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So after 16 days of incredible sporting achievement, today we said goodbye to Tokyo 2020 and can now start the countdown to Paris 2024, which if anyone is wondering is 1089 days to go... surely it is worthy of a Mark Bradbourne daily GIF tweet, no?
Joking aside the Olympics embodies all that is great about sport; showcasing not only amazing talent but also inspiring so many people to get involved in sports and to recognise there are no boundaries to entry, anyone can get up and give it a go, whether that be on the track, in the pool or any number of the new arenas that have wowed us over the last fortnight... for me the personal highlight was the speed element of the sport climbing (and before any of you get any wild ideas, I have no plans to try it out for myself.... I know my limits!).
The reason for starting with reflections on the Olympics is that at #SportsVizSunday we aim to achieve something similar when it comes to inspiring people to viz. We recognise so many of the #DataFam are passionate about sports and we aim to give you a reason to viz about what you love, whether that be through our monthly challenge or our weekly round-ups, where we showcase all the vizzes tagged with #SportsVizSunday over the past 7 days. So regardless of your background, your gender, your race, your age, if you love data, and you love sports, hopefully over the coming weeks many more people from across the community will connect with us at #SportsVizSunday and join in the celebration of data + sports.
Looking back over the last week we have 8 vizzes to showcase and it fills me with joy to start with someone participating in #SportsVizSunday for the first time; Katie Kilroy. She showcase female gymnastics and analysed the changing age profile of competitors. I really enjoyed Katie's annotations that really enhanced the storytelling element of her viz, and her choice of charts was spot on. Thanks for joining the team, Katie and I can't wait to see more of your sports vizzes over the coming months.
Staying on the theme of the Olympics, Ray Harris was clearly enjoying the action as he created 3 vizzes this week, one on the 50km walk, another on the men's decathlon, however, for me the stand out one was his showcase of Christine Sinclair, the Canadian Women's Football Superstar. I loved how Ray successfully embedded her image front and centre of the viz and then worked the analysis around it, and obviously a massive congratulations to the Canadian Team for their gold medal success.
Next on to the podium we have Luca Rocchetti who visualised 120 years of the Olympic Games and did some great call out BANs at the top, embedded within the Olympic rings. You can view his creation on Tableau Public here.
Avinash Reddy Munnangi analysed medal counts by country for the Tokyo games. A small multiple is a great fit when analysing data across so many nations.
Finishing up on the Olympics, our #SportsVizSunday founding father, James Smith, came up with this analysis of Team GB medals by day and sports for the Tokyo games. For those of you familiar with James' work you will not be surprised by how clean it is, and the medal analysis at the bottom is a fantastic addition.
So 7 vizzes down and 7 Olympic vizzes, there has to have been some other sporting celebrations this week, right? Well fear not, we round off this week's round up with a viz by #SportsVizSunday regular, Adam Green. His cycling analysis of "The Manx Missile", Mark Cavendish included some fantastic design elements, such as the call out BANs, the curvy timeline with decades labelled cleanly to the side. It just all works really well together.
And with that we conclude another great week of sports data vizzing. Don't forget the August challenge is live and features UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) with it being guest hosted by Ryan Soares; but if UFC doesn't float your boat, just tag us with your own sporting data vizzes and we will do the rest to help showcase your work.