By RENALDO DORSETT
Sports Reporter
rdorsett@tribunemedia.net
With the gold medal performance of the men’s 4x400 metre relay team, the Bahamas vaulted to 50th among the 204 countries that competed in the XXX Summer Olympics in London, England.
Chris Brown, Demetrius Pinder, Michael Mathieu and Ramon Miller ensured that the 26-member team, including lone swimmer Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, tied with Algeria, Grenada, Uganda and Venezuela for the 50th spot.
However, for the first time since the 1996 games in Atlanta, the Bahamas is not the top medal winner on a per capita basis.
The Bahamas finished fifth with one medal and a population of 353, 658.
With a population of just 110,821, Grenada won the top honour when Kirani James took gold in the men’s 400m.
Jamaica, with its 12 medals and a population of 2,705,827 were second with an average of 225,485 residents per medal.
Trinidad and Tobago were third with four medals and a population of 1,317,714 (329,428 average) while New Zealand finished fourth with 13 medals and a population of 4,432,620 (340,970 average).
Since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona when Frank Rutherford won bronze in the triple jump and the Bahamas had a population of 256,202, it topped the medals per capita table in 2000, 2004, and 2008.
Tonga, with a population of 98,702, broke the Bahamas’ streak in 1996 in Atlanta.
The International Olympic Committee also uses a weighted medal count where gold is worth four points, silver two and bronze one.
In terms of weighted medals per capita, the Bahamas finished second overall with a point total of four, again second to Grenada.
In terms of countries and their relative wealth measured in GDP, and the amount of medals won, the Bahamas finished 16th in total medals per GDP with a GDP of $8.074 billion.
Grenada again topped that list with a GDP of just $882 million, while Jamaica was second with the highest total average a GDP of $14.807 billion to accompany their 12-medal haul.
In contrast, the Bahamas also tied countries with much higher populations and GDPs in the medal standings such as Saudia Arabia ($576.82 billion), Venezuela ($316.48 billion), Hong Kong ($443.67 billion) and Morocco ($100.22 billion) also won a single medal in London.
Of the 204 countries in competition, the Bahamas ranked 173rd in total population, but was one of only 85 countries to medal.
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