Population: 10,000. Has won 28 medals (10 gold) in Commonwealth Games since first competing in 1990. No FTs. All locals.
It’s a remote island in the South Pacific which measures only 8.1 square miles in area (less than an eighth the size of Glasgow, which is about to host the 20th edition of the Games) and has been covered in bird droppings for thousands of years.
A largely barren dot in the ocean, its 10,000 or so inhabitants are among the fattest on the planet. Diabetes is a major public health problem there.
Yet Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, has been by far and away the most successful sporting nation in the Commonwealth since they started competing at the Auckland Games in 1990.
They have won 28 medals since then, including 10 golds. All have come in weightlifting.
In a population-adjusted league table produced by BBC Sport, Nauru – which lies more than 2,000 miles (3,200km) north-east of Brisbane and financially relies heavily upon the mining of the phosphates formed by those seabirds – has been 45 times more successful than second-placed Samoa – 1,700 miles (2,700km) away to the south-east.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/commonwealth-games/28015180
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/8-1-sq-miles-country-doesnt-need-fts-to-win-gold-medals/
It’s a remote island in the South Pacific which measures only 8.1 square miles in area (less than an eighth the size of Glasgow, which is about to host the 20th edition of the Games) and has been covered in bird droppings for thousands of years.
A largely barren dot in the ocean, its 10,000 or so inhabitants are among the fattest on the planet. Diabetes is a major public health problem there.
Yet Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, has been by far and away the most successful sporting nation in the Commonwealth since they started competing at the Auckland Games in 1990.
They have won 28 medals since then, including 10 golds. All have come in weightlifting.
In a population-adjusted league table produced by BBC Sport, Nauru – which lies more than 2,000 miles (3,200km) north-east of Brisbane and financially relies heavily upon the mining of the phosphates formed by those seabirds – has been 45 times more successful than second-placed Samoa – 1,700 miles (2,700km) away to the south-east.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/commonwealth-games/28015180
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/8-1-sq-miles-country-doesnt-need-fts-to-win-gold-medals/
