The Cost of Competing – or – Why Olympic Weightlifting is More Hardcore Than You Think
12 Aug 2012
One of my favorite parts of the Olympics is all the hypothetical pub-challenges I exchange with my friends.
“If you had 8 years to train and were executed if you didn’t medal, which event would you train for?”
“Which should be the first sport to go? And replaced with what?”
“If you had to sleep with a random Olympian in a certain sport, which sport would you pick?”
I like to arm myself with numbers when I come to a bar fight (go ahead, judge me), so I thought I’d try to settle the whole “Is Equestrian Elitist?“ debate.
For all summer medalists since 1988, here’s how much money the average person from the medal winning countries earn:
|
Sport
Average Country Income
|
|
| Equestrian | $38,302 |
| Triathlon | $37,189 |
| Cycling | $33,635 |
| Sailing | $33,557 |
| Softball | $33,375 |
| Rowing | $33,367 |
| Archery | $31,500 |
| Handball | $30,900 |
| Aquatics | $30,277 |
| Tennis | $30,203 |
| Table Tennis | $29,933 |
| Canoe / Kayak | $28,794 |
| Field Hockey | $27,844 |
| Volleyball | $27,200 |
| Judo | $26,418 |
| Shooting | $26,325 |
| Fencing | $25,615 |
| Basketball | $25,445 |
| Modern Pentathlon | $24,606 |
| Taekwondo | $24,385 |
| Track and Field | $24,058 |
| Gymnastics | $23,234 |
| Badminton | $23,058 |
| Wrestling | $21,734 |
| Football | $20,936 |
| Boxing | $20,346 |
| Weightlifting | $17,675 |
In my mind, these seem incredibly intuitive across the board. The more gear, luxuries, and training space required, the better richer athletes and countries do.
But it doesn’t stop there. Even within disciplines, the numbers are fairly unsurprising. Look at Track and Field:
|
Track Event
Athlete Income
|
|
| Pole Vault | $30,910 |
| 110m Hurdles | $30,583 |
| Javelin Throw | $30,350 |
| 20km Race Walk | $29,857 |
| 3000m | $28,850 |
| Decathlon | $27,311 |
| 100m Hurdles | $27,264 |
| 1500m | $26,823 |
| 50km Walk | $26,175 |
| 4x400m Relay | $26,089 |
| Shot Put | $26,008 |
| 4x100m Relay | $25,992 |
| 20km Walk | $25,600 |
| Heptathlon | $25,400 |
| 100m | $25,280 |
| High Jump | $25,213 |
| Triple Jump | $23,825 |
| 800m | $23,412 |
| Hammer Throw | $22,731 |
| Discus Throw | $22,086 |
| 200m | $21,482 |
| 3000m Steeplechase | $21,167 |
| Marathon | $21,081 |
| Long Jump | $21,023 |
| 400m | $20,867 |
| 400m Hurdles | $19,686 |
| 10000m Walk | $18,800 |
| 10000m | $16,655 |
| 5000m | $14,860 |
There are a few outliers but if something requires stuff or special training, athletes from richer countries tend to do better.
So does this mean you can you compare one sport to another? One might look at these numbers and correlate race stereotypes with how difficult a sport is; I’d argue some countries do better because of the economics more than the body mechanics and genes. And in general, I think the lower the average medalist income, the more badass the medal is. Lower incomes mean less barriers mean bigger competitor pools.
Summary: If you’re starting from scratch and want a medal, don’t go into weightlifting. 10 of the bottom 17 spots are weightlifting events.
The process:
- To be clear, the averages come from macro-level country averages, not individual people.
- The income is not actually income but GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP) (source: CIA/World Bank, 2007-2011). Since accurate disposable income numbers aren’t readily available for all countries, I like this estimate for guessing how much buying power each potential athlete has to buy javelins, bikes, horses, and doping kits.
- The income is a mean, not a median, in the hopes uneven distribution does play a factor.
- Retired sports and retired countries were ignored.
