Just kidding. Take a look at this interesting view of medal tallies by country over time. Play with the slider and you'll notice several things. At first blush ...
(1) Where the games were held has a huge impact on host country (and neighbors, geographically or politically). I was expecting some of it. Not this much. This was even more true in the early history, when I presume, transporting a team to another country or continent was a very non-trivial cost/expedition. And it probably lacked the prestige or "must attend factor" back then.
(2) The former Soviet Union was a sports machine ('56- '88)- not so much after the break-up, even adding up the individual countries. Figures.
(3) Asia has risen from near zero presence to a good share. Primarily China has been doing some things right here. Helps when you can tell people that "the balance-beam is your chosen career." :) But that is a little simplistic. There are other things they get right. India ... well .. we all know it.
(4) The other continent that slowly emerges is Africa. And it's Kenya's long distance abilities that perhaps keep it ahead of South Africa in the tally.
I say we host it, disable the competition with our cuisine, and sweep the medals.
btw - the dots stay the same per country - watch India as you slide the timeline, our best showing was 1952 with 2 medals.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment