Relationship between a Country’s Economy and Gold Medals in Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

GDP and gold medals

Abstract

My objective is to find how strong the correlation between economic factors of a country and the amount of gold medals won in the 2020 Summer and 2022 Winter Olympics. The economic factors of a country I used are Gross Domestic Product (GDP US dollars) and Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP per capita US dollars). I used separate Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) test to determine the correlation between these factors and the gold medal count in the Summer and Winter Olympics. There is a positive correlation between a country’s GDP and the number of gold medals it earns in the 2020 Summer Olympics. However, there is not a positive correlation between a country’s GDP and the number of gold medals it earns in the Winter Olympics. The r² = 0.743 for a country’s GDP and the number of gold medals it earns in the 2020 Summer Olympics indicates other factors also contribute to gold medals probably including population, host country (prior, current, and future), and political system. My analysis suggests that GDP per capita seem to play a more significant role for the Winter Olympic than the Summer Olympics. It is possible that culture and geographic locations play critical roles for winning gold medal in the Winter Olympics owing to the more limited set up of games which are normally not available to many countries in the tropical or subtropical regions.