Let's Be Fair to Iran in Olympics Medal ranking!

Every four years, at the conclusion of the Olympics, many nations feel proud, ecstatic and joyous, and many others, like Iranians, feel down, dejected and poignant. Many observers, including this author, believe that the ranking of Olympics medals IS NOT a FAIR indication of countries' focus on sports, and on training athletes. It's after all, logical to assume that a country like China with 1.3 billion "human" resources, produces more athletes, and among them "Super" Medal-wining World-class athletes, than a country like Jamaica with only 3 million inhabitants.

There are several ways to create a more "fair" ranking of countries' true athletic-development abilities and attention to competitive sports. The two which I believe make the most sense, are “medals per capita,” and “medals per dollar of GNIPC” (gross national income per capita), because countries need "people" and "money" to train athletes.

So out of curiosity and in fairness to smaller countries like Iran, I went ahead and divided the "total" number of medals each country received in 2008 Olympics, by (1) that country’s population (in millions); and by (2) that country's GNIPC (in thousand dollars) based on 2007 data from World Bank.

A summary of some of these results for the 2004 Olympics were presented in an earlier writing. You can find how Iran ranked in 2008 in terms of medal per capita, and medals per national income per capita, in my expanded writing on Iranian.com or by sending me a comment with your email (to receive the ranking).