The Olympic Games are highly commercialised. They purport to follow the traditions of an ancient athletics competition, but today it is the commercial aspect that is most apparent. I have seen how, through sport, cities and corporations compete against each other for financial gain. The Olympics are beholden to the wishes of various commercial operations, which in turn shape our understanding of the event and of the world. They are no longer connected to the idea that humanity can be expressed through athletics.
The maps show each country resized according to the number of Bronze medals received by each country (with the Olympic Athlete from Russia shown as Russia). Olympic games are still an event that is largely influenced by wealth of participating nations. As the following cartogram of the number of participants shows, the most affluent countries are those that send most athletes to the games – with a slight bias towards classic ‘winter sports’-countries
