The Changing Geography of Olympic Medal Winners

The New York Times has created a great information graphic showing the medal winners for each of the modern-era summer Olympics. It is a simple cartogram with proportional circles representing the number of medals each country earned. The color scheme and design are simple and effective. As you scroll across the timeline, you can see many stories. I see the effects of distance in the early years, the addition of new countries into the core of the world system, proxy Cold War battles during the Cold War (especially the boycotts of the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics), and, of course, globalization and the rise of China. What other stories do you see?

NY Times Olympic Medal Map