Per Capita National Olympic Performance

Standard Olympic medal standings neglect obvious comparative inequities. The most glaring of these are vast differences in national populations. Per capita, the US ranks #35 in medal performance and China ranks #53 out of 71 countries. China's 39 gold medals -- 21% of the Olympic total -- are impressive until you realize that China also has 20% of the world's population. Its 15% take of total medals is considerably less than its share of world population, even though it has all the advantages of being the home country (and may well have cheated).

The leading per-capita national showings are Jamaica at #1 and Australia at #3, far outperforming other medals leaders.

Rank		Country	Gold	Sil- ver	Bro- nze	Total medals	4-2-1 points		pop (mil)	Gold medals /mil	Total medals /million	421 points /million
1		Jamaica	2	2	0	4	12		3	.737	1.47	4.42
2		Slovenia	1	1	2	4	8		2	.493	1.97	3.94
3		Australia	11	10	12	33	76		21	.514	1.54	3.55
35		United States	22	24	26	72	162		305	.072	.24	.53
36		Russia	8	13	15	36	73		142	.056	.25	.51
53		China	39	14	14	67	198		1,326	.029	.05	.15
71		India	1	0	0	1	4		1,137	.001	.00	.00
231		Totals	185	186	209	580	1321		6,671	.028	.09	.20