The Olympics
Communism still rules

InternationalAug 4th 2012 edition

FORGET checking the Olympic medal count every day. A better way to see how nations stack up is to calculate how many athletes countries had to enrol to win a medal. East Germany bet on a combination of state intervention, talent and dubious training regimes—and still tops the list (although China is catching up fast). Ethiopia benefits from specialisation: all its 38 medals have come on the track and at distances of 3,000m or longer. See the results for the rest of the world.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline "Communism still rules"

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