Olympic perspective

So, I love the Olympics. I love the spirit of good sportsmanship, the grace in winning and losing, and the drinking, smoking, zamboni-riding party after the Canadian women's hockey team won the gold medal.
Actually, I think that celebrating the win of a lifetime on home ice, and bringing some of that celebration out of the locker room and inviting some of your supporters to see you being happy. It wasn't as if they went on a drunken rampage through the streets of Vancouver, they didn't rub it in while the American women were on the ice, and they didn't drive the Zamboni through the plexiglass. They had a glass of champagne, they had a beer, they had a cigar. I find that much less disturbing than the tradition of the medal count, and the idea that whoever has the most medals is kicking butt.
Kris and I were talking about that very thing, and we were thinking of how to better compare the sporting achievements per country. Do you compare medals per capita? That didn't seem like a good idea, since the largest populations are not necessarily the countries that have the resources to invest in developing athletes. Therefore, we set up a table of medals per million dollars GDP (as of 27th of Feb - I have today off, and couldn't wait until tomorrow for this, but I think we get the right idea.
The top 8 medal winners, as ranked by medals/million USD GDP.
8. China - with 11 medals as of today, thats 1 medal for every 432,545 million USD
7. US - 36 medals total = 1medal for every 396,388 million USD
6. Germany - 29 medals - even in a recession, that's 1 medal / 111,551 million USD
5. Russia - 15 medals, 1 medal / 83,666 million USD
4. South Korea - 14 medals, 1 medal / 57,164 million USD
3. Canada - the hosts have 25 medals, which is 1 medal / 52,760
2. Austria - 16 medals and serious economic slowdown equates to 1 medal / 23,400
Aaaaaaand the number one country in terms of medal economy is...
...the envelope please...
1. Norway! A truly tiny GDP when compared to some of the others, but 22 medals. That's one medal for every 16,772 million USD. Very impressive, and something for those of us with Halvorsons and Elvestroms in our family tree to be proud of.
Of course, this was just the top 8 - Norway was about as good as Slovenia, slightly better than Estonia, but not quite the all-time leader.
That goes to Latvia - 1 medal/12,100 million USD.
That's a pretty good ratio. If the Americans earned medals at that rate, we would have 1,179 in the medal count. Even though we're leading in the medal count, it sounds a little underachieving when it's put in perspective.