Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Google Maps, Google Earth and the Summer Games

Just a quick post to point out this story from the LA Times:
From where do the most Beijing Summer Olympic medal winners hail? Despite Michael Phelps being well on his way to breaking Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals at a single Games, it’s not North America that has the most gold medals so far. According to the Google Maps’ Summer Games 2008, as of Aug. 12, 2008, China has won the most Olympic gold. The United States has won the most overall medals.

The Stadium page is my favorite of all the maps. Click on a stadium and watch a video as Google Earth zooms in. They also offer a photo and info about the venue.
Nothing major here, and probably no real educational relevance (other than curiosity, which isn't such a bad thing), just thought it was interesting. I bet there are more creative uses of Google Maps/Earth and the Olympics. If you know of any, please leave a URL in the comments.

I'm way behind in my aggregator (with no hope of catching up now that school is officially upon us), but it sure seems like somebody, perhaps dy/dan, should have a post coming soon with some great problems using current Olympic data. (I'm pretty sure he posted a while back doing some predictions with Olympic data, but I can't find it at the moment - somebody leave that URL in the comments as well and I'll update the post.)

3 comments:

  1. Questions I may ask this fall, in order of ascending difficulty:

    1) Rank the countries by medals won.
    2) Rank the countries by medals won per person.
    3) Rank the countries by medals won per million dollars GDP.

    Oh man, so fun. The answers are:

    1) US.
    2) An itty-bitty country that didn't get blown out. Maybe the Bahamas.
    3) A country with a second-world GDP that didn't get blown out. Somewhere in South America, I expect.

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  2. @dan - Thanks. How about "Rank the countries by medals won per budget amount spent on training Olympic athletes?"

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  3. Solid video right here, Karl. Just slid across my desk.

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