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ARMENIA, GEORGIA MAKE GAINS IN MEDALS PER CAPITA COUNT
Los Angeles Times
10:13 AM, August 13, 2008
CA
As a rule, Medals Per Capita aims for flippancy and facetiousness
and Olympic ideal by ignoring global politics and refraining from
any related poignancy.
That could prove difficult given Georgia.
In Wednesday's Medals Per Capita, the gauge of national Olympic
performance that's wildly, gapingly, exponentially and profoundly
superior to the lazy, shiftless, corrupt and standard medals table,
Georgia rocketed from No. 11 to No. 2.
It lodged just behind two-day front-runner and fellow former Soviet
republic Armenia, even as the Georgian athletes knew their homeland
suffered a new and comprehensively depressing war with Russia.
Yet Irakli Tsirekidze won gold in men's middleweight judo, and Manuchar
Kvirkelin gold in men's Greco-Roman wrestling, tripling Georgia's
medal total to three from a smallish population of 4,630,841, for a
sterling MPC rating of one medal per every 1,543,614 Georgians.
Their concentration terribly impressive, Tsirekidze and Kvirkelin
helped Georgia make some trivial news, joining Wednesday's MPC movers
and shakers alongside Switzerland, which rode a cluster of cycling
medals from No. 21 to No. 4. Georgia surpassed even the stalwart
third-place Australians, who ratcheted their medal count to 12
but suffered slightly from even their restrained birth rate and a
population of 20,600,856.
Switzerland, a budding MPC menace with its agreeable population total
of merely 7,581,520, ran fourth with Roger Federer still loose in
the men's tennis draw.
And then, just as Georgia nipped portentously at Armenia, trailing only
1.4 million-1.5 million at one point, the latter leapt further ahead,
reaping a third medal -- all bronze -- when Gevorg Davtyan literally
lifted a small nation in the men's 69-77 kilogram weightlifting event.
That gave Armenia three more medals than it won in all of 2004, and
given a population of 2,968,586, pared its Medals Per Capita from
1,484,293 to 989,529, making it the first country in these Olympics to
undercut the 1 million mark. Four ex-Soviet republics dot the top 10,
including also No. 7 Kyrgyzstan and No. 8 Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, in the fraudulent medals table, the United States held an
allegedly thrilling 29-27 lead over China, both countries benefiting
from gigantic populations that have reaped numerous medals and numerous
traffic jams.
As Medals Per Capita holds a candle for countries with smaller
populations because of their willingness to minimize traffic jams,
here's a special call-out for Mongolia, which debuted in the top 10
when Gundegmaa Otryad won her country's first medal, a silver in the
women's 25-meter sport pistol event.
As MPC intellectuals would remember, if only there were any MPC
intellectuals, Mongolia camped a while in the Athens 2004 top 10,
a treat for Americans who never get to hear much about Mongolia. With
a population mercifully below 3 million, the Mongolians got an Athens
bronze from Khashbaataryn Tsagaanbaatar, who suffered an upset loss
this time around to Israel's Gal Yekutiel, else MPC would've been
awash in the teaching of Mongolian trivia.
Not that it can't be one day soon, still.
The top 10 after Wednesday:
1. Armenia (3) - 989,529 2. Georgia (3) - 1,543,614 3. Australia (12)
- 1,716,738 4. Switzerland (4) - 1,895,380 5. Slovenia (1) - 2,007,711
6. Slovakia (2) - 2,622,375 7. Kyrgyzstan (2) - 2,678,435 8. Azerbaijan
(3) - 2,725,905 9. Finland (2) - 2,727,704 10. Mongolia (1) - 2,996,081
Selected Others:
13. North Korea (7) - 3,354,156 14. South Korea (13) - 3,787,142
25. France (11) - 5,823,435 26. Togo (1) - 5,858,673 30. Great Britain
(7) - 8,706,273 31. Germany (9) - 9,152,172 32. United States (29)
- 10,476,712 36. Japan (9) - 14,143,158 42. China (27) - 49,260,911
49. Indonesia (2) - 118,756,177
Los Angeles Times
10:13 AM, August 13, 2008
CA
As a rule, Medals Per Capita aims for flippancy and facetiousness
and Olympic ideal by ignoring global politics and refraining from
any related poignancy.
