It’s fairly clear that large, wealthy nations are more likely to win medals in the Olympic games. So I got to wondering how countries would stack up if you rate them on medals won per capita and by GDP. First off, I think any sort of table like this should be based on a weighted tabulation (3 points for a gold medal, 2 points for a silver, and 1 point for a bronze). I’m not quite sure why this isn’t done, but it doesn’t change the table that much anyway, I guess. In a table showing weighted overall medal counts for the 2012 Olympics France would move up two places ahead of Japan and Australia. So the top 10 would be:
Table 1. Top Ten Weighted Medal Totals for Countries in the 2012 Olympics
| Rank | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | Weighted Total |
| 1 | United States | 46 | 29 | 29 | 104 | 225 |
| 2 | China | 38 | 27 | 23 | 88 | 191 |
| 3 | Russia | 24 | 26 | 32 | 82 | 156 |
| 4 | Great Britain | 29 | 17 | 19 | 65 | 140 |
| 5 | Germany | 11 | 19 | 14 | 44 | 85 |
| 6 | France | 11 | 11 | 12 | 34 | 67 |
| 7 | Japan | 7 | 14 | 17 | 38 | 66 |
| 8 | Australia | 7 | 16 | 12 | 35 | 65 |
| 9 | South Korea | 13 | 8 | 7 | 28 | 62 |
| 10 | Italy | 8 | 9 | 11 | 28 | 53 |
If you divide the weighted medal total by the population, the table changes dramatically. Grenada won one gold medal, but with a population of roughly 100,000, its weighted medal total per 100 million population is 2857.1. Interesting to note that the top five countries by this measure (Grenada, Jamaica, Bahamas, New Zealand, and Trinidad & Tobago) are all members of the British Commonwealth. The United States ranks 46th on this scale.
Table 2. Top Ten Weighted Medal Totals for Countries in the 2012 Olympics by Population
| Rank | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | Weighted Total | Population | Total per 100M | Weighted Total per 100M |
| 1 | Grenada | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 105,000 | 952.4 | 2857.1 |
| 2 | Jamaica | 4 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 24 | 2,705,827 | 443.5 | 887.0 |
| 3 | Bahamas | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 353,658 | 282.8 | 848.3 |
| 4 | New Zealand | 6 | 2 | 5 | 13 | 27 | 4,434,590 | 293.1 | 608.8 |
| 5 | Trinidad and Tobago | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 1,317,714 | 303.6 | 455.3 |
| 6 | Hungary | 8 | 4 | 5 | 17 | 37 | 9,962,000 | 170.6 | 371.4 |
| 7 | Slovenia | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 2,057,970 | 194.4 | 340.1 |
| 8 | Montenegro Republic | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 620,029 | 161.3 | 322.6 |
| 9 | Lithuania | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 3,187,700 | 156.9 | 313.7 |
| 10 | Denmark | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 17 | 5,584,758 | 161.2 | 304.4 |
Next I divided the weighted medal total by the GDP of each country (I used the figures from the CIA World Factbook because that ‘s the only one that took a stab at a GDP for North Korea). Grenada and Jamaica come out on top again. Just as in the previous table, where countries with small populations that manage to win even a small number of medals achieve high rankings, here countries with small economies score well. Grenada’s GDP is less than $1 billion, which is much smaller than the US with a GDP of over $15 trillion. By this measure that USA ranks 65th. China’s GDP is just over $7 trillion, which puts it at 53rd on this scale.
Table 3. Top Ten Weighted Medal Totals for Countries by GDP
| Rank | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | Weighted Total | GDP ($millions) | Total per $1T | Weighted Total per $1T |
| 1 | Grenada | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 800 | 1250.0 | 3750.0 |
| 2 | Jamaica | 4 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 24 | 14,810 | 810.3 | 1620.5 |
| 3 | Georgia | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 12 | 14,350 | 487.8 | 836.2 |
| 4 | Mongolia | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 8,506 | 587.8 | 822.9 |
| 5 | Kenya | 2 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 19 | 34,800 | 316.1 | 546.0 |
| 6 | North Korea | 4 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 14 | 28,000 | 214.3 | 500.0 |
| 7 | Montenegro Republic | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4,200 | 238.1 | 476.2 |
| 8 | Cuba | 5 | 3 | 6 | 14 | 27 | 57,490 | 243.5 | 469.6 |
| 9 | Ethiopia | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 14 | 31,260 | 223.9 | 447.9 |
| 10 | Armenia | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 10,110 | 296.7 | 395.6 |
So then I got to wondering about how the Soviet Union might have fared if it weren’t for that minor issue of its dissolution some 20 years ago. For years the Soviet Union was the world’s largest country in terms of land area and ranked third in population behind China and India. While Russia still has the largest land area of any country, many of the republics of the former Soviet Union have lost population since the dissolution, particularly the area in Europe. If the Soviet Union were still together its population would be just under 290 million, which means that at some point the United States surpassed the former Soviet Union in population. As of the most recent census in 2010, the population of the United States stood at 308 million. Even so, the countries of the former Soviet Union won a combined total of 163 medals (weighted total 300), as compared to 104 medals (weighted total 225) for the USA.
As long as we’re figuring medal totals of former empires, what about the British Empire? The UK made the most of its home field advantage and ended up with 65 medals, 29 of which were gold (weighted total 140), putting it in fourth place overall for the 2012 Olympics. Along with the rest of the countries of the British Commonwealth, the former British Empire won a combined total of 179 medals (weighted total 346), so Britain wins the empire medal derby. But those empires are long gone and the UK is now part of the European Union, which racked up an impressive total of medals. The combined total of medals won by EU member nations was 304 (weighted total 591). Nobody seemed to care about that, though.
So then I got to thinking about past alliances. If you add up the medals won by the Warsaw Pact nations and compare those to NATO (as they were comprised in 1990 just before the end of the Cold War), NATO comes out on top. The Warsaw Pact countries took a combined total of 215 medals (weighted total 400), but NATO tops that with a combined total of 354 medals (weighted total 711). And the Axis gets blown out by the Allies. While the Axis managed a respectable 201 medals (weighted total 390) the Allies won a whopping 722 medals (weighted total 1407).
So there you have it. The Allies won the 2012 Olympics.