Australia has cemented itself as the best Olympic country per capita out of the top 10 places on the current medal tally.
At the time of writing, Australia has won more than one medal per million people, and is the only country in the top 10 places to do so.
Australia’s 1.22 medals per million people leaves almost every other country in the dust.
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Australia also has the highest number of gold medals per million people, bringing in 0.48 gold medals per million Australians.
Second place for medals per capita goes to the Netherlands, which so far has won 0.94 medals per million people.
It was a good effort, with seven gold to Australia’s 13, but Australia nearly doubled their total medals with just 10 million more people.
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Rounding out the podium in third place is the host nation France, which earned one gold medal for every five million citizens.
They’ve scored more total medals than Australia, but having more than double Australia’s population, it brought their medals per capita score down.
The sporting powerhouse, the US, might sit on top of the medal tally, but on a per capita basis they slip to a paltry seventh place.
That gives them just over one medal per five million people.
Meanwhile, China ranked last, earning about one medal per 27 million people.
The incredible athletes of China have won 21 gold medals and 53 medals in total, but their country’s staggering population of 1.42 billion people brings them down in this ranking – sorry China!
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For China to beat Australia’s score of medals per capita, they would need to win almost 1375 more medals, more than are available at a given Olympic Games.
For our Kiwi friends, don’t think we’ve forgotten about you.
This list only took in the top ten places on the medal tally, with New Zealand currently sitting in 12th place.
If New Zealand had been included, they would have pipped Australia with 1.8 medals per million people.
The Kiwis have so far won three gold medals for their 5.2 million citizens.
Otherwise, small but mighty nations like Saint Lucia have massively outperformed their population.
Saint Lucia has 179,000 people, but with Julien Alfred bringing home their first ever Olympic medal on Saturday, they technically have an extraordinary five gold medals per million people.
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