Posted on 03/01/2010 8:07:34 AM PST by mattstat
The 2010 Winter Olympics are over and the USA came out on top with the highest medal count at 37. Germany was next at 30, followed by Canada at 26.
Lost in those numbers is any measure of difficulty. Gold medals are lumped together with Silver and Bronze. And we lose any indication of the overall challenge: more competitors mean more challenging games. For example, if there were only three countries competing, then coming in third place is no great distinction.
The overall number of medals is also a floating marker. This is because the number of games included in the Olympics has been increasing.
So I decided to plot a few pictures to have a better idea of what is happening.
The first is a shot of the number of games in competition. In the first Winter Games in 1924, there were only 16 sports. This fell by two in the next two meetings, but then gradually rose to a full 86 in the 2010 games. ..
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
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