I think that China is the nation with the most medals because of that they have 1.3 billion inhabitants and they have been looking for the events that it is easy to score medals in and put in an extra effort in finding and training athletes for these events. They have probably spent a lot in order to look extra good in all events in their home event, for poltical reasons if nothing else.

What surprises me a bit more is that India isn't doing better, they should have some potential athletes among their vast population as well. Maybe a strong belief in fate doesn't favor sports? ;)

If it only were athletes that had a large of winning that competed in the olympics there wouldn't be many participants...
Most, if not all, events have some sort of limit the athletes have to pass in order to qualify, lower if you only send one athlete, so my view is that there aren't as many real amateurs in the games as there used to be.

I don't have any poverty numbers for China but i doubt they are much better, but on the other hand, their political system probably wants to show what a successful nation they are...

i guess that india and the other country do not have any proficiency traning on the sports being competed in the olympics.
china do have the advantage because at the mere beginning of childhood ages 5-10 the chinese children are trained especially in gymnastics.
thats why china has many athletes to choose from unlike other countries...they used to prepare for a sporting event a year or even months before the event...and thats a real disadvantage for them...

I think China is way ahead. Just go to a medal summary and figure it this way:

Gold = 3 points

Silver = 2 points

Bronze = 1 point

do the math and see who's ahead...

And after The first 2 places: a huge gap before you get to 3rd place.

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