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On the question of cost of medals, Hogan and Norton presented a paper at
the 5th IOC Congress on Sport Science in Sydney last November. See page
254 of the book of abstracts.
Here's a quote from the abstract. "In the period 1980-96 Australia won 25
gold and 115 total Olympic medals. This equates to $37 million per gold
medal or $8 million per any medal. There was also a linear relationship
between money spent and total medals won (r=0.96). [On the basis of] the
cost per medal and the expenditure towards Sydney, we estimate the gold
medal count will be 14 +/-1 and the total medal count will be 61 +/-4."
Not a bad prediction! Obviously, the cost depends on what expenditures you
want to take into consideration. Also, population would contribute to the
cost for medals, and I bet there are some sports where funding helps medal
count and others where it doesn't really make a difference (thus some small
countries with talent access to US university athletics programs have a
chance).
Cheers,
DTM
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