Los Angeles Times, CA

Tasman Sea change in Medals Per Capita
12:51 PM, August 16, 2008

Suddenly, we’ve got a Trans-Tasman tussle in Medals Per Capita, and
anyone with any sense loves a good Trans-Tasman tussle now and then.

After a jaw-plummeting Olympic Saturday in Beijing, those wacky Tasman
Sea neighbors, Australia and New Zealand, sit a smidgen apart from
each other at No. 2 and No. 3 in the crucial Medals Per Capita table,
and you can almost feel the Southern Hemisphere seething.

Because these two nations can seem so unspeakably pleasant to a
visiting American, it’s reassuring to learn they get all sore and
chippy with each other over sporting events just like the rest of the
absurd human race.

They have a mutual and perfectly commendable loathing over rugby, and
of course, we all know they had that Underarm Bowling Incident of
1981, except that most of us probably don’t know about any Underarm
Bowling Incident, and those Americans who do know probably find this
Underarm Bowling Incident to be the rough equivalent of hieroglyphics.

Well, this Underarm Bowling Incident thing caused quite the ruckus,
sparking criticism even from the prime ministers of both countries. It
happened in February 1981 in Melbourne, when an Australian cricket
captain — get this — told his bowler to send the last ball underarm
and along the ground toward New Zealand batsman Bruce Edgar,
preventing any conceivable New Zealand rally.

What all this means is actually indecipherable to the American ear
and, like many foreign languages, basically cannot be learned if not
taught before age 6, but the UBI became a beacon for poor
sportsmanship, lousy taste and the decline of Trans-Tasman
civilization.

Now, as an ever-looming T-Rex in Medals Per Capita, Australia has
spent the entire first week of Beijing 2008 in the top three,
stockpiling its medals to 25, racking up an MPC rating of 824,304 and
reveling in its measured population of 20,600,856, all of whom can
swim really fast.

Then, from completely off the charts in the zero zone, here on
Saturday came New Zealand, gorging on five sudden medals. It won the
women’s shot put (Valerie Vili) for its first track-and-field gold
since Montreal 1976. It won a bunch of rowing necklaces. It won an MPC
rating of 834,692 and a coveted No. 3 ranking given its enviable
population of 4,173,460.

Sure, neither can catch No. 1 Armenia just yet, but then, for the
fifth day in a row, nobody else could either.

In other Medals Per Capita minutiae:

— With just one medal each, severe MPC threats Estonia and Trinidad
and Tobago entered the charts with their intimidatingly low
populations at Nos. 8 and 5, respectively, with Estonia bringing along
crucial MPC experience after nibbling at No. 1 in Athens 2004 before
winding up a studly fourth.

— Medals Per Capita would like to welcome to the board No. 43 Canada,
our adored neighbors to the north, up from zero medals to three on
Saturday, and also would like to commend University of British
Columbia student and blogger Julian W. at NowPublic.com for this
outstanding line last week about Medals Per Capita: `Canada, with no
medals yet, is the undefined error you get on a calculator when you
try to divide a whole number by zero.’

— Flashing rarefied badminton prowess, Indonesia went from two medals
to four, and demographics experts in the crowd will sense the MPC
mania that followed. With a population of a staggering 237,512,355,
No. 4 on Earth, Indonesia’s additions lowered its MPC through the day
from 118,756,177 to 79,179,785 to 59,378,088. Not many countries can
improve their MPC by 59 million in a day, and yet, with so many
countries craving MPC recognition, Indonesia dropped from 53rd (out of
54) on Friday to 55th (out of 61) on Saturday.

The top 10 (medals in parentheses):

1. Armenia (5) – 593,717
2. Australia (25) – 824,034
3. New Zealand (5) – 834,692
4. Slovenia (2) – 1,003,856
5. Trinidad and Tobago (1) – 1,047,366
6. Norway (4) – 1,161,114
7. Belarus (8) – 1,210,721
8. Estonia (1) – 1,307,605
9. Slovakia (4) – 1,311,187
10. Cuba (8) – 1,427,994

Selected others:

11. Mongolia (2) – 1,498,041
18. South Korea (20) – 2,461,642
24. Jamaica (1) – 2,804,332
32. Ukraine (12) – 3,828,690
37. Serbia (2) – 5,079,523
38. United States (54) – 5,626,382
43. Canada (3) – 11,070,898
50. Colombia (2) – 22,506,837
52. China (47) – 28,298,821
61. India (1) – 1,147,995,898

— Chuck Culpepper

Culpepper is a contributor to The Times.

Photo: New Zealand’s Valerie Vili celebrates after winning the gold
medal in the women’s shot put during the Beijing Games on
Saturday. Credit: Kevin Frayer / Associated Press