I find the medal distribution interesting. In most countries (US, Russia, Germany, Australia) with enough medals to make analysis reasonable you see an even distribution between the medals (gold,silver,bronze). - Larger countries, bigger, broader youth sports participation more medals all around. Makes sense. But for China you see a big lump of golds. The count is high enough that you can see the results of the plan. In a look at the 2004 and 2000 results you can see the lopsidedness towards gold started then and continues to grow now. FWIW