Bahamas defends per capita medal count

COLUMBIA, SC--The closing ceremonies have now aired in the Eastern Time Zone, and so the Games of the XXIX Olympiad are officially over in the United States. The United States has successfully defended its overall medal count with 110 total, but host nation China led the way with 51 gold medals. While these results are certainly worthy of praise, and I salute all the winners from every country, the US and China are the third and first most populous nations on earth, accounting for approximately 1 in 4 residents of the world. Together, they took 28.8% of the gold medals, but only 21.9% of the total medals. This leaves plenty of other medals to go around, and I think the best way to examine this is on a per capita basis. Therefore, I have normalized the total medal number count for each nation by its population giving on the description of the country on NBC's Olympic coverage.

Once again, the Bahamas leads the way in the per capita standings. In 2004, they had a gold and a bronze. In 2008, they had two medals, both in Track and Field ( silver in Men's 4x400m Relay and bronze in the Men's Triple Jump), but with only 305,655 people, the Bahamas lapped the field with 6.543 medals per million people (mpmp).

Jamaica more than doubled their 2004 medal total to jump from seventh per capita finish second in 2008. Their 11 medals equates to 3.957 mpmp. All 11 medals were in the sprints, with Usain Bolt setting world records as he won gold in the 100m, 200m, and the 4x100m Relay. The Jamaican women were not to be outdown with Shelly-Ann Fraiser taking the 100m gold, Veronica Campbell-Brown winning the women's 200m, and Melaine Walker winning the 400m hurdles. Plus, in a beautiful photo finish, Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart tied for the silver in the Women's 100m.

While third place Slovenia's five medals included a Track and Field gold (Primoz Kozmus was primo in the Men's Hammer Throw), they proved to be a more well rounded nation with silver medals in Sailing's Laser and Swimming's Women's 200m Freestyle, and bronzes in Judo's Woment's +78 kg and Shooting's Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions. This gives them 2.488 mpmp.

Four other countries had more than 2 mpmp: Australia (2.251), New Zealand (2.187), Norway (2.161), and Cuba (2.106). Australia and Cuba were second and third, respectively, in 2004, but Norway and New Zealand leaped up from 15th and 16th.

Twelve nations returned home with more than 1 mpmp: Belarus, Trinidad and Tobago, Estonia, Bahrain, Lithuania, Mongolia, Latvia, Georgia, Denmark, Croatia, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Other nations of note include 2012 hosts Great Britain at 24th (0.778 mpmp), Canada (33rd), Russia (34th), Germany (35th), Italy (36th), Spain (37th), and Kenya (38th).

The United States was 42nd with 0.3653 mpmp, just behind Austria's 0.3659 mpmp, and just ahead of Romania's 0.359 mpmp. The US was 41st in 2004.

China ranked 68th with 0.0756 mpmp, in between Brazil and Ecuador.

While their total medal count tripled from 1 in 2004 to 3 in 2008, India again trailed the pack at 86th with 0.00266 mpmp, an order of magnitude behind 85th ranked Vietnam.

In terms of gold medals per million people (gpmp), Jamaica's sprinters propelled their nation to 2.158 gpmp and the victory.

Rashid Ramzi's gold in the Men's 1500m run was the first Olympic medal ever for Bahrain. With a population of only 708,573, they are the only other nation with more than 1 gpmp (1.411).

Estonia's Gerd Kanter's gold in the Men's Discus gave his homeland third place at 0.760 gpmp. New Zealand, Australia, Mongolia, Norway, Georgia, Slovakia, and Slovenia round out the top ten.

The US was 33rd with 0.120 gpmp, just between Azerbaijan and France. China was 48th, and India was 55th and last.

The full results are here.

California Adventure, Part 2

After the rheology done, I took the bus (run by AmTrak) from Monterey to San Jose, and then the train (not run by AmTrak) from San Jose to San Francisco. After checking into the hotel, I walked around a little bit on the Embarcadero, saw the fabulous Pier 39 for five minutes, and then went to bed.

Friday morning, I walked around a little more and checked out Chinatown before it really opened (not particularly exciting at 7:45 AM). I also saw that the base of the TransAmerica Pyramid is pretty cool. (No good pictures, though.) The top was often shrouded in fog in the morning, as is most of San Francisco, it seems. Snopes.com tells me that Mark Twain did not actually say "The coldest winter of my life was the summer I spent in San Francisco." This makes it no less true.

