8 replies to this topic

[OzSox]

Since I work for an Olympic statistics company, and since I will spend the next 16 days locked in an office writing Olympic stats, I thought it might be fun to post some of them into this thread, and for others to join in with their own interesting stats or facts about these Games.

A few to get us started:

> No male swimmer has ever won the same individual event at three straight Olympics. Michael Phelps has FOUR chances to do it at London 2012.

> The USA has won 19 gold medals in Olympic basketball (men and women). No other active country has won more than one.

> Venus Williams can become the first tennis player to win four Olympic golds. She currently shares the record of three with Reggie Doherty (GBR).

For the twitterati among you, we post stats like these on our Olympic account @Infostrada2012.

[MentalDisabldLst]

Cool job, man. You get to be whimsical and curious while also playing with data.

> The USA has won 19 gold medals in Olympic basketball (men and women). No other active country has won more than one.

That's a little disingenuous, though, isn't it? I mean, the Soviet Union won two men's and two women's titles (not counting that 'Unified States' thing in 1992). Even if now they go by "Russia", it's pretty much the same.

Speaking of basketball, though, my favorite Dream Team factoid from 1992 is that they not only won every game, but in fact never called a time out.

[DrewDawg]

That's a little disingenuous, though, isn't it? I mean, the Soviet Union won two men's and two women's titles (not counting that 'Unified States' thing in 1992). Even if now they go by "Russia", it's pretty much the same.

I don't agree that it's the same at all. The best player on the Soviet team in 1988 was Lithuanian (Sabonis). Sarunas Marciulonis was also Lithuanian. They also had two other guys from Lithuania. They also had players from Ukraine (at least 2), Estonia, Latvia, and Uzbekistan.

So, 9 of the 12 guys definitely weren't Russian. I don't think saying the Soviet Union isn't the same as Russia is disingenuous at all.

The less said about the 1972 gold the better, but 6 of those guys weren't Russian either.

[OzSox]

Here are a few stats we've done in the last 24 hours that I've particularly liked:

> Michael Jung (GER) is the first person in Olympic history to win TWO Olympic gold medals on his birthday.

> Mark Todd (NZL) won a medal in equestrian today 28 years after his last Olympic medal in 1984 - the equal longest time between Olympic medals by any athlete in history. 7911 of the athletes competing at London 2012 weren't born when Todd won his last Olympic medal before today.

> At 17-081, Missy Franklin is just the TENTH youngest winner of women's Olympic 100m backstroke. 15 of 21 winners have been 18 or under.

[MentalDisabldLst]

The women's world record for discus throw, set in 1988 by East German Gabriele Reisch, is 76.80 meters. The men's world record, set in 1986 by East German Jurgen Schult, is 74.08 meters. Schult's record is now the longest-standing track and field record, surpassing Jesse Owens's long jump record which stood for 25 years.

[SumnerH]

The US has the longest Olympic reign in any major team sport, with a 92 year run as reigning gold medalists in rugby (bad math excised, but 92 years will stand).

Presumably the US (who haven't been even competent at the sport since the 1940s) will lose the title in 2016--the only reason they have that run is because 1924 is the last year rugby was played at the Olympics, and they managed a shocking upset of France. But it's a weird trivia tidbit for now.

[jon abbey]

The women's world record for discus throw, set in 1988 by East German Gabriele Reisch, is 76.80 meters. The men's world record, set in 1986 by East German Jurgen Schult, is 74.08 meters. Schult's record is now the longest-standing track and field record, surpassing Jesse Owens's long jump record which stood for 25 years.

This made me research a bit, and to save anyone else that trouble, the men throw a 2 kg discus and the women's is 1 kg.

[SumnerH]

This made me research a bit, and to save anyone else that trouble, the men throw a 2 kg discus and the women's is 1 kg.

There were also massive changes in javelin rules c. 1991 that make all the records discontinuous around that point.

[OzSox]

The women's world record for discus throw, set in 1988 by East German Gabriele Reisch, is 76.80 meters. The men's world record, set in 1986 by East German Jurgen Schult, is 74.08 meters. Schult's record is now the longest-standing track and field record, surpassing Jesse Owens's long jump record which stood for 25 years.

I assume you mean longest standing men's track and field world record, since there are three women's world records that were set earlier than 1986 which still stand. By my count, the oldest is Jarmila Kratochvílová's 800m record, which was set on 26 July 1983.

Meanwhile, last night Allyson Felix became the second woman in Olympic history to win an individual gold after previously winning two silvers in the same event. The Japanese judoka Ryoko Tani was the first.