Olympic Statistics

The Australian Statistics Mob yesterday came up with a set of dodgy statistics that showed per capita that Australia would be number two on basis of gold medals after Saudi Arabia or the UAE. This was on the basis of about one gold per three million people.

This would work if there were no other constraints. But there are constraints which restrict things – causing the analysis to be more log than linear. The first is that some events do not allow more than one person per company. This would be events such as relays.

In order for linear to work, it is assumed that it is possible for a country to have a pro-rata number of teams in an event. This is not possible in relays.

Then there are limits on some events – such as no more than three competitors from a country. This also produces a bias towards smaller countries for a similar reason.

I am surprised that the ABS has produced such dodgy work.