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I enjoy these data visualizations of the 2021 summer olympics, conceived by designer Eden Weingart and created by the New York Times graphic department. This one is specifically for swimming, the 400-meter freestyle.
To make these animations, the graphic team created a program that can apply the raw data of the race onto animations, allowing twitter users to see a sped-up version of the race’s events (not just the results!). This raw data included each swimmer’s time for every meter of the race, the time they hit the end of the pool and turned around, and the time they finished. The program then mapped this data onto an animated avatar for each athlete.
I find this approach to sports reporting really cool, since it provides a different way for us to interact with the data of the sport. It can be quite tempting to throw all of the data out the window once we know who won, but an approach such as this allows casual readers to see those intricacies – who led at first, any surprising turnovers, etc. – in a consumable and exciting way.