Americans Doing Nearly as Well as North Koreans in 2012 Olympics: Per Capita Rankings

Americans are 3X as likely to have won a medal than the average world citizen, which makes them nearly as athletic as North Koreans. More precisely, Americans are 3.08 times more likely to have a medal, and North Koreans are 3.11 times more likely. As of yesterday, the 25 million North Koreans share 5 medals, and the 314 million Americans share 63.

After Kirani James won his gold medal yesterday in the 400 meter, Grenada is at the top of the list for per capita medal count, with one medal for each of its 105,000 citizens.

Unsurprisingly, India is at the bottom of the list (of countries that have won medals), with one medal for every 403k citizens. While China dominates and may well finish with the most medals, its per capita medal count is below average, putting it between Iran and Ethiopia.

Host Great Britain is, rather fittingly, doing the best of all the big countries. Its citizens are 10X more likely than average to have won a medal.

Jamaica has the world's fastest human beings and seems to dominate Olympic news coverage, but actually finishes fourth place in per capita medal count, behind Grenada, Slovenia, and New Zealand, and just ahead of Denmark.

Here's the table with the per capita medal count ranking through 6 August.

Rank	Country	Medals	Population	Pop. / Medal	Compared to Avg.
1	Grenada	1	105,000	105,000	146.21
2	Slovenia	4	2,057,910	514,478	29.84
3	New Zealand	8	4,434,400	554,300	27.70
4	Jamaica	4	2,705,827	676,457	22.69
5	Denmark	8	5,584,758	698,095	21.99
6	Cyprus	1	838,897	838,897	18.30
7	Australia	22	22,692,531	1,031,479	14.88
8	Belarus	8	9,457,500	1,182,188	12.99
9	Hungary	8	9,962,000	1,245,250	12.33
10	Estonia	1	1,294,236	1,294,236	11.86
11	Trinidad and Tobago	1	1,317,714	1,317,714	11.65
12	Slovakia	4	5,445,324	1,361,331	11.28
13	Mongolia	2	2,844,000	1,422,000	10.80
14	Croatia	3	4,290,612	1,430,204	10.73
15	Great Britain	43	62,262,000	1,447,953	10.60
16	Netherlands	11	16,738,836	1,521,712	10.09
17	Sweden	6	9,495,113	1,582,519	9.70
18	Lithuania	2	3,187,700	1,593,850	9.63
19	Cuba	7	11,247,925	1,606,846	9.55
20	Armenia	2	3,268,500	1,634,250	9.39
21	Qatar	1	1,699,435	1,699,435	9.03
22	Moldova	2	3,559,500	1,779,750	8.63
23	Czech Republic	5	10,504,203	2,100,841	7.31
24	Korea	22	48,580,000	2,208,182	6.95
25	Georgia	2	4,497,600	2,248,800	6.83
26	Romania	8	19,042,936	2,380,367	6.45
27	Kazakhstan	7	16,776,000	2,396,571	6.41
28	France	27	65,350,000	2,420,370	6.34
29	Norway	2	5,027,800	2,513,900	6.11
30	Singapore	2	5,183,700	2,591,850	5.92
31	Azerbaijan	3	9,235,100	3,078,367	4.99
32	Russia	42	143,117,000	3,407,548	4.51
33	Canada	10	34,880,400	3,488,040	4.40
34	Germany	23	81,859,000	3,559,087	4.31
35	Serbia	2	7,120,666	3,560,333	4.31
36	Italy	17	60,820,787	3,577,693	4.29
37	Belgium	3	10,951,266	3,650,422	4.21
38	Puerto Rico	1	3,725,789	3,725,789	4.12
39	Switzerland	2	7,952,600	3,976,300	3.86
40	Japan	28	127,530,000	4,554,643	3.37
41	Dominican Republic	2	9,445,281	4,722,641	3.25
42	Poland	8	38,501,000	4,812,625	3.19
43	DPR Korea	5	24,554,000	4,910,800	3.13
44	US	63	314,059,000	4,985,063	3.08
45	Ukraine	9	45,565,909	5,062,879	3.03
46	Tunisia	2	10,673,800	5,336,900	2.88
47	Greece	2	10,787,690	5,393,845	2.85
48	Finland	1	5,413,830	5,413,830	2.84
49	Hong Kong, China	1	7,103,700	7,103,700	2.16
50	Kenya	5	42,749,000	8,549,800	1.80
51	Spain	5	46,163,116	9,232,623	1.66
52	Colombia	4	46,638,000	11,659,500	1.32
53	South Africa	4	50,586,757	12,646,689	1.21
54	Guatemala	1	14,713,763	14,713,763	1.04
-	total	458	7,031,000,000	15,351,528	1.00
55	Iran	4	75,149,669	18,787,417	0.82
56	China	65	1,347,350,000	20,728,462	0.74
57	Ethiopia	4	84,320,987	21,080,247	0.73
58	Mexico	5	112,336,538	22,467,308	0.68
59	Chinese Taipei	1	23,261,747	23,261,747	0.66
60	Brazil	8	192,376,496	24,047,062	0.64
61	Saudi Arabia	1	27,136,977	27,136,977	0.57
62	Venezuela	1	27,150,095	27,150,095	0.57
63	Malaysia	1	28,334,135	28,334,135	0.54
64	Uzbekistan	1	29,123,400	29,123,400	0.53
65	Argentina	1	40,117,096	40,117,096	0.38
66	Egypt	2	82,473,000	41,236,500	0.37
67	Thailand	1	65,479,453	65,479,453	0.23
68	Turkey	1	74,724,269	74,724,269	0.21
69	Indonesia	2	237,641,326	118,820,663	0.13
70	India	3	1,210,193,422	403,397,807	0.04