Talk:2010 Winter Olympics medal table

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Featured list2010 Winter Olympics medal table is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
April 14, 2010Featured list candidatePromoted

European Union[edit]

Should we include the EU in the table? Since we can't really compare a country like the United States which sends 200 athletes and France which sends 100. I guess it would make the comparison and the table more accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.100.234.136 (talk) 15:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, the EU is not a recognised nation competing in the Games, we could equally decide to include Asia or NATO countries, where would you draw the line? Only competing NOCs should be included. Basement12 (T.C) 15:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Concur, the number of athletes doesn't really matter, for example at 1988_Summer_Olympics#Medal_count the USA had double the athletes of East Germany, but lost in all 3 medals. CTJF83 GoUSA 19:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see your point there; A bigger number of athletes will automatically result in a higher probability to win medals. It's mathematic. My idea (since I'm the author of the first message) was to make a more accurate table; Doing something similar to what was done with the GDP table . Sobrienti (talk) 20:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So to get things straight, you don't like that the American team is ahead of your home country, so you want to fix things? So should Canada and the US be combined? What about all Asian nations, should they be combined too? Besides, the number of athletes doesn't mean as much as you claim, German team has 150 athletes, and they'll probably end up leading the standings. it's just like back in 2008 when some users wanted to add Michael Phelps to the medal table. -- Scorpion0422 20:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
LMFAO! Are you serious Scorpion?! Why would he get his own listing?! CTJF83 GoUSA 20:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine there were users who thought it would be amusing to point out that having won 8 gold medals in Beijing, Phelps as an individual would be ranked in 10th place in the medal table, between Italy and France, and ahead of 70+ other entire nations. Interesting, yes; appropriate, maybe not. ;·) Wine Guy~Talk 21:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting CTJF83 GoUSA 21:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Talk:2008_Summer_Olympics_medal_table/Archive_1#Michael_Phelps.27_Ranking. Some users even went so far as to add it to the table. -- Scorpion0422 22:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(Chuckle) Thanks for linking that. "Phelpsyvania ... The per capita medal count is staggering." Comedy gold. Wine Guy~Talk 22:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Phelps won nearly half of his medals in team events where he depended on comrades selected from 300 million Americans. I guess this shows how much sense it makes to talk about a per capita medal count here. My17cents (talk) 11:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More importantly, this would be original research, and we already have consensus against this sort of thing (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/European Union member states at the 2004 Summer Olympics (2nd nomination) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2004 Summer Olympics medals count by International Organization (second nomination)). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is brought up every olympics, but another obvious argument for not including it is that each country can only enter a limited number of competitors for each event. So, for instance the US had four snowboarders in the men's halfpipe yesterday, while there were fifteen competitors representing EU countries- an EU medal count in the table wouldn't reflect this distortion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.80.44.231 (talk) 03:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On a side note, even if the EU was a NOC, it'd certainly not make the comparison more accurate. The EU has sent a total of 1354 athletes compared to US' 215 (Germany 153, Switzerland 146, Italy 109, France 108, Sweden 106, Finland 95, Czech republic 92, Austria 81, Slovakia 73, Latvia 59, Great Britain 52, Poland 50, Slovenia 50, Estonia 30, Romania 29, Bulgaria 19, Croatia 18, Denmark 18, Spain 18, Hungary 16, Belgium 9, Lithuania 8, Greece 7, Ireland 6, Cyprus 2 vs United States 215). It's possible to make a medals per capita listing of the countries (which can be interesting, though it's not necessarily fair to compare how many winter olympic medals per capita Norway and Britain get), but that's not within the purpose of this article.Lejman (talk) 07:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Switzerland isn't in the EU, I dinnae know why you listed them, but I guess it goes to show how Original Research leads to errors. 134.155.25.14 (talk) 10:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neither is Croatia. DitzyNizzy (aka Jess)|(talk to me)|(What I've done) 16:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is now — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.248.65.220 (talk) 09:02, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In my humble opinion, if the Olympics was about comparing the achievements of countries on an equal footing, the IOC would force countries to submit equal or fixed numbers of athletes, wouldn't allow multiple teams to compete from the same countries, wouldn't force athletes to meet preset standards to qualify as it favours the countries with better training programs, and so on. The Olympics have always been about recognising the successes and achievements of individual athletes for the honour of their countries, not about making a judgment on which countries are best proportionally to their population, size, economy. Altering the statistics here to do this kind of research may be interesting for individuals but it is not encyclopedic. Until athletes start opting to compete for the European Union specifically, I see no reason the EU should ever get a mention here. Falastur2 Talk 17:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a similar discussion in the 2008 Olympics page. One Wikipedian there argued that "there are many web sites on this topic, so it is apparently socially relevant and possibly worth a Wikipedia article":

