Michigan and the Olympics
So I read somewhere that Michigan, if it were its own country, would be 28th in the world for most medals won in the Olympics. This got me thinking (and Googleing) and I really couldn't find a list of Universities and their medal counts all in one place.
I did some research and learned that Michigan has 65 bronze, 35 silver, and 38 gold medals with a total of 138. This does put us in 28th place in the world for total medals won (if we were a country). Also, we are tied for 28th for gold medals with Belgium.
We aren't the best American university though! USC leads with 258 total medals followed by UCLA (230), Stanford (206), California (159), Florida (145), and then Texas (139).
Just thought I'd share with y'all. Thoughts?
(sources: http://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/olymp2/medalsp.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-time_Olympic_Games_medal_table)
How are medals earned counted? Like does the olympian have to be a graduate?
Includes medals won by students, coaches and staff members. Swimming medals include individuals who swam preliminary heats but not finals on teams that earned medals.
This method could lead to some double counting, for a medal winner who did undergrad, grad school and became a staff member at different Universities.
Interesting, I was actually looking for exactly this yesterday. I was talking to someone who works for the Stanford athletic department who said during the last Olympics Stanford would've been the 6th highest medal earning country in the world. I would expect Stanford to be tops witht their strength in olympic sports, but I also was unable to find a list of medals by university from the last olympics and how many athletes will be coming from each university for this olympic games.
Hopefully we will surpass Florida and Texas in a few short weeks.