(no subject)
Aug. 19th, 2008 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katsmeatI've not been fanatically following the Olympics. But the medal table, as of today, is interesting.
Notice that most countries' medals have a distribution amongst the three grades that is about equal, although possibly with a slight tendancy to have slightly more silvers and bronzes. The samples aren't big but I think that's obvious.
The two huge exceptions to this are Britain and China - 56% of Chinese medals are gold; 48% of British medals. There is a tendancy for British and Chinese athletes to come in either first or fourth or below.
I wonder if this means that both countries have adopted a "gold at any cost" policy - ie cherry picking the likely winners early in their training, dumping hugely disproportionate amounts of resources on them and then telling the other members of the team to sod-off.
I couldn't say, but it does make sense.
Notice that most countries' medals have a distribution amongst the three grades that is about equal, although possibly with a slight tendancy to have slightly more silvers and bronzes. The samples aren't big but I think that's obvious.
The two huge exceptions to this are Britain and China - 56% of Chinese medals are gold; 48% of British medals. There is a tendancy for British and Chinese athletes to come in either first or fourth or below.
I wonder if this means that both countries have adopted a "gold at any cost" policy - ie cherry picking the likely winners early in their training, dumping hugely disproportionate amounts of resources on them and then telling the other members of the team to sod-off.
I couldn't say, but it does make sense.
