A Map of Olympic Medals

89 Comments

Rudegar, on 08/06/2008, -0/+30776 BC in Olympia, Greece all medals!!! :O :P
nads, on 08/05/2008, -1/+29Very, very cool design and implementation.
ditroia, on 08/06/2008, -1/+25Very nice check this chart out.

Lists medal tally per Capita:

http://abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/57a31759b55dc9 ...
fugazied, on 08/06/2008, -0/+10http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1904_Summer_Olympics
War kept a lot of top athletes away and the list of competitors is a pretty small. Australia sent 2 people, the USA sent 523. The USA was 80%+ of competitors.
dn11, on 08/06/2008, -0/+81980 and 1984 are the most interesting years. the cold war in graphical form
inactive, on 08/06/2008, -1/+8Athens 2004
Indian: population = 1billion, medals = 1 silver
fatas, on 08/06/2008, -1/+7Australia ***** yeah
brettalton, on 08/06/2008, -0/+6Go go gadget Internet.
Modiga, on 08/06/2008, -0/+6The 1904 Marathon was one of the craziest Olympic events ever.

The first person across the line gave up after 9 miles, got driven back to the finish line and was declared the winner as he returned to collect his clothes.
The recognised winner was practically carried across the line by his trainers, due to him suffering from strychnine poisoning, that had been served to him with brandy, by his trainers because they believed it helped athletic performance,
In forth place was a man from Cuba, he was a postman and ran the marathon in street clothes. He stopped off in an orchard whilst running and ate some of the apples, which turned out to be rotten. So he fell asleep to recover from the stomach upset they caused.
One man was expected to win but ultimately came ninth largely due to being chased a mile off course by a ferocious dog.
inactive, on 08/06/2008, -1/+7.au hahahaha only us aussies would do such a thing.

And from a government source
mk47k, on 08/06/2008, -1/+6Canada eh!
appletalk, on 08/06/2008, -1/+6It's great how you can see the history of the world in a global sports event. A few interesting observations:
- 1980 / 1984 contrast (Moscow - Los Angeles)
- The growth of China from 1984 - present (also Brazil and South America)
- Japan regularity, with its disappearance after the 1945 bombings in the 1948 event, and then its complete restoration. This regularity and its amazing recovery tells a lot about its culture of hard work and discipline.

The tendency of China will clearly accentuate this year.
Oxygen, on 08/06/2008, -0/+5The home teams always seem have the advantage.
noloveIII, on 08/06/2008, -0/+5they weren't on because of a boycott
hiltinuts2, on 08/06/2008, -0/+4Very nice. Happen to learn something this morning which is good. Did not know that China also boycotted the 1980 games. Good digg.
kocher, on 08/06/2008, -2/+61904!
fugazied, on 08/06/2008, -0/+4For a country of about 23 million they get a LOT of medals.
iizh, on 08/06/2008, -0/+3The things you're proud of are simply strange. Exporting uranium? Wtf? And being in all those wars just shows you're America's lapdog in the international arena (blunt truth, sorry). Surely you got something better? Else you just proved Ortheos right.
yiling1990, on 08/06/2008, -1/+4i guess they dont call it "home court advantage" for nothing.
Peko, on 08/06/2008, -0/+3I am not a statistician, but this seems interesting.

The article's statistical method seems skewed against large countries. You can only win one gold medal for an event in one games so if a country like china sweeps an event (gold, silver, bronze) before another country takes 4th, in a way it's like saying if the event was held 3 times, (that year), China could have won 3 gold medals.

