Osaka, 2007, photo by PhotoRun.net

TrackStats is one of the most reliable and classic newsletters in our sport. Their new analysis of all medals in World Champs from 1983-2015 is fascinating!

Mapping medals: world championships 1983-2015

We have crunched all the world championship medal data from 1983 and set it out on an interactive map.

When you select an event, the larger the bubble on the map, the more valuable the medal (ie a gold would be bigger than silver and so on). The largest bubbles represent a clean sweep of the medals results in the largest circle–something only done 17 times by five countries (USA – six times, Ethiopia – five, Kenya – four, and East Germany and Russia both once).

For medals from countries that no longer exist (Soviet Union, East/West Germany, Czechoslovakia), we have matched them to the modern equivalent. This means, for example, that Sergey Bubka’s pole vault golds go to Russia up until 1993, which then switch to Ukraine.

Also note that some women’s events are only added to later editions of the world championships (pole vault, triple jump, hammer, 10,000m, 5000m, 3000m steeplechase).

To see the entire story with the amazing interactive map, click here: http://track-stats.com/mapping-medals-world-championships-1983-2015/

Author

Larry Eder
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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