Brief Sportify Cities Analysis:
Trends in the Olympic Medals Index between the developed countries and the rest of the world
Chris Szubski *
*Author’s contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisszubski/
This SPORTIFY CITIES analysis monitors the olympic sporting performance among countries at Summer Olympic Games. The Olympic Medals Index (OMI) demonstrates that over the past two decades the developing and least developed countries have not been able to break the Olympic sport dominance of the developed world.
The chart below displays that since the 2004 Olympics there has been a gradual widening of the OMI-gap between the developed countries and the rest of the world. This slowly evolving divergence in the Olympic performance between both groups is an indicator that the developed countries have recently been consolidating their Olympic dominance.
Chart. The Olympic Medals Index (OMI) reflects the share of all weighted medals accumulated by the developed countries versus the developing and least developed countries at Summer Olympic Games between 1996 and 2024.
Widening OMI Gap
Overall, the past trends based on this Olympic Medal Index demonstrates that the developed countries have expanded their competitive edge over the developing and least developed countries. As displayed in the chart above, the gap between the developed countries and the rest of the world was the narrowest at the 2000 Sydney Olympics (18%), while at the latest 2024 Olympics the gap has become by far the widest (42%).
At the 2024 Olympics the developed countries won 71% of all weighted medals, with USA, France and Great Britain being the key contributors. This is by far the greatest share for the developed countries over the past three decades. In contrast, the group of developing and least developed countries gained 29% of all weighted medals – the lowest level in the past three decades. This remarkable decline in the Olympic medals share among this group is largely due to the absence of Russian athletes due to imposed doping- and war-related sanctions (Russia was the second best medals contributor within this group at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics). That said, the other developing and least developed countries did not manage to take advantage of Russia’s absence. In fact, the large majority of the developing and least developed countries reduced their overall medals share in 2024 compared to the 2020 Olympics. The numerous developed countries, by contrast, have significantly increased their medals share as a result of Russia’s absence. Particularly, USA, France, Australia and South Korea have substantially improved their olympic performance.
OMI Methodology
For this OMI analysis countries are categorised into two groups, developed countries versus developing and least developed countries (as classified by the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations). The 15 best-performing countries within each of the two groups at each of the evaluated Summer Olympic Games were considered for this analysis. The Olympic sporting performance of each evaluated country is defined as the total medals achieved at each Summer Olympic Games. All medals are weighted according to their proportional value, that is, bronze medals and silver medals are weighted as one-third and two-thirds of the gold medals, respectively.
The original analysis was published in April 2018. It was updated in Aug 2024.
For Reference Citations:
Szubski C.: Trends in the Olympic Medals Index between the developed countries and the rest of the world. Sportify Cities Brief Analysis, 2024. https://www.sportifycities.com/olympic-medals-index/
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