Dev-Olympics Rio 2016 medal table: East of England triumphs

Team GB’s medal-winners from Rio 2016 come from all over the country and beyond, as this interactive map of those winning individual medals shows. (Click on a circle for data on each medal-winner.)

This shows why Manchester is a good choice for a victory parade – it is pretty much in the middle. The data on places of birth (from Team GB) also makes it possible to work out a medal table of regions and nations. This is based only on individual medal-winners: including team medals would mean, for example, dividing the gold won by the women’s hockey team between all their regions and nations. Someone with more time on their hands can try that.

  Gold Silver Bronze Total
GB team medals 9 8 4 21
GB individual medals 18 15 13 46
East of England 4 2 1 7
African-born Britons 3 0 2 5
West Midlands 3 0 0 3
North-west England 2 1 2 5
Yorkshire and the Humber 2 3 2 7
London 1 2 1 4
Wales 1 2 0 3
Scotland 1 1 0 2
South-east England 1 0 1 2
South-west England 0 3 3 6
Isle of Man 0 1 0 1
North-east England 0 0 1 1
Total 27 23 17 67

The East of England comes out on top with four golds, thanks to Max Whitlock’s two golds (born in Hemel Hempstead) and one apiece from Laura Trott (Harlow) and Giles Scott (Huntingdon). It is closely followed by African-born Britons with three golds – two from Mo Farah (born in Somalia) and one from Justin Rose (South Africa) – and the West Midlands, with gold medals won by Joseph Clarke, Adam Peaty (both born in Staffordshire) and Nick Skelton (Warwickshire).

In accordance with Olympic rules this table is organised by number of golds, then silvers, then bronzes. In terms of overall medals, the East of England and Yorkshire and the Humber would come joint-first with seven, with South-west England second.

Wales with a gold and two silvers beats Scotland with just one of each. Using individual medals only is a bit unfair on Scotland, whose athletes won 12 medals in total, with 10 of them in teams. One might draw the conclusion that Scots tend to achieve more when part of something greater, as does the rest of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.


African-born Britons would be 29th in the overall medal table if treated as a country

What if Team GB’s medals were split up and put into the overall medal table? Team GB’s team medals alone would secure eighth place, behind France but ahead of South Korea; the East of England would be 21st behind Canada and above Uzbekistan; and African-born Britons and the West Midlands would be 29th and 30th respectively.

Maps produced with Leaflet and Carto. Full-screen version here.