Visualizing Olympics (1896-2008)
Since the Modern Olympics began in 1896, there has been 26 Summer Olympic
Games held in 21 different cities. In addition, three summer of
the Games were scheduled to take place but were later cancelled due to war: Berlin in 1916, Tokyo and London in 1944. Five cities have been chosen by the IOC to host
upcoming Olympic Games: London for 2012 Summer Olympic, Rio de Janeiro for the 2016
Summer Olympics, Pyeongchang for the 2018
Winter Olympics, Tokyo for the 2020
Summer Olympics, and Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Olympic Hosts
Los Angles, London, Paris
and Athens are the only four cities who have hosted Olympics twice
No. of countries participating
Today IOC's strength is of
204 countries. There are 193 members of United Nation. While there are 300+
countries in the world. If membership of IOC keeps on increasing at the current
rate, all the countries of the world would be playing in Olympics 2040.
1980 Summer Olympics
Boycott-> The movement spurred by President Jimmy Carter influenced 66
countries to boycott Moscow Olympics
Top Ten countries based on medals
The word cloud shows the
overall top ten countries in Olympics. The fight for the top positions has
always been between US, Russia and Germany. Lately, Australia is also giving
these countries a tough fight.
Top Ten Countries based on Medals (Male and Female)
Olympics had its own share
of criticism. One of the biggest criticism faced by Olympics is that it’s
always male dominated .We see that there is hardly any difference in the basket
of countries between the overall and male focused picture while the difference
is stark when we compare the overall picture with the female focused picture.
China enters the basket of Top ten countries (Female) in 1984 and grew
gradually since then.
Timeline of Sport Events
Aquatics, Athletics,
Cycling, Fencing and Gymnastics are the most played sports in Olympics .Cricket
was also played in the year 1900.
Top Ten most played Games
Athletics, Aquatics and
Shooting are the most played games. Judo as a sport is also gaining popularity.
Apart from the above mentioned games Wrestling, Weightlifting and Boxing seems
to be more popular in the male section, while Gymnastics and cycling seems to
be more popular among females.
No. of Athletes participating
On an average Athlete
Participation is increasing at the rate of 4.34%.We see three major dips in the
participation over the past 112 years-1932, 1956 and 1980.
1932-> Because of the economic effects of the Great
Depression, competitors from only 37 nations—with less than half the number of
participants that competed in Amsterdam—travelled to Los Angeles for
the 1932 Summer Olympics
1956-> The Suez Crisis caused Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon to back
down from participation in Olympics. Soviet Union's iron hand on the Hungarian
revolutionaries led to the
withdrawal of Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland .The People's Republic of
China chose to boycott the event because the Republic of China had been allowed
to compete. Although the number of countries participating (67) was almost the
same as in 1952 (69), the number of athletes competing dropped sharply, from
4,925 to 3,342. (This figure does not include the 158 athletes from 29
countries who took part in the Stockholm equestrian competition)
1980 -> Approximately half of the 24 countries that boycotted the
1976 Summer Olympics (in protest against the IOC not expelling New Zealand who
sanctioned a rugby tour of apartheid South Africa) participated in the Moscow
Games, the 1980 Summer Olympics were disrupted by another, even larger, boycott
led by the United States in protest at the 1979 Soviet war in Afghanistan.
Proportion of Males/Female
We see that the proportion
of Female Events to Male Events is gradually increasing and in 2008 its almost
equally proportioned.
No. of Female and Male
athletes participating
There were huge fluctuations
in male participants over the past but unlike female the number male
participants fell down from 6797 in 1996
to 6305 in 2008.The participation of Females rocketed post 1980
Country Medal Ranking
An Olympic Games is a
measurable test of a nation´s sporting power. Medal counts are the object of
intense scrutiny after every Olympics. Most countries celebrate any medal with
national glee, since 60% of competing countries will win none. The top ten countries in the
medal tally account for 35% of the World's GDP.
Total Gold Medals with US
> Gold Medals with Germany + Gold Medals with Russia.
Top Three Athletes
This chart shows top three
athletes for each year
Top Ten Athletes (Male and
Female)
Of the top ten players ever
in Olympics only two are females. Latynina Larisa followed by Michael Phelps
holds the record of highest number of medals .Unlike females, males have a
higher degree of competition for the top position.
Medal Count by Year
- In 1904 USA recorded the
highest number of medals i.e. 394
- This record was broken by
Russia in 1980 Olympics i.e. 442
The Olympics provide us with a singular
opportunity to observe the changing situations of men and women and the
relationship between them. In the space of two or three generations, women’s
presence in society, and consequently also in sport, has increased enormously.
This is undoubtedly a very positive development and something for which I am
are very glad.
**Since my dataset contains observations till 2008 Summer Olympics, all the analysis are constrained by it
