It makes sense that China got second overall, with a 1.4 billion person population, the US winning with 333 million and great funding and relatively large population.
Surely a large enough population gives you a massive advantage of covering more sports and getting genetic miracles of athletes, right? But then I realized that the biggest populated country wasn’t on the top 10, or even top 50. How is India at 1.42 billion coming in after NK and Lithuania?
Supporting sports from the amateur ranks all the way to the professional level requires a ton of discretionary spending and India in particular doesn’t spend a cent on it unless they need to. The only sport that is supported at a decent level is cricket and even then all of the attention is put on superstars, not grassroots players. I think things will change after Paris though because they severely underperformed and if they want to host in 2036 they’ll need to make some serious changes.
Other countries with high population just don’t have the money. Pakistan managed to get a gold but Nadeem did it with zero support at all. Indonesia tends to do well in weightlifting and badminton but competing with China is a big ask. The various governing bodies of Nigeria are notoriously corrupt and inefficient. Bangladesh is on fire. I can go on.