<p>Thought the band that covered Pinball Wizard (whoever they were–showing my age!) did a credible job.</p>
<p>Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs sang Pinball Wizard.</p>
<p>I think the closing ceremory was entertaining. The Brasil’s show was also very good. The electric effect was fantastic (I still wonder how they did it). But then I did not know what happened. After waiting for the commercial of the new NBC comedy to end, I fell to sleep. When I woke up everything was over. Should I be blamed?</p>
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<p>Yeah. </p>
<p>Now that all is said and done, I didn’t mind the NBC coverage overall, because I was fortunate enough to be able to watch the streaming coverage of the events that were important to me. Son was ranting about how the NBC folks acted like the US was the only country competing, but I told him that the streaming coverage was even-handed.</p>
<p>For those jonesing for more London Olympics they are still broadcasting the games on the NBC Sports Network.</p>
<p>Oh wow the UK in 3rd place in the medal table… that is pretty damn amazing.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^Yes, quite impressive.</p>
<p>3rd in gold medals, 4th overall.</p>
<p>
Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 United States 46 29 29 104
2 China 38 27 23 88
3 Russia 24 26 32 82
4 Great Britain 29 17 19 65
5 Germany 11 19 14 44
6 Japan 7 14 17 38
7 Australia 7 16 12 35
8 France 11 11 12 34
9 South Korea 13 8 7 28
10 Italy 8 9 11 28
11 Netherlands 6 6 8 20
12 Ukraine 6 5 9 20
13 Canada 1 5 12 18
14 Hungary 8 4 5 17
15 Spain 3 10 4 17
16 Brazil 3 5 9 17
17 Cuba 5 3 6 14
18 Kazakhstan 7 1 5 13
19 New Zealand 6 2 5 13
20 Iran 4 5 3 12
21 Jamaica 4 4 4 12
22 Belarus 2 5 5 12
23 Kenya 2 4 5 11
24 Czech Republic 4 3 3 10
25 Azerbaijan 2 2 6 10
</p>
<p>^^Yes, the Cousins did great.</p>
<p>It’s the typical home field boost in medals. Host countries go all out in investing in training so their athletes give good showing for the home team. And with the exception of Canada in 1976, it almost always pays off in a big increase in medals.</p>
<p>The Cousins did vastly better than the USA on a population basis, which is curious because GBR doesn’t really seem like a sporty country, and they lack the college sports resources of the US.</p>
<p>^ that’s true … but if the goal is winning medals the US would not want so many people playing baseball, football, basketball, and soccer … we have LOTS of kids playing team sports that at best lead to two medals. Other countries have developed programs to expose their kids to multiple Olympic sports and in some cases targeting sports they see as easier to win medals. For example, the US won two medals from basketball which probably over 2 million high school kids playing hoops … how many people are competitive thythmic gymnasts in the world? I doubt it is a coincidence that countries from the old USSR block dominate.</p>
<p>The size of the country does not correlate exactly with the number of athletes who qualify. And specific rules leave athletes out of the games altogether or out of the final medal events.</p>
<p>As fas as host nations:</p>
<p>[London</a> 2012: Better for Great Britain than 1908 despite fewer gold medals Sporting Intelligence](<a href=“http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2012/08/13/london-2012-why-great-britain-outdid-their-1908-performance-despite-fewer-gold-medal-130801/]London”>London 2012: Better for Great Britain than 1908 despite fewer gold medals | Sporting Intelligence)</p>
<p>I don’t really see much of a point to the medal count but if a medal count is being presented it should include two additional data points - the number of athletes competing in the events and the overall population of the country. It’d add some interesting perspective - for example, relative to its population, China won very few medals.</p>
<p>Did anyone else notice though that apparently a large number of the athletes competing for non-USA teams actually live in the USA and train in the USA and in some cases are actually USA citizens born and raised in the USA? The image of the British runner taking winning the medals for the home country and Queen just isn’t the same when you know that he and his family live in the USA and he trains in the USA as well alongside the runner representing the USA. And Felix Sanchez, who won a gold medal for the Dominican Republic is an American born in NYC and raised in California. The same thing happens with other countries.</p>
<p>Given the lack of the data points of competing athletes and population of the home country, and the very loose definition of affiliation with that ‘home country’, the overall medal count isn’t so insightful.</p>
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</p>
<p>Loose definitions seem to cloud many statistics. </p>