That could prove difficult given Georgia.
In Wednesday's Medals Per Capita, the gauge of national Olympic
performance that's wildly, gapingly, exponentially and profoundly
superior to the lazy, shiftless, corrupt and standard medals table,
Georgia rocketed from No. 11 to No. 2.
It lodged just behind two-day front-runner and fellow former Soviet
republic Armenia, even as the Georgian athletes knew their homeland
suffered a new and comprehensively depressing war with Russia.
Yet Irakli Tsirekidze won gold in men's middleweight judo, and Manuchar
Kvirkelin gold in men's Greco-Roman wrestling, tripling Georgia's
medal total to three from a smallish population of 4,630,841, for a
sterling MPC rating of one medal per every 1,543,614 Georgians.
Their concentration terribly impressive, Tsirekidze and Kvirkelin
helped Georgia make some trivial news, joining Wednesday's MPC movers
and shakers alongside Switzerland, which rode a cluster of cycling
medals from No. 21 to No. 4. Georgia surpassed even the stalwart
third-place Australians, who ratcheted their medal count to 12
but suffered slightly from even their restrained birth rate and a
population of 20,600,856.
Switzerland, a budding MPC menace with its agreeable population total
of merely 7,581,520, ran fourth with Roger Federer still loose in
the men's tennis draw.
And then, just as Georgia nipped portentously at Armenia, trailing only
1.4 million-1.5 million at one point, the latter leapt further ahead,
reaping a third medal -- all bronze -- when Gevorg Davtyan literally
lifted a small nation in the men's 69-77 kilogram weightlifting event.
That gave Armenia three more medals than it won in all of 2004, and
given a population of 2,968,586, pared its Medals Per Capita from
1,484,293 to 989,529, making it the first country in these Olympics to
undercut the 1 million mark. Four ex-Soviet republics dot the top 10,
including also No. 7 Kyrgyzstan and No. 8 Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, in the fraudulent medals table, the United States held an
allegedly thrilling 29-27 lead over China, both countries benefiting
from gigantic populations that have reaped numerous medals and numerous
traffic jams.
As Medals Per Capita holds a candle for countries with smaller
populations because of their willingness to minimize traffic jams,
here's a special call-out for Mongolia, which debuted in the top 10
when Gundegmaa Otryad won her country's first medal, a silver in the
women's 25-meter sport pistol event.
As MPC intellectuals would remember, if only there were any MPC
intellectuals, Mongolia camped a while in the Athens 2004 top 10,
a treat for Americans who never get to hear much about Mongolia. With
a population mercifully below 3 million, the Mongolians got an Athens
bronze from Khashbaataryn Tsagaanbaatar, who suffered an upset loss
this time around to Israel's Gal Yekutiel, else MPC would've been
awash in the teaching of Mongolian trivia.
Not that it can't be one day soon, still.
The top 10 after Wednesday:
1. Armenia (3) - 989,529 2. Georgia (3) - 1,543,614 3. Australia (12)
- 1,716,738 4. Switzerland (4) - 1,895,380 5. Slovenia (1) - 2,007,711
6. Slovakia (2) - 2,622,375 7. Kyrgyzstan (2) - 2,678,435 8. Azerbaijan
(3) - 2,725,905 9. Finland (2) - 2,727,704 10. Mongolia (1) - 2,996,081
Selected Others:
13. North Korea (7) - 3,354,156 14. South Korea (13) - 3,787,142
25. France (11) - 5,823,435 26. Togo (1) - 5,858,673 30. Great Britain
(7) - 8,706,273 31. Germany (9) - 9,152,172 32. United States (29)
- 10,476,712 36. Japan (9) - 14,143,158 42. China (27) - 49,260,911
49. Indonesia (2) - 118,756,177