Who's the Best?
Who's the Best? printable sheet
Who's the Best? medal table CSV file
Which countries are most "sporty"?
Below, we have provided the London 2012 Olympics medal table.
Do you think the medals table alone offers enough information to answer this question fairly?
What other information do you think could be taken into account?
Make a plan of the information you will collect and the calculations you will perform. Then carry out your plan to decide which countries are most sporty.
Send us your top-rated countries, together with your justification for the data and criteria you chose to include in your analysis.
In the London 2012 Olympics the final medal table was as follows (spreadsheet CSV form)
| Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 46 | 28 | 29 | 103 |
| China | 38 | 28 | 22 | 88 |
| Great Britain | 29 | 17 | 19 | 65 |
| Russia | 24 | 25 | 32 | 81 |
| South Korea | 13 | 8 | 7 | 28 |
| Germany | 11 | 19 | 14 | 44 |
| France | 11 | 11 | 12 | 34 |
| Italy | 8 | 9 | 11 | 28 |
| Hungary | 8 | 4 | 6 | 18 |
| Australia | 7 | 16 | 12 | 35 |
| Japan | 7 | 14 | 17 | 38 |
| Kazakhstan | 7 | 1 | 5 | 13 |
| Netherlands | 6 | 6 | 8 | 20 |
| Ukraine | 6 | 5 | 9 | 20 |
| New Zealand | 6 | 2 | 5 | 13 |
| Cuba | 5 | 3 | 7 | 15 |
| Iran | 4 | 5 | 3 | 12 |
| Jamaica | 4 | 4 | 4 | 12 |
| Czech Republic | 4 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| North Korea | 4 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| Spain | 3 | 10 | 4 | 17 |
| Brazil | 3 | 5 | 9 | 17 |
| South Africa | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Ethiopia | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 |
| Croatia | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| Belarus | 2 | 5 | 5 | 12 |
| Romania | 2 | 5 | 2 | 9 |
| Kenya | 2 | 4 | 5 | 11 |
| Denmark | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 |
| Azerbaijan | 2 | 2 | 6 | 10 |
| Poland | 2 | 2 | 6 | 10 |
| Turkey | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Switzerland | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Lithuania | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Norway | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Canada | 1 | 5 | 12 | 18 |
| Sweden | 1 | 4 | 3 | 8 |
| Colombia | 1 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| Georgia | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7 |
| Mexico | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7 |
| Ireland | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Argentina | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Serbia | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Slovenia | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Tunisia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Dominican Republic | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Uzbekistan | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Latvia | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Algeria | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Bahamas | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Grenada | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Uganda | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Venezuela | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| India | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Mongolia | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Thailand | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Egypt | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Slovakia | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Armenia | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Belgium | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Finland | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Bulgaria | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Estonia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Indonesia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Malaysia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Puerto Rico | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Chinese Taipei | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Botswana | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Cyprus | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Gabon | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Guatemala | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Montenegro | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Portugal | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Greece | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Moldova | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Qatar | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Singapore | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Afghanistan | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Bahrain | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Hong Kong | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Saudi Arabia | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Kuwait | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Morocco | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Tajikistan | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Notes and Background
The Plus article Harder, better, faster, stronger explores some of the same ideas as this problem.
You may also like
Winning Team
Nine cross country runners compete in a team competition in which there are three matches. If you were a judge how would you decide who would win?
Inspector Morse
You may like to read the article on Morse code before attempting this question. Morse's letter analysis was done over 150 years ago, so might there be a better allocation of symbols today?
History of Morse
This short article gives an outline of the origins of Morse code and its inventor and how the frequency of letters is reflected in the code they were given.