The walking around was designed to put me at SFMOMA when it opened at 10:00, and it worked as planned. I didn't have time for the special Frida Kahlo exhibit, but I did enjoy the two other special exhibits that I saw. I had never heard of fashion model-turned-fashion-photographer-turned-war-photojournalist Lee Miller before, but I definitely enjoyed the large collection of photos of and by her. There was a nice one of her taking a bath in Hitler's bathtub when she was part of the first group of reporters into the captured Hilter's villa in Munich. The other exhibit was on contemporary Chinese art and was pretty interesting.

Woo-hoo, cable cars.



I do have to admit they won me over. There should be more of them to make them less touristy. The woodwork, ironwork, and glass detailing of the cars make them so much more interesting than a modern bus. I didn't find any Rice-A-Roni, though.

Despite the touristy nature, the cable car was in fact the most direct public transportation option (though certainly not the quickest when you factor in the line) to take me from Market St near SFMOMA across town to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. There are way too many parts to the GGNRA to take in in just one afternoon, and so I concentrated on the most obvious part, the Golden Gate Bridge.



Since I was there on 08/08/08, the date of the start of the Olympics, there were Tibetan freedom protestors on the south side of the bridge. I think I heard that they had walked across the bridge earlier in the day. I walked across the bridge and took way too many photos. Here's a sampling.



The south side of the bridge is at the Presidio, but it is closely surrounded by the city. The Marin Headlands on the norther side, however, are pretty nice and undeveloped.





After hiking around to get good vantage points on the bridge with the city in the background, I hiked some more down to the water for some more shots.



I think in all I walked about ten or twelve miles that day. Thus, I just sat around on Friday night and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Saturday morning, I got a little more walking in, visiting Lombard St and Telegraph Hill


Then it was to the BART under the bay to the fabulous Oakland and its airport. I can't really say I saw any obvious "there" from the windows of the train once it became elevated, but I must say there is something impressive about the size of the port.

California Adventure, Part 1-A

I can't believe I left out the best part. On our bus ride back from Big Sur, all the way through the incredibly expensive homes perched on the side of the cliff to the west of the Pacific Coast Highway, through Carmel, through downtown Monterey, for the final thirty minutes, the bus's horn was stuck on. Ever five minutes or so, it would cut off for a second or two, just long enough to give us hope and then dash it by returning. I feel really sorry for the driver. He was clearly stressed out.

California Adventure, Part 1

After giving my talk in the third time slot on the first day of the International Congress on Rheology was in Monterey, CA, last week, I had plenty of time to kick back and relax. Apparently, back home in Columbia, it got up to 102 degrees on the Wednesday. In Monterey, on the other hand, the high was only 63. I can see why people have conferences here. And also why the swag includes a hooded sweatshirt. Here's the view from the hotel.



Monday night featured a reception at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was pretty cool. They were the first aquarium to keep a living kelp forest. They are the only aquarium that regularly has great white sharks, but apparently they had to release the one they had a couple of weeks ago because it started to eat its tankmates. I also found it very interesting that an aquarium would feature an exhibit about the process of canning fish. The aquarium is in fact housed in a former cannery that was part of Cannery Row back in the sardine fishing boom in the mid-1930s and the bust that followed in the mid-40s.

On Wednesday afternoon, the conference took a break for organized excursions. I chose the Big Sur tour down CA-1.

While the tour was a little more on the "relaxing" side than I expected with stops emphasizing the unique gift shops. There were some good things to see, though, and I have say, I would not mind return trip. One stop was at the Big Sur River Inn, where they keep some relaxing Adirondack chairs in the middle of the river.

About six weeks before my trip, dry lightning started the largest wildfire in California history in the Big Sur area. Some places were evacuated for three weeks, and the parks in the area were just starting to reopen their trails.



But, not everything was burned. Redwood tree bark is thick enough to protect the living inside of the tree from the average fire. Of course, if there is enough undergrowth to fuel the fire to a high enough temperature, the tree trunk explodes. Thus, if the tree is still standing after the fire, it will most likely be fine.



In other Monterey news, it was where California officially became a state. In this building in fact. In the park in front of it is a coastal redwood tree called the "Moon Tree" because it was grown from a seed carried to the moon by Major Stuart Roosa, Command Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971. It grew for 5 years in a lab before being planted here in a 1976 bicentennial celebration.