[LINK] Idle Moments: The Final Olympic List

[Ralph Leonard]

In regards to Roger's calculations:

If other real world issues were taken into account to provide the weightings
for the ranking, then maybe the issue of teams vs individual events should
be considered.  A decade ago the Finn-Meyer report identified a list of the
key competencies that education systems should seek as student outcomes from
schooling.  One of those is "working in teams", so is a team success more
valuable than a medal in an individual event?

A multiplier of total team membership would be heavily weighted in favour of
sports like soccer, so maybe a factor such as the square root of members in
the field of play is reasonable (eg 1.4 for a rowing pair, 2 for relay
events, 2.2 for basketball, 3.3 for soccer).

Another competency was "use technology", so should sports that involve
equipment development (cycling, archery) get a weighting to reflect that as
long as the equipment is designed in the competitor's country?  Or should
sports that require expensive equipment for success(equestrian?) get
downgraded to remove disadvantage to less affluent nations?

If the Olympic spirit means anything then points for qualifying (and being
there - bad luck Marie) should be factored in, but that may have an even
bigger advantage for the host nation.

Maybe it becomes too complicated and the simpler 3-2-1 for runs on the board
is the easiest - starts to sound like the issues surrounding tender
evaluations :-)

Ralph Leonard

Mobile: 04 1234 2890
fax: (08) 8278 5594
rleonard@nereus.com.au




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-link@www.anu.edu.au [mailto:owner-link@www.anu.edu.au]On
> Behalf Of Roger Clarke
> Sent: 03 October 2000 14:16
> To: link@www.anu.edu.au
> Subject: [LINK] Idle Moments: The Final Olympic List
>
>
>
> On the Points per Million basis, here was the Top 11 (11th
> was well clear
> of 12th):
..snip..

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the official site has a similar
table, but doesn't weight 3-2-1 and hence also has Barbados and Iceland in
front of Australia.

..snip..

On the GDP per capita side of things, sorry - I haven't had time to look up
the figures and play them into the table.  At a quick glance, Cuba and
Bulgaria are looking pretty good as the top performers.  Bulgaria are
drug-tainted;  but pretty good even without the drugs.  The U.S. would have
to claim that Cuba are clean, because of the blockade, wouldn't they?  (:-)}


Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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