DFL

Celebrating last-place finishes at the Olympics. Because they're there, and you're not.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Standings Revised

Many of you pointed out that the numbers of athletes per country listed in the standings table were wrong. I've now corrected the table, using, per this suggestion, the numbers from the Yahoo! Sports page. Hopefully this will be a bit more accurate, but I know it's not perfect. For some reason, no athletes from Palestine are listed in that database; I've even put in the names of the two athletes with last-place finishes and it came up empty. So I'll list them as having four athletes, which is what the other database said, even though that may not be correct. It's better than having a division by zero error in the standings!

There have been lots of little movements up and down in the standings, too many to mention here. Have a look and see what's changed.

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posted at 6:29 PM

11 Comments:

  • At 12:22 AM, August 26, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Why not try the official athens 2004 website (www.athens2004.com) for the most accurate figures

     

  • At 12:38 AM, August 26, 2004 , Blogger mcwetboy said...

    I did. Those were the numbers people were complaining about.

     

  • At 3:41 AM, August 26, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    No one from Spain... yet? Wow! ;-)

    -- Wayfarer, from the sunny Spain
    www.thewayfarer.info

     

  • At 12:36 PM, August 26, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    This web site is just too much!! :P Nice one!

    Amused in Winnipeg, Canada

     

  • At 5:01 PM, August 26, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Perhaps this has already come up, but it would be interesting to look at it no a percentage basis, to adjust for the very large contingents fielded by some countries (e.g. China, Greece, Australia, etc., which are statistically bound to have large absolute numbers of lasts). Only 1.5% of the Chinese and 1.2% of the Greek athletes have so far finished last while 100% of the Somali and Brunei athletes did!

     

  • At 5:33 PM, August 26, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Hmmm... what about team sports?

    Now I know this is all for fun and it is a great idea (kudos to any athlete who can make it to the Olympics!).

    But, if there are 23 members on a football team (soccer here in Canada...grrr) and the team finishes last, should that count as 23 DFL's or just 1?

    If it only counts as 1 DFL then aren't the countries entire Olympic team numbers somewhat distorted? I mean Canada has (according to Yahoo) 302 Athletes. With 15 in Softball, 30 in Waterpolo, 26 in Baseball, 2 men and 2 women in Beach Volleyball, not to mention numerous other sports that are teams: Relay, Sync Swimming, Sync Diving, Rowing, Kayak, Cycling, etc. Those "teams" are competing for (against) only 1 DFL place in most cases.

    Right away that is 232 atheletes instead of 302 (Counting each team as 1).

    Not sure how you could fix it without lots of work (so don't bother) but something to think about.

    Haggis
    Ottawa, Canada

     

  • At 8:51 PM, August 28, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Great site, and great initiative congratulations for the idea and the realisation.

    I have a (silly ?) question about your results table: what does the numbers stand for ? and the LPH and ATH letters ?

     

  • At 9:51 PM, August 28, 2004 , Blogger mcwetboy said...

    The numbers indicate the ranking of each country (the dashes indicate a tie); #LPF means number of last-place finishes; and #ATH means number of athletes from that country.

     

  • At 11:11 PM, August 28, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    #LPF (not LPH) is # of last place finishes.
    # ATH is # of atheletes I assume!

     

  • At 1:54 AM, August 30, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Seems that it would be quite difficult to decide upon an authoritative team size for each "nation". What with team sports on one end (as another poster asked, "is a futbol team 1 or 23 members?") to individuals entered in multiple events on the other. And then there are relays. Oy. And none of that even begins to consider DNFs and DNSs! Should such athletes still count toward team size?

    The totals are all in good fun anyway, so it really doesn't matter which methodology you chose. I doubt the upper and lower portions of the chart were much affected by the team size changes.

    Thank you for the entertaining, inspirational, humorous and self-deprecating diversion. I did not see a single minute of the Olympics this year, yet my level of interest rose a bit through NPR, your blog, BBC (via NPR) and news wires. I hope you are similarly inspired for the next Olympics, and, if so, that I find my way back to your site.

    Ryan

     

  • At 2:34 AM, August 30, 2004 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    How about a list weighted according to population and/or athletes sent?