Fun with SEA games stats

I've always found medal tallies to be rather unfair because of differing socio-economic conditions and populations. Besides, folks in 1984-ville are always harping on the argument that we don't win as many medals on the international stage due to a small population size.

So, I've decided to correct this apparent injustice and show you a FAIR comparison, IF we had enough people to, as Wifey puts it, drown other countries with our spit. What better time than to do it now when the SEA Games is in full swing.

So here's the gold medal tally as of 5pm today:


Source: Official website of the 2005 SEA Games

Which is totally unfair because we have, what, 4 million people (including foreign talents?) as compared to over 200 million in Indonesia.

So, to paraphrase the words of some of our elite, people need to understand the special situation that exists in Singapore lah! Cannot anyhow rank, must do some appropriate massaging adjustments...

So, if every country won gold medals at its current rate and had the population of the largest country in Southeast Asia (i.e. Indonesia), this would be a fair estimate:


Population figures from CIA World Factbook

Again, to paraphrase a good friend of mine from Malaysia, Singapore BOLEH! 492 gold medals in this SEA Games! But only if we could squeeze 200 million people in our cramped chicken coop luxurious HDB apartments. Not a palatable idea.

And what if every country had the moola of the richest country (i.e. Singapore)?


GDP figures from CIA World Factbook

Ok...so we're terribly inefficient at winning medals given the amount money thrown around. Well, it shows that having money isn't going to solve our sporting woes. And I wouldn't want to squeeze with 200 million people here so buying medals importing foreigners won't cut it either. But anyway, this second method is not accurate because I don't have $27k so the CIA must be lying!!

btw, is the DOS hiring? heh...


Technorati tags: SEA Games, Humour