A new index to rank nations at the Summer Olympics

<p dir="ltr"><b>1. Purpose/Rationale. </b>The current Olympic Games ranking system is susceptible to specialization bias. By behaving strategically and excelling in one discipline, a country can accumulate multiple medals and propel themselves up the rankings. We rectify this issue and propose a new ranking system.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>2. Design/Methodology/Approach. </b>Using data from the International Olympic Committee, we manually construct a new ranking system (index) that rewards diversity in a nation’s success. We then econometrically test this index to see if the traditional determinants of Olympic success transcend to this new ranking system.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>3. Findings. </b>Our ranking system finds that the most successful nations at the Olympic Games remain successful using our index. However, we identify nations such as Spain and Lithuania who under the current ranking system are viewed as perennial underachievers.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>4. Practical Implications. </b>The work is beneficial for practitioners who seek to create an unambiguously preferential way of ranking Olympic success and to certain National Olympic Committees who may use the findings to support their requests for more funding.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>5. Research Contribution. </b>We create a new functional index that helps identify who may be the sportiest nation at the Olympic Games in terms of performance.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>6. Originality/Value. </b>This is the first ranking system that reduces specialization bias from the current Olympic Games medal table.</p>