Olympic rankings based on objective weighting schemes

In this paper, we propose an objective principal components weighting scheme for all-time Winter Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals based solely on the number of medals won. Our results suggest that the approximately equal weights be assigned (or the total medal counts be used regardless of color) if all of the three medal types are retained for ranking purposes. When the proposed methodology is tested against five alternative weighting schemes that have been suggested in the literature using the results for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, we find a significant agreement in the country rankings. Furthermore, our implementation of principal components variable reduction strategy results in the identification of silver as the best representative medal count for parsimonious Winter Olympics rankings.

Automated summary

The study proposes an objective principal components weighting scheme for Winter Olympic medals based on the number of medals won, suggesting near equal weights when all three medal types are retained for ranking purposes. Comparing the method with five alternative weighting schemes using results from the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, there is significant agreement in country rankings. Furthermore, the principal components variable reduction strategy identifies silver as the best representative medal count for simplified Winter Olympics rankings.