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The 2024 Olympic medal count, ranked by GDP

There are two generally accepted ways of handling a medal count: Gold-focused, as the IOC uses or a total medal count that relies on whoever has the most total medals. Right now the USA is in the lead either way, but it’s also sparked the imagination of different ways to evaluate Olympic success considering the wildly different conditions of countries around the world.

Last week we took a dive into the per capita medal count, which showed the most-talented nation based on how many citizens it took to win a single medal. Today we’re going a different way and looking at the Paris Olympic medal count based on gross domestic product (GDP).

It goes without saying that money plays a huge role in sporting success. From physically sending athletes, to having well-funded training — it’s critical to have at least some money behind you in order to win in the Olympics. Now, there are some flaws to using a pure GDP analysis, because we don’t exactly know the sporting budgets of each nation, but at the very least it can show us who is the best sporting country with the least resources to their name.

For the purposes of this count we’re only including countries with 10 medals or more.

2024 Olympic medal count based on GDP

Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Total GDP USD per medal
Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Total GDP USD per medal
1 New Zealand 4 6 2 12 248.0B 20,666,666,666
2 Australia 18 14 11 43 1.63T 37,906,976,744
3 Netherlands 10 5 6 21 1.00T 47,619,047,619
4 France 13 17 21 51 2.78T 54,509,803,921
5 South Korea 2 8 7 27 1.67T 61,851,851,851
6 Great Britain 12 17 20 49 3.09T 63,061,224,489
7 Italy 9 10 7 26 2.05T 78,846,153,846
8 Spain 2 3 8 13 1.42T 109,230,769,231
9 Canada 6 4 9 19 2.14T 112,631,578,947
10 Japan 12 7 13 32 4.23T 132,187,005,000
11 Brazil 2 5 7 14 1.92T 137,142,857,143
12 Germany 9 6 5 20 4.08T 204,000,000,000
13 USA 27 35 33 95 25.44T 267,789,473,684
14 China 26 24 17 67 17.96T 268,059,701,493

If we took this beyond nations with 10 medals there are a few standouts worth a mention.

  • Greece: Seven medals with $217.6B GDP for $3.1B per medal
  • Cape Verde: One medal with $2.22B GDP for $2.22B per medal
  • St. Lucia: Two medals with $2.34B GDP for $1.17B per medal
  • India: Three medals with $3.42T GDP for $1.14T per medal
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