Olympic medal table

Each Olympic Games organising committee (except in 1904) has published an official report after the conclusion of the Games, which among other things list the results of each event. Some early reports included an overall national ranking, including those of 1908,[5] 1912,[6] 1924 (Summer[7] and Winter[8]) and 1928 (Winter[9]). The 1912 and 1924 tables are described as "official" while that of 1928 is "unofficial".

The 1932 Winter Games report states, "There is no official point score in the Olympic Games" and quotes General Rule 19 of the 1930 Olympic Charter, "“In the Olympic Games there is no classification according to points".[10][11] It states that the country-based organisation of teams is "chiefly for practical convenience" and that country rankings are "a grave injustice on the smaller countries".[10] It continues that "it has been the experience of all previous Olympic Games that the press of the world insist on exploiting the aspect of national rivalry by creating and publishing a wholly unofficial point score of their own devising, most often on the basis of 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points for the six places recognized on the table of honor". The report itself provides such a table "for ready reference".[10]

The sports funding agencies of some nations have set targets of reaching a certain rank in the medals table, usually based on gold medals; examples are Australia, Japan, France, and Germany.[1] Funding is reduced for sports with low prospects of medals.[1]

After London's successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics, UK Sport submitted a funding request to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport setting an "aspirational goal" of fourth place in the 2012 medals table, to be reviewed after the 2008 Olympics, for which a target of eighth place was set.[12][13][14] The British Olympic Association dissociated itself from setting targets.[13] When Britain finished fourth in 2008, the 2012 target was settled at fourth, with the team ultimately finishing third.

Australia's disappointing 10th-place in the 2012 medals table prompted the Australian Sports Commission to draw up a ten-year plan which included a "medium-term" goal of a top-five place in the Summer Olympics and Paralympics and a top-15 place in the winter games.[15][16]

When Tokyo bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, the Japanese Olympic Committee set a 2016 target of third place in gold medals, which it retained even after the games were awarded in 2009 to Rio de Janeiro.[17]

The gold first ranking system described above is used by most of the world media, as well as the IOC. While the gold first ranking system has been used occasionally by some American media outlets, newspapers in the United States primarily publish medal tables ordered by the total number of medals won.[19][20][21][22][23][24]

This difference in rankings has its origins in the early days of the Olympics, when the IOC did not publish or recognise medal tables.[1] Before the 2002 Winter Olympics the difference in ranking system received scant notice, since in recent Olympic history the country that led in total medals also led in the gold count. However, during the 2002 Winter Olympics Germany won the highest number of medals (36), but earned one gold medal fewer than Norway - the latter winning 13.[25] A similar situation occurred at the 2008 Summer Olympics, with China and U.S. topping the gold and total medal tallies respectively,[26] and then again at the 2010 Winter Olympics when Canada and the U.S. finished 1st and 3rd respectively in the "gold first" ranking[27] and 3rd and 1st respectively in terms of total medals won.[28] Other exceptions are the 1896, 1912, and 1964 Summer Olympics when the United States finished first in gold medal count, but second in the overall medal count. In an 24 August 2008 news conference, IOC President Jacques Rogge confirmed that the IOC does not have a view on any particular ranking system.[18]

Sporting success predictions and ratings can be univariate, i.e. based on one independent variable, such as a country's population size and the number of medals is divided by the population of the country,[29][30] or multivariate, where resources-per-person in the form of GDP per capita and other variables are included.

Resources per person in the form of GDP per capita has been included in an article by The Guardian published during the 2012 Summer Olympics[30] and again by Google's News Lab for the Rio 2016 games.[31][32] Already in 2002, the research done by Meghan Busse of Northwestern University suggested that both a large population and high per capita GDP are needed to generate high medal totals,[33] and predictive models have been built trying to predict success with multivariate analysis, taking also past results and host-nation advantage into account.[34][35][36]

Systematic rankings based upon a weighted point system with the most points awarded to a gold medal have also been devised. Those used in the official reports were:

• 1908: 5:3:1 — gold medals 5 points, silver medals 3 points, and bronze medals 1 point.[5][26]
• 1912: 3:2:1 — the report also compares this "Swedish" method with the 5:3:1 "English" method.[6]
• 1924: 10:5:4:3:2:1 — so points were awarded for 4th to 6th places, where no medals were awarded.[7][8] The IOC did require top six finishers to be listed in the report in a "table of honor".[10]
• 1928: 6:5:4:3:2:1 — separate totals are listed depending on whether the military patrol was included or not, as its status was downgraded belatedly to demonstration sport.[9]
• 1932: same as 1924, and described as the usual scheme in newspapers.[10]

The 1908 and 1924 systems share the points for tied placings: for example, in a two-way tie for second, each gets half the sum of the points for second and third place.[5][7][8]

In 2004, a 3:2:1 system was used by the Australian Geography Teachers Association.[37] This weighting values a gold medal as much weight as a silver and a bronze medal combined. In response to the 2008 controversy over medal rank, Jeff Z. Klein in a New York Times blog post proposed a 4:2:1 system as a compromise between the total-medals and golds-first methods.[38] These systems have been popular in certain places at certain times, but none of them have been adopted on a large scale.