Although the 2014 Paralympics started in the middle of the turmoil of the ongoing political crisis in the Ukraine, they went by rather smoothly in the end as most politically controversial tend to do. Putting politics aside, the Russian dominance that already became apparent at the Olympics (see this map) was even greater: The final medal count saw Russia at top of the table with not only the most medals (80), but also most gold (30), silver (28) and bronze (22). Germany came second with 15 medals (9 of them gold), closely followed by Canada with 16 medals (but only 7 gold which put them in third place in the rankings). Second-most medals, however, were won by Ukraine which is an peculiar detail given the current political situation. Britain won the first gold medal ever at the Paralympic winter games, and 19 nations managed to win at least one medal. Here is the Worldmapper-style view of all medals, showing the countries of the world resized according to their total medals won at the 2014 Winter Paralympics (as well as the individual success in each medal category):
Tag Archives: paralympics
2012 Paralympic and Olympic Medal maps
No more bread and circuses: London 2012 has turned into history while the Paralympic cauldron has been extinguished in a ‘Festival of Flame’. Just about time for a final roundup of the statistics of the games and the last maps that were still missing.
In the United Kingdom the spirit of the Olympics lived on in the Paralympics as created a similar media coverage (which has less been the case in many other countries). A lot of the public debate in Britain in the final debate of the Paralympics focussed on an increased relevance of the games – and that the results have started getting an equal importance as the Olympic medal counts. As already noticed at the Vancouver winter games, a comparison of the results showed some interesting differences in the achievements of the participating nations. This is shown in the following map animation of two cartograms showing each country’s share in the total medal counts (switching between the Paralympics and the Olympics 2012):
Athletes at the 2012 Paralympics
“It’s Official – London 2012 to be Biggest Paralympic Games Ever“, was the proud announcement at the Official Website of the Paralympic Movement ahead of this year’s Paralympic Games in London. While the games can not yet compete with the Olympics (over 10,000 athletes came to London just a few weeks ago), a new record has been set with over 4,200 athletes taking part at the 2012 Paralympics in the British capital. According to Wikipedia, this is “an increase of 250 athletes in comparison to the 2008 Summer Paralympics. They will represent 164 countries, 17 more than in Beijing. Fourteen countries will be making their Paralympic Games début: Antigua and Barbuda, Brunei, Cameroon, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mozambique, North Korea, San Marino, the Solomon Islands, and the US Virgin Islands“.
Leaving absolute numbers aside, the participation patterns in the Paralympics as shown in the following Worldmapper-style cartogram are not that strikingly different to those from the Olympics (a comparison to the Olympic Games can be found here). However, many interesting differences can still be spotted when looking at the details: China, and even more so Brazil are amongst the countries who (in relation) play an even bigger role, while the European dominance is slightly reduced, partly due to smaller shares of Eastern Europe (where Ukraine strikes out as one of the larger participants). In the Pacific, New Zealand’s size shrunk from is far larger number of athletes at the Olympics. The following map shows in proportion where all the sportsmen and women have traveled to London from this year (the two inset maps show the world’s population distribution in comparison and a conventional land area map as a reference):
