"We're going to France! Parlez-vous Olympics?"

D.B. Sweeney's classic line, from the less-than-classic 1992 movie The Cutting Edge, revealed that the film's two mismatched protagonists—a petulant figure skater (Moira Kelly) and a former college hockey player (Sweeney)—were indeed getting the chance to compete in pairs skating at the Winter Olympics.

“It’s a love/skate relationship,” as the movie’s tagline would have had us believe.

The season is different, but Sweeney's quotation aptly describes the venue and the event we'll focus on for our monthly challenge. Once again, the world's sporting attentions turn to the Olympic Games in Paris, and we'll be watching along for the pageantry, competition, and athletic excellence on display.

We'll also pay close attention to the broadcasts. As dataviz enthusiasts, we can't help but think about how networks show data in real-time, what information they share with the home viewer that provides critical context, and how to cater visual displays to audiences with widely varying levels of knowledge, interest, and understanding.

Inspired by all of this data and information, let’s make sense of it by visualizing the Olympics!

The challenge

This month, we challenge you to visualize any subset of data about the Olympics that you find interesting. The definition of "about the Olympics" here is extremely broad:

you could focus on one competitor, one event, one specific instance of a race, or one country's history at the Games;
you could look into attendance, geographic distribution of host cities, nations who have participated and in what volumes;
if you can find data on Opening or Closing Ceremonies, the events that have come and gone (did you know breakdancing is in the Olympics this year?), or the people who have lit the Olympic torch...go for it!

The important thing is that you choose an Olympics-related topic that interests you, and that your final submitted challenge entry is presented in a way that you believe would interest others.

Share your creation in the SWD community by August 31st at 5PM PT. If you would find any specific feedback or input helpful, include that detail in your commentary. Also, take some time to browse others' submissions and share your input via comments and datapoints throughout the month.

Related resources

There are lots of resources out there with data you could use, including:

Olympic.org: Olympic history, athletes, results, and records; includes past and current games, athlete biographies, and country performance

International Olympic Committee (IOC): Detailed reports, statistics, and official documents; includes data on hosting cities, participating countries, and sports; the factsheets page seems interesting

Statista : Statistics and facts on various aspects of the Olympic Games, including economic impact, TV viewership, and social media engagement (some data requires a subscription)

World Athletics (formerly the IAAF): Athlete profiles, event results, and statistics on track and field events, specifically

Olympedia: A wiki-style collection of historical data from all modern Olympic Games

US Olympic and Paralympic Committee: This is the United States's national Olympic Committee website; many countries maintain their own similar site with information on their specific nation's historical participation and performance at the Games

If you are aware of other good resources, please share in your submission commentary.