This exercise in visualization offers an analysis and insights into how success in the Olympics intersects with economic indicators and global dynamics. Data-driven analyses and visual comparisons will shed light on how various factors shape a nation's sporting achievements. This exercise also explores how socio-political environments influence athletic performance on the world stage.
This set of world maps provides a visual representation of the relationship between a nation's Olympic success and its economic health. On the left, the map details the total Olympic medals won per Olympic event, and on the right each nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Together, they provide an analysis of how wealth may translate into sporting success, or conversely, how a country might prioritize Olympic glory regardless of its economic status. This comparison serves as a foundation for understanding the relationship between a nation's investment in sports and its financial resources. Additionally, the host country of the Olympics is highlighted to show the impact of hosting the Olympics on a nation's medal count.
Winter
Summer
Hover over a point in the scatterplot to view more information. Click or hover over the points in the legend to grey out other regions.
This scatterplot offers a visualization of the relationship between the number of Olympic medals won per Olympic event and the Gender Inequality Index (GII) across different world regions. The data suggests a trend where regions with lower GII, indicating higher gender equality, tend to amass more Olympic medals. Notably, European countries, shown in yellow, appear to have both a lower GII and a higher medal count, implying a potential correlation between gender equality and athletic success. Conversely, regions with higher gender inequality seem to have a lesser presence on the Olympic podium. This analysis highlights the importance of gender equality in fostering an environment where athletes of all genders have the opportunity to thrive and succeed at the highest levels of competition.
To conclude, a country's wealth, socio-political environment and population all play an important role in determining a country's Olympic success. This does not necessarily mean that the top earning country or the country with the lowest Gender Inequality Index sees the most success, but rather that a correlation exists. Given these information, one would expect to be able to relatively well predict the performance of a country in the Olympics.
We started this project with the research of an interesting dataset. We discovered a dataset encompassing Olympic results from the past 120 years, which both of us embraced. Subsequently, we strategized about our specific objectives with this data. What particularly intrigued us was the aspect of success - could we identify factors contributing to success? We took this upon us to find interesting themes, and we then settled with GDP per Capita, Gender Inequality Index, Host Country and Population. We have also decided to design our site after a newspaper.
Having formed our concept, we next needed to identify suitable visualizations to align with these ideas, leading us to seek inspiration. Considering the global scope of the Olympics, maps could effectively represent many factors. However, to maintain viewer engagement, we opted to use maps sparingly. For other visualizations, we chose a basic scatterplot for the Gender Inequality Index and beeswarm plots drawn on a parallel coordinates chart for Population. To emulate the distinct geographical distinctions seen in maps, we decided to differentiate the individual dots by their respective continents. Each continent would be represented by a color corresponding to an Olympic ring, ensuring clear visual distinction.
Each ring represents a continent, but the intent was not to symbolize a continent with a specific color, rather, it was to represent the continent's shape through the ring. The six colors chosen, along with the white background, incorporate all the colours that appeared in the national flags of participating countries at the time of the logo's inception in 1913. [Source]
After arbitrarily choosing the colours for each continent, we then set out to create our individual visualizations. To enhance user engagement, we incorporated a slider allowing the selection of a specific year. Additionally, we added a small toggle button, which enables users to swap between the winter and summer Olympics. Due to the complexity of having both the Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year up until 1992, and the significant change in the geographical landscape, most notably the change from the USSR to Russia, we decided to focus our analysis exclusively on the 21st century.
In the following section, it's evident that we utilized a variety of data sources. The Olympics data, for instance, provided us with only IOC codes and country names. However, for mapping purposes, ISO3 codes were essential. Consequently, we had to source an additional dataset that included both IOC and ISO3 codes, ensuring accurate representation of each country's data on the map.