Why Taiwan's Four Bronzes Are Nothing To Be Ashamed Of
Maybe I'll have time later to respond to David "One party dominance will be a boon for Taiwan" Ting's latest see-no-evil column about the 2008 Genocide Games. But for now, I'll content myself with addressing just one point he made:
It's painful to mention Taiwan's medal count: four bronzes.
Gosh, and it's also painful to have to point out that China has 1.3 billion people, and Taiwan, only 23 million. So instead of comparing China's total medal count of 100 to Taiwan's 4, one really ought to compare the per capita medal count.
Let's crunch the numbers, shall we?
China: 1,325,563,000 people / 100 medals = 13,255,630 people / medal
Taiwan: 23,036,087 people / 4 medals = 5,759,022 people / medal
The numbers plainly show . . . Taiwan kicked China's ass. That is to say, the country of Taiwan produced more than twice as many Olympic champions on a per capita basis than China did.**
Sorry David, but you're completely wrong if you think Taiwanese should go to China in search of the secrets of Olympic success. No, for that they should head to tiny, tiny Jamaica, which won an astonishing 54 times more medals than China, after correcting for the difference in population.
Now, Jamaica may not be the central axis of the world like China is, I know. But the akee, rice, salted fish are nice, and the rum is fine any time of the year.
As the Jamaicans say -- there's no substitute for victory, mon.
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* Curiously, Ting's figure does not include golds won by the two Chinese septegenarians in the thrilling 365-day Hard Labor competition.
** This isn't ENTIRELY true. After all, some Olympic events are team endeavors. It's more accurate to say that Taiwan won more than twice as many EVENTS population-wise than China.
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