Following the foundation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1890 the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens mark the beginning of the modern Olympic Games. 14 nations and 241 athletes competed in 43 events back then. The number of participating nations, of athletes and awarded medals has grown ever since. At the 30th Summer Olympics in London this year, 204 nations participated with 10,820 athletes who competed for medals in 302 events. After mapping the picture of this year’s event, it is also interesting to see how the modern Olympics of all time compare, with some interesting differences but also persisting patterns of success. The following map series shows where all the medals of the Olympics in the past 116 years went to (with the main map combining Summer and Winter games, and the two smaller maps showing the two separately):
Tag Archives: medals
Olympic legacy: London 2012 medal maps
“A raucous pageant of popular culture” (Guardian) was the last act of the 30th Olympic Games in London, and discussion about the legacy of the Games started. From a global perspective, that legacy is often measured in sporting success – however great the ‘spirit’ of the Olympics is emphasized. So it comes as little surprise that the medal tables are revisited over and over again, with alternative ways of looking at the sporting success having proven quite popular this year. But despite an extraordinary performance of the host nation and some disappointments in other parts of the world, the overall picture of Olympic success stories is of little surprises.
Olympic inequalities already started with an imbalance of participating athletes from around the world (as shown in the map here) which hardly reflects the global population distribution. That pattern is carried forward to the winner’s podium, where in large the wealthier parts of the world are represented (even if some great exceptions have made quite some headlines). The following map shows the final medal tables in Worldmapper-style cartograms, with the main map representing the total medal count, and the smaller inset map splitting these numbers into separate maps of gold, silver and bronze medals, each resizing a country according to the number of medals that it has received (compare these maps to the map of participants and the map of the world’s population):
Vancouver revisited: Paralympics vs Olympics
The glowing hearts in Vancouver eventually died down with the ending of the Winter Paralympics yesterday. Time for another review and another map: The following map shows the final results of the Paralympics with the countries of the world re-sized according to the total number of medals awarded at the Paralympics (click map for larger view):
This map becomes quite interesting when opposed to the results of the Olympics. The more affluent countries dominate the whole picture again at the Paralympics, but there are some obvious differences. China disappeared, Eastern Europe grew and Canada finally managed to catch up with the United States. Here is the map of the Olympics again:
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Vancouver 2010 medal count
The Winter Olympics in Vancouver yielded some great visualizations, with the New York Times work being amongst the top ones. They are showing off a map of the Winter Olympic Medals in the tradition of the Dorling cartograms. They also did a great job on a 3D map of the venues.
For those who want for worldmapper style maps, here is the relief: The worldmapper map of the actual medal count. The following is transformed due to a country’s total number of medals it has won.
A larger version of the map can be viewed by clicking on the image.