http://shanghaiist.com/2008/08/12/2008_beijing_olympics_medal_count.php

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/goldcountbeijing.html

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/alltimegold2008.html

http://euobserver.com/843/26636

http://www.medaltracker.eu/

The present discussion echos many of the pros and cons he listed: http://www.medaltracker.eu/ says the comparison is not entirely fair: "The 27 EU countries have much higher quota of starting positions than individual competing nations. The fictitious "EU team" has therefore a better chance to win medals than the other participating countries." But http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/goldcountbeijing.html argues that this affects only silver and bronze medals and that the EU gold count of a unified EU team would further increase: "If the EU sent only its three best athletes per individual event, and only one all-star team per team event, the EU gold count would actually increase, since almost all individual events are won by one of the top three favorites (sending additional inferior athletes is usually in vain), and the unified EU all-star teams also would win many team events (4 x 100m relays etc) currently won by non-EU teams.... we can safely ignore silver and bronze medals used in (inofficial) IOC rankings to break the tie where gold counts are equal".

I guess it's true that the number of athletes does not matter much, only their quality. Or do you think that if India sent a thousand athletes it would collect many more gold medals? No, most gold medals would still go to the current world champion or at least one of the top three, as they almost always do (though not always). But personally I am not sure it's a good idea to add all the EU medals - with 40 golds or so they'd be so far ahead, the medal table would look ridiculous... My17cents (talk) 11:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Germany Now Leads All Time Medal Standings, Pushing USSR/Russia in 2nd Place[edit]

According to Europe's leading news magazine DER SPIEGEL, until recently USSR/Russia led the All Time Winter Olympics Medal Standings. This refers to the combined medals of the former USSR (1952-1988), Unified Team (1992), Russia (1992-). But in 2010 Germany surged ahead (combined medals of the German NOCs 1928-2010). Here the SPIEGEL link: http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/0,1518,672825,00.html#medals_2 Click at "Ewiger Medaillenspiegel" to see the current all time medal standings. Gold medals so far: Germany 128, Russia 123, Norway 106, USA 87, Austria 55, Canada 51, Sweden 48 .... This new development should probably mentioned. My17cents (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adding medals won by the USSR and the Unified Team into Russia's totals makes about as much sense as adding Czechoslovakia's medals into Czech Republic's totals or adding Serbia & Montenegro's medals into Serbia's. Oh wait, that article also does that! Silly and strange. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 16:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Russia is the legal successor of the USSR, although they have fewer people now than they used to have. My17cents (talk) 20:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This does make sense, since most of medals won by USSR team, especially in Winter Games, were won by the people from Russian SFSR or by ethnic Russians. Just compare the Winter Games performance of Russian Federation with that of other post-Soviet states. And yes, Russia is the legal successor of the USSR. Greyhood (talk) 21:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To illustrate, here is a table of the Winter Olympic medals counts prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics:
Country Gold Silver Bronze Total
Soviet Union 78 57 59 194
Unified Team 9 6 8 23
Russia 33 24 19 76
Russian totals 120 87 86 293
Germany 60 59 41 160
United Team of Germany 8 6 5 19
East Germany 39 36 35 110
West Germany 11 15 13 39
German totals 118 116 94 328
Source
While the German totals for all medals had already surpassed the Russian totals (this happened at the 1998 Winter Olympics), the Germans just passed the Russians for total gold medals at the 2010 Olympics. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to point out that while one can argue that the unified teams should be added to the total, the calculation is still unfair for Russia/SU, since East and West Germany both sent athletes to the same olympics. Since in most competitions the total number of athletes per country is limited, this gives an advantage to Germany when you add up both East and West Germany. A more fair comparison would count either East or West Germany, but not both. --Xeeron (talk) 22:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, if we omit the medals of the West German team, Germany would still be leading the total medal count, but Russia/USSR the gold count. Note, however, that the temporary division of Germany presumably did not increase but actually reduce Germany's gold count, because in team competitions they were not allowed to combine their best athletes in a single team, and so they lost some of the team events they'd have won otherwise. My17cents (talk) 08:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I added: Germany (legal successor of German NOCs 1928-2010) now leads the all time medal standings (128 golds), pushing Russia (legal successor of USSR 1952-1988 and Unified Team 1992) in 2nd place (123 golds), followed by Norway (107 golds). Added the SPIEGEL reference as a source. My17cents (talk) 21:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:UNDUE - said summation of medals is not recognized by the IOC. Using said personal assumptions for presenting the data is in violation of WP:NOR. Thanks. --Madchester (talk) 22:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hum. But you also undid my first edit where I just added the facts. Gold: Soviet Union 13/37, Norway 13/80, Canada 14/86. Total: US 37/258. Why? My17cents (talk) 22:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about your claim that I am "using personal assumptions for presenting the data". But I don't. I have a source, namely, DER SPIEGEL, Europe's leading news magazine. So it's ok to insert: Germany (legal successor of German NOCs 1928-2010) now leads the all time medal standings (128 golds), pushing Russia (legal successor of USSR 1952-1988 and Unified Team 1992) in 2nd place (123 golds), followed by Norway (107 golds) [citation of SPIEGEL source]. My17cents (talk) 23:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about the 2010 Olympics medal count, and should stay specific to that topic. Things like all-time medal rankings don't really belong here. -- Scorpion0422 23:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
By that reasoning we'd also have to delete the all time record of Canada which refers back to earlier Olympics. My17cents (talk) 23:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, isn't it kind of skewing the statistics a little to include both East and West Germany? After all, they competed at the same time. -- Scorpion0422 23:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