<p>In a parallel thread, some are arguing on the “affiliations” of Americans with particular schools. For instance, some argue that Michael Phelps was never a full-fledged student at Michigan, but merely followed his coach back and forth between Baltimore and Michigan. </p>
<p>The same issue arises in the usually moronic discussions about schools and Nobel laureates. </p>
<p>As long as it makes some happy, the comparisons are harmless. Usually useless as well!</p>
<p>
I hate to admit but I’ve spent a fair amount of time on this. </p>
<p>For the most part the overall number of medals correlates pretty well with the size and economic well being of the country … the US, China, and Russia had the most medals. </p>
<p>Correcting for the size of the country the large countries do not fare as well … there are other countries that are much more efficient compared to the size of their country … Australia for example. (PS - this is not random … I believe in Australia you can be tested fairly young and told for what sports your body is best suited … no one is forced to play any sport but they are exposed to more sports and given insight into things to try).</p>
<p>However, the measure of medals versus size of the country is not really fair since the Olympics limits the number of entries per country. One example, it the best 32 divers in the world had competed for a diving medal the Chinese may well have swept the contest and had over half the contestants. Similarly, the US would have many more contestants in track & field, swimming, and women’s gymnastics without the participant limits … and probably won more medals.</p>
<p>This may take us back to improving NBC’s coverage in the future. My guess is China will continue to move up in the medal count and permanently overtake the US in the medal count soon. And the real dark horse out there is India … when their economy gets on track they also will start racking up medals. Maybe with those changes we’re get more even handed coverage here in the US.</p>
<p>
But the larger the population the larger the number of potential athletes competing for those top spots so the more likely that country should be in having the top athletes - i.e. in China the top divers bubble up from a population of billions of people versus much smaller pools for other countries. You’d expect that the 32 out of the billlions would be at a higher level than if you had to select 32 out of 1 million or so.</p>
<p>
I was wondering about India the other day - why don’t they have tons of athletes in the games? Other countries with far less population and dire economic conditions have plenty of athletes in the games and not all of India is in dire straits - there are quite a number with disposable income and they shouldn’t be dependent on government financing to produce athletes. Did India compete at all in these Olympics? I don’t recall seeing them.</p>
<p>India won 2 silver and 4 bronze medals.</p>
<p>Men’s wrestling, women’s boxing, women’s badminton, men’s shooting.</p>
<p>[India</a> Olympic Team | London Olympics - Yahoo! Sports](<a href=“Sports News, Scores, Fantasy Games - Yahoo Sports”>Sports News, Scores, Fantasy Games - Yahoo Sports)</p>
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<p>Ah, yes, the good ol’ per capita comparison. You’re right. Britain did about 3-fold better than the US on a per capita basis. Approximate numbers:
US = 1 medal for every 3 million people
UK = 1 medal for every 954 thousand people</p>
<p>But wait. Lithuania does even better than the UK
Lithuania = 1 medal for every 640 thousand people.</p>
<p>But that’s not the end either. Jamaica wins a lot of medals. Let’s look at them.
Jamaica = 1 medal for every 225 thousand people.</p>
<p>Hold on. Even mighty but tiny Jamaica can’t win this battle.
Grenada = 1 medal for every 105 thousand people. </p>
<p>Now were talking. Grenada. There’s a real sporting nation. Nothing like those lazy American and Chinese under-performers.</p>
<p>(If anything, this proves the weakness of per capita analyses. By nature they favor the small and disadvantage the large. We see the same thing on CC from time to time when someone “proves” the superiority of LACs over universities with a per capita analysis of eventual PhD production).</p>
<p>I heard a story on NPR about Indian Olympians. As I recall, they’re on their own to train, but if they do well, they are awarded a government job for life, and while they are training, don’t have to show up for work. Each time the athlete does well, he gets a promotion at work. The goal is to retire from your sport and be able to work as a supervisor (at a job you’ve never done before). </p>
<p>I guess it they’re really just talking about 6 athletes every 4 years, it won’t exactly bankrupt the government.</p>
<p>For some reason, this amuses me: today the Fierce Five rang the closing bell at the NY Stock Exchange. Do you think any of them knew what that was before today?</p>