Source of Success?

Well, I know that Rwanda doesn't produce enough wealth to enable lots of people to make a living out of sport.

Two things, Jonathan - the available resources to train athletes, and the opportunity for anyone in this country who so desires to pursue the dream of Olympic success. (The fact that we're the Great Satan and can rig any competition doesn't hurt, though. :cool:)

Two things about olympic success:

1) Wealth
2) Population

If I get to pick a third, it would be experience in a particular sport (which is probably an expression of human capital, i.e. experienced, successful athletes become good coaches who beget good athletes, etc.). Maybe just one lucky or motivated athlete begets a nation's domination of a sport.

As some of you may be aware( or suspected!), Canada has again delivered a very poor relative performance in the medal counts, and within
femto-seconds the cry "What should the goverment do?" was run up the flag by the endless wave of socialist hordes that inhabit this place. The Prime Minister was dragged into it and forced to take a vaguely apologetic tone and promised 'something' in the future.BTW Canada had twice as many advisors and support staff as atheletes, vs the US which was the opposite. Count yourself lucky your not subjected to this kind of 24/7 all around the dial idiocy. its THICK here.:no:

According to economist Andrew Bernard:

When you get right down to it, the national success at the Olympics is as much about economics as about individual athletic prowess," says Bernard. The study explains that over the last 40 years, national Olympic medal totals have been driven by four distinct factors: population, per capita income, past performance, and a host effect.

He hit the Sydney medals for the US exactly, but missed the Athens total by 10.

I guess economists know just about everything...

Wealth and population obviously have a lot to do with it. Wealth allows a number of people with natural talents to make their living training and competing instead of trying to provide essential goods or services. It also buys the cutting-edge in equipment, nutrition, and training, which can add a edge which is numerically small but competitively huge.

Population is important, of course, because we have the 4th most people on the planet. More people means more talent from which to choose. Somewhat relatedly, America has a racially diverse population. This means that many people gravitate towards the sports of their racial and ethnic heritage, so America doesn't dominate in a few sports and barely show up for the rest. Also, racial diversity probably strengthens the gene pool against disease and helps weed out race-specific problems. By analogy, in dog breeds, significant in-breeding has produced long-term health problems for members of the breed. Mutts carry those problems recessively but often do not suffer from them, and bred with other mutts they will have few offspring who suffer.

I think it may also have something to do with the national character. America is the centre of the global market and has been the world's premier capitalist country since the early 20th century. America is an inherently business-minded, competitive society. That spills over into our politics and sport.

I think our national character is also affected by being a nation of immigrants. Generally, we're a nation of people who were fed up with life as it was and decided to strike out on our own, take a huge risk, and create new lives for ourselves and our families. Some of that has probably been passed down (more culturally than genetically) and also influences us.

- Josh

The EU (some individual EU countries did exceptionally well in relation to their population size - Germany, France, Italy and the UK in particular), Russia and China all had very successful outings. Anyway, America's performance is not as special as we think it to be.

BTW, the US is generally a poor performer at the Winter Olympics as far as overall medal count is concerned.

Medal Count:

http://www.athens2004.com/en/OlympicMedals/medals

Note how relatively poor nations like Romania or the Ukraine or Cuba with very poor resources do quite well in the Olympics. Anyway, I think its pretty clear that there are other factors besides wealth that effect performance by a nation at the Olympic games.

:beatnik: