At first glance, it would seem that there are countries subscribed to more medals than others and there are countries whose representatives rather go to a meeting with their counterparts from afar, than with hope to listen the national anthem, stand solemnly on Olympic podium. But since nothing is accidental in this world, it is found that there are four factors of power, able to lead Olympic performance – Project Syndicate note: the number of inhabitants of the country, traditions in sport, policies promoting sports movement and the development of the country.
Taken separately, none of these factors alone can not explain the results of the representatives of a country at the Olympics. Taken together, they begin to become significant not only for what happened, but even on chances in the future. Math, statistics, and probabilities calculation suggests that a larger population, the chances of discovering, in turn, geniuses, artists or champions increases with it. Would normally occur more outstanding performers in a huge mass of people except in a small group.
That seems theoretically. Basically though, if we remain stunned face to face with India, a country with 1,200 million inhabitants, owner of six Olympic medals, and Croatia, which won the same number of medals – six – although its population count just over 4 million. The same observation can be made about Australia, a country of about 22.61 million speakers, which received 3% of all medals awarded to London, a percentage equal across Africa.
The policy to promote sports
It is undoubtedly a place at the forefront of policies to stimulate the sport promoted by governments. If you look back, we see that, throughout the period 1972 – 2008, the number one place medals was occupied by the USSR (in five different years, including 1992, armed with Russia) took second place in the U.S. (four years) and third China, in 2008 and has won 51 medals.
