86

News

Denmark among leading per capita medal winners in Rio

Christian Wenande
August 18th, 2016


This article is more than 8 years old.

Danes ranks seventh, trailing the likes of Grenada, New Zealand and Jamaica

Rising up the medal charts (photo: Danmark til OL – Lars Møller)

The US may be nearing medal number 100, while China and the UK have both reached the half-century mark. But they still trail Denmark by a long way. At least in the medals per capita rankings (as of yesterday evening).

Denmark has only won nine medals so far, but with a population of just 5.6 million people – if it were a city if wouldn’t even make the top 10 in China – the Danes are currently seventh in the overall medals per capita table.

Two small Caribbean island nations, Grenada and Bahamas, are first and second despite having won just one medal a piece, followed by New Zealand (10 medals), Slovenia (4) and Jamaica (5).

Georgia (6), Denmark (9), Bahrain (2), Armenia (4) and Hungary (13) complete the top 10, while other notables include Australia (in 14th with 24 medals), the UK (17 with 50), Sweden (19 with 7), Norway (25 with 3), France (28 with 31), Canada (32 with 14), Germany (36 with 28), Russia (38 with 41), the US (42 with 86) and China (71 with 52).

READ MORE: Stealing a march on the Swedes as Scandinavia’s top Summer Olympic nation

Going up?
At the bottom are Indonesia, which has won three medals from its massive population of over 255 million, the Philippines, with a single medal to go with its population of over 100 million, and in last place India, which won its first medal yesterday for its whopping 1.3 billion plus citizens.

Still it’s better than Mexico, Bangladesh and Pakistan, which are among the world’s 11 most populated countries and have yet to win a medal in Rio yet.

And what about the nations that have never won an Olympic medal. Fiji and Kosovo broke their ducks in Rio this time around, but there are still 63 nations still waiting to make history (see below).

Denmark could be making a move up the ladder later today. Having already guaranteed its tenth medal in the women’s badminton doubles final today, there are a number of other medal possibilities today for the Danes in sailing and athletics.

See the entire list here (in English).


Share

Most popular

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to receive The Daily Post

















Latest Podcast

A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”