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So...Who "Won" the Olympics? Australia 1, UK 2, South Korea 3.

August 24, 2008. Santa Monica. According to BON ("BestOlympicNation.com) the winner is Australia for the third successive Olympics.

There are many ways to calculate the "winner". This is subjective. BON provides this information in order to allow people to assess the performance of Olympic nations in a way that accounts for the following key factors: the number of total medals won - the more the better, gold should count for more than silver and silver should count for more than bronze and population should also be considered.

BON founder Adam Radly said "I'm sure this will start as many new debates as it settles but it does provide some important data that should be part of the debate. All mainstream media outlets report the medal standings by measuring the number of gold medals or the total number of medals. This really isn't sufficient information to determine which nation is the best Olympic nation."

While the USA and China topped the total medal count and the gold medal count they only finished ranked 8 (USA) and 10 (China). The main factor pushing China and the US down the ranking is the small number of medals won in relation to their larger populations when compared to many other nations. To put this into perspective, the winner, Australia, received 46 medals compared to 110 for the USA. However, the USA is approximately 15 times larger than Australia and only managed to win a little more than 2 times the number of medals.

Many people will not be surprised that Australia is the leader. However, many may find it surprising to see South Korea in 3rd position. After factoring all of the relevant data into consideration South Korea has emerged as an unexpected Olympic power. South Korea also finished in second position in the BON standings behind Australia in 2004 in Athens.

About BON

BestOlympicNation.com collects data to determine which nation is the best Olympic nation. When determining which nation is best BON measures:
  • The number and color of the medals - 3 points for each gold medal, 2 points for each silver medal and 1 point for each bronze model. This gives a country the Medal Points score. The top 10 countries qualify for the title of Best Olympic Nation.
  • After calculating the Medal Points score we factor in the population of each country to determine the BON (Best Olympics Nation) score for each country (calculated as follows: BON score = Medal Points / popluation x 100 million). The BON score ranks the countries from first to tenth.

Adam Radly is the the founder of BON. He is an Australian entrepreneur that is based in Los Angeles. Adam Radly has also established non profit (RadlyCenter.org) and is a firm believer in sport's ability to bring people together.