Ireland may only be a small country but pound for pound it can still match the big boys.
We won a grand total of two medals at the Olympics thanks to the heroic efforts of the O’Donovan Brothers and Annalise Murphy. That may not sound much compared giants like the United States and China…but when you consider how many medals countries won in relation to their population, it’s not too bad at all.
In fact, we come ahead of both the United States and Russia, as this table compiled by MedalsPerCapita.com illustrates. It shows how many medals countries won per head of population.
Ireland won one medal per 2.3million people. Russia only managed one medal per 2.5million and the United States needed 2.6million people for every medal they won.
When looked at this way, the roll of honour looks very different. Granada comes out on top with a medal for every 106,000 people and the Bahamas came second with a medal for every 194,000 people.
Ireland comes a respectable 38th in the world. The UK, which had its best Olympics for a hundred years finishing second behind the US, came 19th in the Per Capital table with a medal for every 972,000 people.
Top ten countries rated by medals per capita
1 – Grenada
2 – Bahamas
3 – Jamaica
4 – New Zealand
5 – Denmark
6 – Croatia
7 – Slovenia
8 – Georgia
9 – Azerbaijan
10 – Hungary
See the full list here
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