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Here are the results of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, adjusted in various ways.

There are the results by medal only.  This shows three ways of ordering the results.

• By gold is as it says – gold medals are the only things that matter
• By total medals uses the total medal count with no differentiating among gold, silver, or bronze
• By points uses the total medal count but weights the medals differently (5 points per gold medal, 3 points per silver, and 1 point per bronze)

These three methods of viewing the results are then run through various calculations to adjust the results for GDP, population, area, and athlete count.  The information for GDP, population, and area was taken from the CIA World Factbook.

The values of the three categories (number of gold medals, number of total medals, or number of points) were each adjusted to normalize the data.  The adjustments were

• dividing by the country’s GDP (in US dollars) and then multiplying by a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) in order to get the results in something per trillion dollars
• dividing the country’s population by the value in order to get the results in people per something
• dividing the country’s area (in square miles) by the value in order to get the results in square miles per something
• dividing the country’s Olympic athlete count by the value in order to get the results in athletes per something

The athlete count was taken from the website for the Beijing Olympics.  This number is not as precise as it could be because of teams.  To reconcile this, either all members of a team should count as one athlete or one medal should be counted each member of the team, instead of one medal for the whole team.  While each athlete does receive a physical medal, the results tally counts a team medal as only one medal.