Posts from — March 2008

Do we really need a study to tell us that richer countries win more Olympic medals? My mom will tell you that such a study is a waste of resources because the answer will obviously be, “Of course richer countries win more Olympic medals.”

Now, the good folks at the Lingnan University in Hongkong obviously disagree with my mom (re: the usefulness of such study) so they set out to do an “econometric analysis of the Olympic Games“. They whipped out their calculators, pored over Olympic medal records, examined the different countries’ material wealth, did their statistical analysis thing, and came up with the following conclusion:

The results of the study show that population and income do indeed have a substantial effect on the number of Olympic medals won.

There’s really no need to translate that but we will “translate” it anyways because we want to, here it goes: “Richer countries with more people win more Olympic medals.”

So maybe my mom only got it half right. Not all rich countries win more medals. They also have to have more human resources, i.e., athletes, competing for them.

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Okay, maybe the air in Beijing is really bad if this photo is an indication. Photo by Peter Parks via LA Times.

Are people complaining about Beijing’s pollution just a bunch of wimps? Or do they have a valid concern?

Because I live in a polluted city, I initially labeled them as wimpy whiners. So I was like, “Silly people. I eat pollution for breakfast. If you want to live in a pollution free world then let’s all walk/run/bike to work. Besides, how convenient for Westerners to be complaining about Beijing’s pollution when they benefit from it through cheaper goods. Silly, silly, nose up in the air , hypocritical, energy-guzzling people.”

But then I came across this report which states that distance runner Haile Gebrselassie has decided to not compete in the marathon because of Beijing’s pollution. So I went, “Aha. If an athlete would rather forgo a sure gold medal because of health concerns maybe those whiners have a valid point after all. Maybe it’s unfair to label them as “whiners”".

What do you think? Does Beijing need to clean up its air? Or is the pollution problem being unfairly blown out of proportion?

Australia predicts that it’s medal haul in swimming during the Beijing Olympics will not be as good as its previous results. The problem? Seems like the guys (but not the gals) have not been delivering in recent international events.

From The Australian:

AUSTRALIA will need its men to lift their game to maintain its place in the top five nations on the medal tally in Beijing, according to research released by the Australian Olympic Committee yesterday.

The AOC’s medal projections, broken down by gender, reveal that Australian women are holding their place in the top five among their international competitors, but the men have dropped to eighth on results in the past year.

Last year’s rankings show that Australia is under heavy pressure from France, Britain and Italy.

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Now that the International Olympic Committee has given permission to Olympic athletes to blog about the Games, who would you like to read?

For us it would be Dmitry Tursunov. He’s one entertaining blogger who knows how to dish out on his fellow athletes. Too bad he’s not been updating his ATP site. We’d like to read Roger Federer too, if ever he blogs, but we’d rather see him win a gold medal because he’s not been winning anything lately.

Photo credit: ATP