More than 5000 Olympic events have had a winner, rewarded with a gold medal from 1904 onwards, in the Summer Olympics since the first games of 1896. Investigate the visuals below to see how each of these medals has been won in the 56 different sporting disciplines that have competed at the games, of which 41 are still held at Rio 2016.

Most of the Olympic sports started out being a men only event. Thankfully this started to change during the 2nd half of the last century. Even the number of medals that can be won for one discipline is slowly becoming the same for both genders. Today at Rio there are 3 disciplines left in which only one gender can compete; the Greco-Roman wrestling, already at the games since the very first edition, is done solely by men. Rhythmic gymnastics & synchronized swimming on the other hand, both at the Olympics since 1984, are only performed by women.

Although Rio could have been celebrating the 31st Olympic Games, 3 editions have been canceled, due to WW I in 1916 and WW II in 1940 & 1944. And yes, Tug of war has truly been part of 5 Olympic Games, from 1900 to 1920. Hover over the medals to see the winning athlete or team or hover over the time-line in the bottom of each circle to find your own interesting stories.

Instead of a medal being represented by a specific width, in these visuals 1 medal always has the same arc length. This makes sure that the more recent the edition of the games, the more emphasis it gets due to the increasing size of the ring.