The 2016 Summer Olympics games have ended. By flat gold medal count, the United States dominated. But considering wealth inequality in the world, does a straight gold medal tally make for the best measure of true Olympic success? What if we considered other broader and structural criteria?
What message do we send when we relentlessly publicize tallies of gold medals won — and ignore the differences in national wealth that shape who medals?
Given that wealth creates opportunity, what if we compared countries by considering both medal count and their national economic product?
By simple gold medal count, as of the end of August 21, the United States leads the world handily, as our first top ten list here shows.
What if we factored in a country’s total PPP — its GDP on a purchasing power parity basis divided by the population — along with the gold medal count? Our second list here reveals a strikingly different top ten.
If we consider national wealth per person along with the gold medal count, Great Britain falls behind Uzbekistan and the United States behind North Korea.
If we go a step further and factor in national PPP and total medals, not just gold medals, the standings change once again. China now comes out ahead.
Should this broader, more complicated picture be something that the media report? What new stories of courage and success could be gleaned if the media did focus on more than just a simple tally of gold medals won?
See the rest of my article for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. here.
