Mapping Gold at the Rio Olympics

The race is over and we can now announce the medal winners in the 2016 Olympic's mapping competition. So in reverse order:

The Bronze Medal

It has to be said that Fiasco Design went into this year's Olympics showing great form after their amazing showing at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. Their custom made interactive map for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games uses the same pictorial map style that they used in their original Sochi map.

The Rio 2016 Map is dotted with information about the major sporting venues in the Olympics and interesting facts about some of Rio's major landmarks. The map also contains a couple of interactive map games. The first game is a little treasure hunt in which you have to find dismembered body parts of a man hidden around the map. The other game involves finding a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who is hiding somewhere on this Fiasco Design map of Rio.

The Silver Medal

Google also created a wonderful interactive map for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Google's O Brasil Inteiro Joga - Mapa is a much more traditional interactive map than Fiasco Design's pictorial map. Google's map can therefore actually be used to navigate your way around Rio de Janeiro and to find the Olympic venues.

Google's map includes a number of wonderful pictorial overlays which highlight the Olympic venues and some of Rio's landmarks on the map. It also includes a wealth of information about the Olympic venues and the city (unfortunately for non-Portuguese speakers there isn't an option to view this information in English).

The Rio map is part of Google's integrated Brazilian platform for the Olympic games. As well as this map the platform features an Olympics news-feed and 42 original mini-games.

The Gold Medal

Not content with the silver medal Google has also gone all out for the Olympic gold with this fascinating map about Rio de Janeiro.

Beyond the Map - the Unexpected World of the Favelas is an interactive tour around Rio which concentrates on a number of individuals who have grown-up in the city's favelas. The tour uses a number of 360 degree interactive videos which transport you around the city. At each stop on the journey you can watch a YouTube interview with a local citizen in which you get to learn a little about their lives and dreams.

The use of aerial imagery, 360 degree videos and YouTube interviews provides a great introduction to the city and an interesting insight into life in Rio's favelas.