skewing the statistics against Germany a bit, yes, because East and West competed against each other. They could have had even more medals otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.46.150 (talk) 22:43, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Medals per athlete / per capita[edit]

Hi. I added what I thought were some interesting tidbits here and here. It was reverted once because another editor misunderstood the distinction between "per capita" and "per athlete", so I reinstated it. It was then reverted because it was "irrelevant", so I reinstated it because medal performance is obviously not relevant on pages specifically pertaining to a country's participation in the Olympics. It was then reverted a third time solely because it had already been reverted twice, which strikes me as decidedly circular logic.

I was wondering if other editors had an opinion of my additions? Are they so harmful to the article that they should be removed? --Doradus (talk) 20:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a few comments, if you're referring to me as the editor misunderstanding things. It was just that I copy-pasted the edit summary from the Norway revert to the South Korea revert, and forgot to change "capita" to "athlete". However the other editor, who first reverted you, may have misunderstood the sentences you'd added, because if I remember his edit summaries correctly he seemed to find the statements about most medals per capita (Norway) and per athlete (South Korea) contradictory, which they of course are not.
Secondly, if you search for the word "capita" on this page, you'll see that the matter has already been discussed to some extent.
Cheers LarRan (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One more comment: pointing out that an addition has been reverted before, and by other editors, does not necessarily constitute circular logic. All it says is that other editors think the same about the additions. LarRan (talk) 10:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi LarRan. Regarding your first comment: thanks for pointing out the existing discussion of "per capita" issues on this page. I guess the case is already closed on this issue.
Regarding your second comment: I agree that pointing out a consensus among editors is important. What I meant was that the existence of prior deletions doesn't support continued deletions if the prior deletions were based on faulty logic. --Doradus (talk) 16:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I participated in an earlier discussion about "medals per capita" and it should not be added if it is original research (WP:NOR). However, specifically addressing your issue in the "Norway at the 2010 Winter Olympics" where you added "Norway won by far the most medals per capita /../", I do not understand why it is deleted. It is not original research and it is certainly relevant information for that page. The comment in the rollback claims that it is irrelevant. I do not understand why it is considered irrelevant, and many other articles of the type "SomeCountry at the 2010 Winter Olympics" have information that is far less relevant that is not removed. For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_at_the_2010_Winter_Olympics has the information "German athletes earned €15,000 for a gold medal, €10,000 for a silver, and €7,500 for a bronze." and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvia_at_the_2010_Winter_Olympics has the information "/../ most athletes per capita of any medal-winning nation.". It is very strange that specifically "medals per capita" is so opposed that it is continually deleted from the article "Norway at the 2010 Winter Olympics".David.hkmt (talk) 13:42, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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