Sport is a big part of Australian life. People participate in different sports for fitness, enjoyment and competition, while Australia’s Olympic athletes compete at the highest international level. However, being popular among Australians does not necessarily mean a sport will produce more Olympic medals.
This project explores how Australian sports participation in 2024 compares with the country’s performance at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. It also examines differences between male and female participation, highlighting patterns that may not be immediately obvious when looking at the two datasets separately.
Research question: How does participation across different Australian sports compare with medal results at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and how do participation patterns differ between men and women?
Target audience: Sports analysts, sporting organisations, researchers and anyone interested in understanding Australian sport.
| Dataset | Information provided |
|---|---|
| AusPlay 2024 | Australian sports participation rates, including male and female participation |
| Paris 2024 Olympic results | Australia’s Olympic medal records across selected sports |
The two datasets measure different aspects of sport. AusPlay describes participation among Australians, while Olympic medal records reflect elite sporting achievements.
Some Olympic disciplines have been matched with broader AusPlay sport categories, and not all mappings have been verified. These comparisons are intended to highlight patterns rather than establish that participation directly causes Olympic success.
Australia’s performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics provides the starting point for this analysis. The first visualisation compares medal records across sporting categories to show how Australia’s Olympic results were distributed. The horizontal bar chart makes it easier to compare sports, while the interactive hover feature allows readers to examine individual medal-record counts.
Swimming stands out with 19 medal records when marathon swimming is included in the broader swimming category. Athletics follows with 7 records, while cycling accounts for 6 across track and road events. Together, these three categories represent 32 of the 53 Australian medal records in the dataset.
These figures show that medal records were concentrated in a relatively small number of sporting categories, particularly swimming. This creates a starting point for examining whether the sports associated with more Olympic medals also attract higher participation among Australians.
Olympic medals reflect elite sporting achievements, but they do not necessarily show how widely a sport is played by the Australian population. This visualisation compares participation rates from AusPlay 2024 with Australia’s medal records from the Paris Olympics.
Each point represents a sport. Its horizontal position shows the participation rate, while its vertical position represents the number of medal records. Colours distinguish exact sport-category matches from proposed mappings.
Swimming combines a participation rate of 15.19% with 19 medal records. Athletics has a much lower participation rate of 1.51% but still accounts for 7 medal records. Tennis, meanwhile, has a participation rate of 5.08% and one medal record.
These examples illustrate different combinations of participation and Olympic results. The comparison does not show a consistent pattern in which higher participation always corresponds to more medal records. It is important to remember that Olympic performance can be influenced by several factors, including athlete development, international competition and the number of medal opportunities available.
The third visualisation shifts attention from Olympic results to participation among Australian males and females. Overall participation figures can provide a general picture of sport, but they may hide differences between population groups.
This grouped horizontal bar chart displays male and female participation rates alongside each other, allowing readers to compare participation within individual sports.
Basketball provides an example of higher male participation, with a rate of 6.94% compared with 2.60% for females. Swimming shows the opposite pattern, with female participation at 16.18% compared with 14.14% for males.
The previous visualisation compared male and female participation rates separately. The fourth chart builds on that comparison by showing the difference between the two rates for each sport.
The gender participation gap is calculated by subtracting the female participation rate from the male participation rate. Positive values indicate higher male participation, while negative values indicate higher female participation. These differences are expressed in percentage points.
Basketball has a male-favoured participation gap of approximately 4.34 percentage points, while cycling has a gap of 3.99 percentage points. Swimming shows a female-favoured gap of approximately 2.04 percentage points, and equestrian has a smaller female-favoured gap of 0.59 percentage points.
The diverging bar chart makes these differences easier to recognise because readers can compare both their direction and size against the central zero line. Although the chart identifies participation differences, it does not explain why they occur.
The final visualisation brings together participation rates, Olympic medal records and sport-category mapping information. It provides another perspective on the relationship between everyday sporting participation and elite sporting results.
Sports are displayed along the vertical axis, while their participation rates appear along the horizontal axis. Bubble sizes represent medal records, and colours indicate whether the category comparison is exact or provisional.
Swimming has the highest participation rate among the matched categories at 15.19%, alongside 19 medal records. Athletics has 7 medal records despite a participation rate of only 1.51%, while cycling combines an 8.59% participation rate with 6 medal records.
The chart brings these contrasting patterns together and highlights the importance of considering category definitions. Some Olympic disciplines are grouped into broader AusPlay participation categories, meaning that not every comparison is exact.
The final visualisation reinforces that population participation and Olympic results describe different aspects of Australian sport and should not be interpreted as evidence of a direct causal relationship.
The five visualisations provide an overview of Australian sport in 2024 by comparing participation patterns with Australia’s performance at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The analysis highlights differences in Olympic medal records across sports, variations in participation rates, and differences between male and female participation.
Swimming stands out in both participation and Olympic medal records, with a participation rate of 15.19% and 19 medal records. However, athletics and tennis show that higher participation does not always correspond to more Olympic medals. The gender comparisons also reveal differences, with basketball and cycling showing higher male participation, while swimming has higher female participation.
Overall, the findings suggest that sporting popularity and Olympic achievement do not follow the same pattern across every sport. Participation rates reflect involvement in everyday sporting activities, while Olympic medal records represent elite performance. Looking at both provides a broader understanding of Australia’s sporting landscape without assuming that participation directly determines Olympic success.
Although this analysis provides useful insights into Australian sport, a few limitations should be considered. The AusPlay 2024 dataset measures general sports participation, while the Paris 2024 Olympic dataset focuses on elite sporting achievements. Since these datasets measure different outcomes, higher participation does not necessarily mean that a sport will achieve more Olympic medals.
Another limitation is the difference in how sports are classified. Some Olympic disciplines were combined into broader AusPlay categories. For example, track and road cycling were grouped under Cycling, while marathon swimming was included under Swimming. Some of these mappings remain provisional, which may affect the accuracy of comparisons between sports.
Finally, the analysis focuses only on 2024 and does not show how participation or Olympic performance has changed over time. Therefore, the findings should be understood as descriptive comparisons rather than evidence of a direct relationship between participation and Olympic success.
Australian Sports Commission. (n.d.). AusPlay: Participation data tables [Data set]. https://www.ausport.gov.au/clearinghouse/research/ausplay/results/data-tables
Ministère des Sports. (2024). Paris 2024 – Résultats des médaillés pour chaque discipline Olympique [Data set]. data.gouv.fr. https://www.data.gouv.fr/datasets/paris-2024-resultats-des-medailles-pour-chaque-discipline-olympique
R Core Team. (2026). R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Computer software]. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/
Posit Software, PBC. (2026). RStudio: Integrated development environment for R [Computer software]. https://posit.co/products/open-source/rstudio/
I used chatgpt for the purpose of improving the structure of my written explanation, it also helped me reviewing my spellings and grammar. I used it for the sole purpose of finding online sources related to my work.
I would also like to acknowledge the Australian Sports Commission for providing the AusPlay 2024 sports participation dataset and the French Ministry of Sports for providing the Paris 2024 Olympic medal results dataset. I also acknowledge the R Core Team and Posit Software for developing the tools used for data analysis and visualisation.