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307 – Higher, Faster, Stronger: the Olympic Medals Map (2004)

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It will be some days yet before the Summer Games of the XXIXth Olympiad in Beijing draw to a close, so the medal count is still not complete. Host nation China seems on course to achieve its goal of dominating the medal tables, having built up a strong lead in the number of golds, but is still slightly behind the US in the total number of medals.

This map shows the complete medal count of the previous Summer Olympics in Athens, and is one of several on this page of the New York Times website. The number of medals per country is morphed into a medal map for each of the modern-era Summer Olympics, starting with Athens in 1896.

In Athens in 2004, The US dominated the medal counts in gold, silver and overall categories. Here is an overview of the Top 10 (country; number of gold, silver and bronze medals; total), sorted by total number of medals:

  1. US (36, 39, 27, 102)
  2. Russia (27, 27, 38, 92)
  3. China (32, 17, 14, 63)
  4. Australia (17, 16, 16, 49)
  5. Germany (13, 16, 20, 49)
  6. Japan (16, 9, 12, 37)
  7. France (11, 9, 13, 33)
  8. Italy (10, 11, 11, 32)
  9. South Korea (9, 12, 9, 30)
  10. Great Britain (9, 9, 12, 30)

    11. Host country Greece came in 15th (6, 6, 4, 16) and the bottom of the table was made up of Eritrea, Mongolia, Syria and Trinidad and Tobago, each winning just one bronze medal.

    Many thanks to all who sent in this map.

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