Research Olympics 

Like sports, research can be hyper-competitive. Researchers are increasingly measured in terms of how much they publish, where they publish, citations they receive, and various other metrics. When we compared Olympic medals (London 2012 Olympics data) to scholarly output (NSF 2013 data), there appeared significant overlap in terms of overall production and medal awards among the leading countries. Of the top 10 countries producing articles, 6 also have the highest Olympic medal count.