Category — China

Okay, after that ghost-assisted decision to make this blog about Olympians, here’s our first post on a certified Olympic star. Guys and gals (but especially gals), meet Liu Xiang.

We’re sure the Olympic enthusiasts among you already know who he is but for those of you who don’t, here are three things you should know about him.

First, Liu Xiang won the gold medal for the 110 meter hurdles during the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Second, Xiang has very big shoes. And you know what people say about men with large shoes, right? You don’t? Okay, here’s what they say: Men with large shoes have big FEET. [Click and drag to highlight hidden word.] Here’s Xiang and his indisputably large shoes.

Finally, the third thing you should know about Xiang is that he will show you a fantastic Air Liu if you go to the Beijing Olympics.

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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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