Finnish or a Dutch shirt.

  • Christian

    I would like to point out for the record that i did not submit comment 17.

    The comment name thingy seems to be a little bit buged..

  • rePt

    Here’s an interesting list regarding the comment by ‘runners for sale’:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nationality_transfers_in_athletics

  • Badgermushroom

    This should make Finland feel a little better about their Winter Olympics results
    Yes, because nothing makes Finns feel better than knowing they’ve been beaten by Norway and Estonia. :-P

    -BM

  • Badgermushroom

    Actually, Norway does have an impressive number of medals for its size – only half a million or so smaller than Finland, but over twice as many medals.

    -BM

  • http://www.helsinkitimes.net Oobio

    About Medals per Capita:

    Already last week (feb. 20) Helsinki TImes featured an article also based on the ‘Medals per Capita’- definition.

    It is titles:

    ‘Golden Estonians’
    http://oobio.tripod.com/helsinkitimes/index.blog?entry_id=1418052

    “By the same calculation, The US should win 665 gold medals for it’s inhabitants to enjoy the same 1 out of 445,000 chance to be a gold medal winner”

  • Barbara

    Here is a blog of a Canadian living in Finland – she’s got some good commentary on the Olympics. http://spaces.msn.com/carmenbk/

  • -

    Some good Olympic commentary – http://spaces.msn.com/carmenbk/

  • -

    Sorry for the double post – the first one didn’t appear right away :)

  • http://sidious.sprayblogg.no Tommy

    Norway rules! :)

  • Kai

    You overlook a major factor in this…For example, while the US may have a huge number of citizens in comparison to Finland, a vast majority of them have no access to winter sports. Not too many skiers come from Texas or Florida. By contrast, I would say that nearly all Finns have been forced to ski during school, or at least live in a climate where it can be practiced…Look at Canada for instance, larger population, and practically all live in a four-season environment….they pulled in a lot of medals for their size(ranked #7)

  • Anonymous

    It might be worth Kai learning that Finland doesn’t actually have any mountains, either, but still got a silver medal in the women’s GS, and should have got one in the men’s slalom. By your argument, Britain, as an island, should be chock-full of Olympic swimming gold medallists, and Annika Sorenstam shouldn’t be the world’s best female golfer. Simply “having access” doesn’t make for World Champions. Otherwise Finland would win every rowing event going: nearly everyone can row. Tell the curling team how easy it was for them – “Hey, your country is full of ice…”

    And an Australian won the moguls. Go work that one out.

  • Repe

    9 medals is average for Finland, not bad at all.

    But this list makes it feel even worse. It shows so clearly how Norway and even Estonia beat us! Terrible!

    But you know Phil, in the _official_ medal count, gold medals rule. And this time Finland is always at the bottom of the list with zero (0) gold medals, no matter how you count it.

    It’s really the lack of gold medals that bothers people.
    Sweden stole even the last one from us!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Winter_Olympics_medal_count

  • Kai

    It might be worth anonymous learning that Kai lives in and knows rather well the geography of Finland, and it also might be worth knowing that Finland technically has no mountains but does have slopes that are raced upon for world cup events (Levi)…

    Access wasn’t meant to only include geographic but rather cultural. Every child in Finland skis. Actually, many of them hate it because they have to. But it’s culturally prevalant, unlike in e.g. Miami. Your sarcastic (and not at all funny) responses concerning curling and British swimmers are typically shallow for your demographic, which I would imagine is 25-35, male with too much free time who probably belongs to a fitness club…..

    Of course there are always going to be exceptions and freak happenings like Austrailians winning gold medals in skiing.

  • Anonymous

    Making the suggestion that a wealthy country like the United States, with a high degree of available internal mobility, would be somehow hamstrung by its climate was so ridiculous and so trumped-up as to require sarcasm. The populations alone of states having snow or conditions suitable for performing winter sports (some of which are in any case indoor events) far outnumber those of a country such as Finland or Norway. As you well know.

    It is also one thing to have a sport that its taken as read and taken for granted by the population – namely cross-country skiing, or for that matter rowing – and to have a programme in that country that produces world-beaters at it. Culturally, the Finns, who can also skate in large numbers, don’t forget, have not shown any great enthusiasm in recent years for speed skating, whereas a country with far less by way of “ice credentials”, such as the Netherlands, regards it as a significant sport. By the same token, the Dutch – great cyclists all – have not shone in the Tour de France, with the exception of the great Joop Zoetemelk. So much for “culturally prevalant” (sic).

    And Finland has ONE slope in Levi that has ONCE been raced upon for a female WC slalom event. I hardly imagine Tanja Poutiainen, Kalle Palander & co. do much training there.

    If you blithely accept that of course there are always going to be exceptions like Australians, you should also accept the possibility that the winner could come from Miami or from Phoenix.

    The pursuit of excellence in anything is very much an individual matter: finding an idol to emulate causes people to scale greater heights than merely having the cultural or climatic background. This was proved beyond all doubt by the Sweden of the 1970s. A country with no traditions of tennis-playing suddenly turned out a string of world-beating professionals in the wake of one national hero who learnt the game by banging a ball against a wall. It is much more likely that Finns will do well in future at sports like Alpine skiing because of Poutiainen’s or Palander’s example than because they have snow to work with.

    And as for demographics, not even close and no cigar.

  • Kai

    How possible is it for people in the US to move around? High degree of internal mobility? Not for all, even most….Not what I saw in New Orleans recently…

    And, the Dutch have the ice credentials; you should really have done your homework. Skating the canals is as Dutch as wooden shoes and windmills…it is precisely this culture

    The argument(I don’t even know what exactly its about) is pointless…medal counts are pointless, just as medal counts per capita….Brazil didn’t get any medals apparently; they must have some ´poor atheletes,,,

  • http://- zack

    I think we all know why Sweden is best at ishockey (and ping-pong for that matter)…http://media.putfile.com/Meanwhile-in-Sweden

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