This is kinda annecdotal but... how the US seems to really dominate in track. Or the damn aussies in the pool. Or how babies from the United Scandinavians of Scandinavia seem to be born with cross country skiis already attached.
tobsterius, on 08/06/2008, -3/+6Wow... the US kicked some major ass in the 1904 games...
Lochie, on 08/06/2008, -0/+3I think you can enter more competitors when it's hosted in your own country? I forget the specifics but it's something along those lines.
thisoneisunique, on 08/06/2008, -0/+3The development of West, East and then reunified Germany is interesting - considering how much smaller the East German population was. Either communist countries are just very much into sports or they have a lax attitude on doping (I have a preference on which one it is)
Stap1eGun, on 08/06/2008, -1/+4India has 1 medal for every 1.01 billion people.
Azimuth1, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2There's more to it than that. The amount of money a country has to spend (and chooses to spend) on sport makes a huge difference. Clearly the US has an advantage in that respect.

In fact, purely in terms of medals per capita, the US is outranked by quite a number of countries. It's 34th on this list: http://abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/57a31759b55dc9 ...
djepik, on 08/06/2008, -1/+3Lol @ 1904 in St. Louis

1. United States - 239 medals
2. Germany - 13 medals
kengineer, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2They should bring back the Tug-of-War as an event.
Julz, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2WOO GO NEW ZEALAND! WOOO!
djepik, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2Thank you New York Times for making beautiful, effective and informative graphics.
mecharabbit, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2It's a pretty sure bet, but I think heads will roll (literally, perhaps) in China if they don't win the medal count.
stephapple, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2Very cool.
fadetoone, on 08/06/2008, -1/+3I guess you aren't too familiar with history. The US and Soviet Union didn't like eachother too much in the early 80s.
inactive, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2China will top this time.
nicksoni, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2Its great to see how many more diverse nations are winning more medals. Hope fully in the coming years those numbers will be even greater as people from smaller countries get their chances to compete.
londonflare, on 08/06/2008, -1/+3These maps really show the European dominance, for instance if you were split nations into continents this is how I would see the medal rankings:

Europe: 0.7bn
Americas: 0.9bn
China: 1.4bn
Asia excl China and India: 1.1bn
Africa: 0.9bn
India: 1,3bn

Europe would be far and away top of the medal table, even if Russia competed seperately. Go Europe! (for once).
Stiffler1, on 08/06/2008, -0/+2yes some of us were fighting for our countries when some people are running around in little shorts. Rule Britainia!
HeDiggMe, on 08/06/2008, -0/+230M people and only 12 medals....Canada needs to step their game up!
theDrizzle, on 08/07/2008, -0/+2the fact that countries who host win more medals was so CRAZILY out of proportion from 1898-1912. idk if it was when the US won 239 medals in St. Louis in 1904, or if it was when the french won 101 medals in Paris in 1900 that was the most obvious example. come on, how the hell should the french be winning that much, unless one of the games was a wine drinking game or a who-could-be-the-biggest-prick contest.

/stereotypes
bodzasfanta, on 08/06/2008, -1/+2Hungary is the best! Our country is the smallest with the most medals.
KMye, on 08/06/2008, -1/+2http://revisegerman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/20 ...

(someone needs to make an Instant Wrong Buzzer)
nicksoni, on 08/06/2008, -0/+1I think they might be more of the Winter Olympics type of people :)
AriaStar, on 08/12/2008, -0/+1The Chinese have a big advantage. They are used to breathing the polluted air that makes breathing more difficult for peopple from other countries with cleaner air.
kencurran, on 08/06/2008, -0/+1Great learning experience!
Hoogs, on 08/06/2008, -1/+2Yeah, I loved how the bubbles rearranged when clicking through the years.
inderpreet99, on 08/06/2008, -2/+3The funny thing is India is supposed to host 2016 Olympics. India's athletics infrastructure is a joke. They won't spend a dime on their players, but they want to host the damned Olympics.
troon, on 08/06/2008, -0/+1That's fantastic.

The world seems more stable over the last three Olympics - prior to that, bubbles pop up and down more frantically.
DesignNerd, on 08/06/2008, -0/+1That and I am sure they were all in the armed forces.
londonflare, on 08/07/2008, -0/+1European women are pretty loose
inactive, on 08/06/2008, -0/+1What about India? I billion= one fluke medal?
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