1 month ago
46
Like many people, I started off being an Olympic grump but by the end of the competition, I was overwhelmed. The intensity, the upsets, the pride, the disappointment. I mean, really — does anything compare? That trajectory, I’m interested to see, is very similar to Parisians’, who complained endlessly, left the city and then snuck back again searching for tickets. I was amused to read there is a French-run website on X which celebrates French sporting failures. The Fédération Française de la Lose counts 400,000 followers — 100,000 more than the actual French Olympic team.
However, by the end of the fortnight, the French were smitten, their country standing higher on the medals table than it has in all but one year. And what a wonderful backdrop and venues: horseriding on the grounds of Versailles; beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower — I mean, come on! Genius!
My most gratifying moment was when the women’s beach volleyball teams of Canada and Brazil started shouting at each other in the final event. The teams parted, took a breath, and the DJ put on Imagine by John Lennon. The crowd smiled and laughed, the team members smiled and laughed. Then the crowd started singing along … and swaying! I hope someone gave that DJ a medal — talk about diffusing a situation! There was a lot of sportsmanship on show, which surprised me, given how hard people train for the prizes.
So. The reckoning. Like many people with an economic bent, I can’t help wondering what the Olympic Games tell us about the world and its economy — if anything. The two favourite measures in pursuit of this rather frivolous goal are medals per capita and medals vs GDP. With the best will in the world, I’m sorry to say, they don’t show much.
The search for the words “per capita” shot up in New Zealand during the Olympics, and I suspect it’s because of its never-ending competition with Australia. Australia wins more medals, but per capita, New Zealand wins many more, as any New Zealander will tell you, chest slightly puffed up with pride. There is a great New Zealand-based (obvs) website that tracks this difference (here) and indeed New Zealand does beat Australia per capita.
The big per capita winners are the small Caribbean islands of Grenada and St Lucia, both of which, I’m delighted to drop into the conversation, I have visited, but also Dominica. Only after that does New Zealand feature. In previous years, other Caribbean islands have done well too, notably Jamaica, particularly during the Usain Bolt era. But once gained, the advantage seems to stick. Jamaica outperformed South Africa this year in its medal count, despite Bolt having retired some years ago.
The per capita measure puts things into perspective: the biggest winning nations, China and the US, drop down the list propitiously. Botswana does only marginally worse than the UK. The big winning nations — the nations that win many medals but have small populations — are New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands and, interestingly, Hungary. These are the countries to which SA’s sporting bodies need to look for guidance and assistance.
What about GDP and medal winnings? There is a correlation, but it’s surprisingly light. If you are interested, the correlation coefficient between GDP per capita and the total number of medals won at the 2024 Paris Olympics is approximately 0.34, with 1 being the highest and -1 being the lowest. Hence, it is positive, but not very strong.
You can see that in the table: the big economies, the US and China, are well down the list. Once again, the Caribbean islands dominate the top of the list, interestingly joined by countries in West Asia — Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — which, by the way, enjoyed a fabulous Olympics, winning 13 medals.
For SA, this list is worrying. Technically, with its six medals, SA is ranked 44th on the medals table. Applying a GDP screen over that, SA is ranked 66th, which demonstrates ground that could easily be made up. A respectable target for SA should be about 12 medals, which would bring the numbers more or less in line. (By the way, this is assigning gold=4, silver=2, bronze=1).
The last issue to look at is home-ground advantage. It’s extraordinary how the home country outperforms in the Olympics. China won the most medals it ever has at the Beijing Olympics and this year, as mentioned, France outperformed.
It’s the same in many sports, where the home team’s advantage is huge: the home side in the English Premier League wins 60% of the time, more or less the same as Japanese baseball teams, and everything in between. Some people think it’s because of crowd support providing motivation, but this has been debunked in several academic studies. National pride, too. Athletes operating at this level hardly need more motivation; they have it already in spades. The other factor is referee bias in favour of the home team, and weirdly this applies as much to referees from neutral countries as it does to referees from the host nation itself.
A big factor in the Olympics is investment in sports and a strategic focus on medal winning. Some countries do well by focusing on particular sports. Every member of the Chinese diving team won a medal this year and there were 11 of them — roughly 10% of the country’s medals were won in a single discipline.
An athlete from SA is a good example of how close this all is. Jo-Ane van Dyk won a silver medal in the javelin throw — a magnificent performance — but several of her rivals threw farther than her in the heats. Van Dyk didn’t get much support from SA’s Olympic structures after coming 15th in the world championships in 2002 and 10th the following year. She came 24th in the Tokyo Olympics.
Sprinter Akani Simbine did get support from SA’s Olympic Committee, but his three teammates in the 4×100, Shaun Maswanganyi, Bradley Nkoana and Bayanda Walaza, did not. Bronze medallist mountain biker Alan Hatherly was offered support, and the Blitzboks didn’t get support because they are run by SA Rugby.
It shows how much of a crapshoot this process is and how adding a bit of boodle does increase your chances, even in situations where the historical performance record is a bit light. It’s like that old joke about someone asking God to help him win the lottery. God says okay, but you have to meet me halfway and buy a ticket.
Here’s to a few more tickets next time. DM
