Estonia comes in second and the Bahamas third when it comes to number of gongs relative to population size

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

There are no prizes for knowing that the US has won more Olympic medals than any other country since the first modern summer games were held in 1896.

Kudos is due, however, to those who are able to name Finland as having won the most medals per Games contested relative to the country’s population size.



To work out how well each country fared, we took the number of medals won by each – in Finland’s case 303 – and divided it by the number of summer Olympics competed in to get the average number of medals won. We then calculated the medal haul against each country’s 2015 population.



By this measure the Olympic podium would see Finland – population 5.5 million – receive the gold medal, Estonia the silver and the Bahamas the bronze.



Finland’s record is still drivenby its early successes. In the five Olympic Games held between Stockholm 1912 and Los Angeles 1932, the country won 148 medals, averaging almost 30 per Games.



Part of the success is attributable to the so-called Flying Finns, a group of long distance athletes including Hannes-Kolehmainen, Ville Ritola and Paavo Nurmi.

Nurmi was one of the most successful Olympians of all time. He was one of just four athletes to win nine Olympic gold medals, not to mention three silvers, and the first to win five golds in one Games, in Paris in 1924.



Finland has won medals at every summer Olympics since 1908.