Midway through the London Olympics, New Zealand once again has emerged as a dominant sporting nation. It is the country with the smallest population hauling the most number of medals.
By August 7, it had won three gold, one silver and four bronze medals to make it a total of eight, putting it 16th in the medals tally. It is a developed country with a population of just over 4.4 million.
India is the worse performer. It is a developing country with over 1.2 billion people and has so far won only one silver and two bronze to occupy the 37th position. India is rivalled only by China by way of population. China has over 1.3 billion people and is leading the medals haul with a total of 64 so far — 31 gold, 19 silver and 14 bronze.
Running second is the world’s most powerful nation — the US. To date it is trailing China by one medal. It had so far won 29 gold, 15 silver and 19 bronze.
China, the US, Russia, Great Britain, Japan, France, South Korea, Germany, Australia and Italy make up the top 10. Except for China, they are all industrialised nations.
If my old method calculation is correct, there is one Olympic medal for every 21 million Chinese as opposed to one for every 554,000 New Zealanders.
But do not forget small and poor nations that also do well. Topping the chart is Cuba in number 21 with seven medals, Jamaica aka the country of Usain Bolt, number 29 with four and the Dominican Republic number 40 with two medals — a gold and a silver.
The high performance of some countries and the poor performance of others are the combined product of political systems, cultures and sense of patriotism of the people.
As for us, all these are summed up by one solitary silver medal in badminton courtesy of Lee Chong Wei.
Perhaps our sports officials, starting with the sports minister right down to sportsmen and women, should pause and consider whether “janji ditepati” — promised fulfilled. I guess not. — kadirjasin.blogspot.com
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