Data | Does economy determine a country's performance at Olympics?

At the Tokyo Olympics, the top 10 countries in the medals tally won 54% of all the medals and eight of them are high-income countries

The size of the economy is strongly linked to a country's performance at the Olympics. In general, the bigger the size of a country's economy, the more the medals, with very few exceptions such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Ukraine. At the , the top 10 countries in the medals tally won 54% of all the medals. Eight of them are high-income countries. On the other hand, factors such as the size of the population and the Human Development Index have little bearing on a nation's performance at the Olympics. The top three countries in terms of the GDP size in 2020 - the U.S., China and Japan - were the top three countries in the Tokyo medal tally in that order. Between 1992 and 2021, 65% each of high-income and upper-middle-income countries, 27% of lower-middle-income countries and 37% of low-income countries won at least one Olympic medal.