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Post by yobarr on Aug 13, 2024 11:30:24 GMT 10
Once again we see figures being manipulated in an effort to make Australian sports people appear to be better than anyone else in the world. Inferiority complex?
Whilst there is little doubt that the Australia team "punched above its weight" at the recent Olympic games, many of the assertions regarding their performance can easily be disputed, and dismissed.
Today's newspaper claims that, per capita, Australians won the medal count, with 18 Gold, 19 Silver and 16 Bronze. Garbage.
Most would agree that this appears most impressive from a country with a population of only 26.7 million, and works out at one (1) Gold medal per 1,500,000 people. (2 Gold medals for each THREE (3) million people).
Looks good. Right?
UNTIL a closer look is taken at the results where it will be seen that our friends in NZ did waaaay better, per capita.
NZ's medal count was an impressive 10 Gold, 7 Silver and 3 Bronze.
With a population of just over 5 million (5.12 million) this works out at one (1) Gold medal per 500,000 people. (2 Gold medals for each ONE million people)
Clearly NZ won three (3) times as many Gold medals, per capita, as did Australia.
But hey, don't ever let the truth spoil a good story.
Having travelled the world I can agree that Australia is one of the best places to live, but it puzzles me that Australians have to distort results and consistently exaggerate their achievements in an apparent effort to appear relevant. Inferiority complex?
But the Australian team certainly did well, and I wish them all the best in their future endeavours.
On another note, the number of so-called "sports" is becoming ridiculous.
Skate boarding? Yeah, right.
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pete
Junior Member
Posts: 92
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Post by pete on Aug 13, 2024 13:37:46 GMT 10
snip... but it puzzles me that Australians have to distort results and consistently exaggerate their achievements in an apparent effort to appear relevant. Inferiority complex? I imagine that distortion was done by journalists.Do journalists count as Australians?  |
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Post by nobodyhere on Aug 14, 2024 16:43:31 GMT 10
I saw this claim in my primary news feed some days ago. I also initially objected to it, but there are good reasons behind it. Researchers argue for new, fairer Olympic rankings: www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-05/olympic-rankings-australia-paris-2024-gold-medal-count/104168928"With three medals and 33,745 residents, San Marino won the most medals per capita at Tokyo 2021." I've been watching this alternative medal table for the past few Olympic Games: medalspercapita.com/#golds-per-capita:2024medalspercapita.com/#medals-per-capita:2024medalspercapita.com/#weighted-per-capita:2024medalspercapita.com/#medals-by-gdp:2024The Caribbean countries are often at the top of the rankings, as is New Zealand. However, the researchers argue that probability ranking is a better way to compare Olympic performance: www.olympicnationalrankings.com/"Probability ranking is a new, more meaningful way to rank countries in the Olympic Games while adjusting for population. It promises to make the Olympic competition more exciting and interesting at the national level. Unlike simple medal-counts, which are always topped by the largest-population countries, or Olympic medals-per-capita rankings, which are invariably topped by the smallest-population medal-winners, probability ranking highlights the best performers across the wide range of national populations. It does this by ranking according to the Probability Index U, which has a simple meaning: U measures the improbability that a country of a given population would win as many medals as it has, or more medals, if all people in competitive countries worldwide had equal medal-winning capabilities." The details of the mathematics are here: www.olympicnationalrankings.com/mathdetails"To understand the practical limitations of medals-per-capita ranking in the Summer Olympics, we need to consider the range of national populations involved. In the 2020 Tokyo Games, the most populous medal-winning country was China, with a summed population s= 1.444 billion, and the least populous medal-winner was San Marino with s= 34.0 thousand. Thus national populations ranged over a factor of 42,500. This means that if San Marino wins one medal, China would need 42,500 medals to surpass it, in medals-per-capita." The total medals that any country could possibly have won in Tokyo was 579. If San Marino wins one medal and China wins all the rest, then San Marino would still be far ahead on a per capita basis. Obviously, that's skewed. It might also be argued that, if results are to be assessed on a per capita basis, then the number of athletes allowed to be fielded by each country should also be on a per capita basis. Remember Eric the Eel and Eddie the Eagle. BTW, I should have said that Australia topped the rankings for this new probability model. |
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Post by arewelost on Aug 14, 2024 17:38:03 GMT 10
An interesting first post nobodyhere. Welcome to the forum.
I have not seen the article that originally inspired Yobarr to post about it here, but based on what he said, I agree.
I must confess to not reading all the material in the links you provided, so perhaps that would explain. But from what I can see, the probability index is a way of dumbing down the score, because it gives countries with sub performers (like Eric the Eel and Eddie the Eagle) the chance to still achieve success.
Isn't that what is going so wrong with our education system, that everyone gets an award, rather than just the top achievers?
Effectively, international sports are already doing this to some extent. Larger nations can not send all their top performers, so a huge proportion that would otherwise win medals do not even get to try. I am not suggesting that should change because then the events would be China, India and US dominated, and we would be losers, but it is a form of restricting competition.
If I have misunderstood, please explain.
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Post by peter57 on Aug 14, 2024 18:49:11 GMT 10
Pete, in answer to your query whether journos are Aussies I'd say most woke mainstream and ALL ABC journos and management are not.
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Post by nobodyhere on Aug 15, 2024 6:53:09 GMT 10
If you've made no attempt to read the researchers' probability ranking proposal, then what is your opinion worth? I don't pretend to understand the mathematics, but there are obvious problems with a purely per-capita approach, as explained by the authors. An unweighted medal table favours the most populous countries, whereas a per capita table favours the least populous. One example quoted by the statisticians is when a Caribbean country won a single medal which then placed them at the top of the rankings. If their athlete had been slower by 20 milliseconds, his country would have missed out on the medal and then fallen to the bottom of the table. The probability ranking method attempts to eliminate these statistical outliers. In doing so, there is no advantage for Eric the Eel or Eddie the Eagle.
That said, New Zealand always places near the top of this new ranking proposal, so it is not unreasonable. BTW, this new method uses the total medal count, not just the gold medals. The authors do say that it can be adjusted to reflect the latter or a weighted combination of all three colours.
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