When you look at all the data about all the Olympics, as we did to add 350,000 facts about the Olympics to MSN Search, there are plenty of surprises.

Sports you never heard of, countries that don’t exist, and an intricacy that defies easy understanding are all waiting for the Olympics data explorer. Architecture, town planning, painting, music, and sculpture all had Olympic medals once upon a time. The U.S. won these art competitions only once: art competitions Olympic medals United States. At one time, tug-of-war was an Olympic sport: tug-of-war 1904 gold medal. Some big competitors of the past have fallen completely off the map: Soviet Union Olympic medals, Unified Team Olympic medals.

Once you’re past the unusual events and superannuated placenames there’s the real wonder of it: the thousands of competitors in hundreds of events over 45 Olympiads. Here are some categories of answers we provide:

Medal totals, by country:
United States Winter Olympics medals
Canadian medals women’s biathlon

Medalists by sport:
biathlon 2002 gold medal
gold medal winner ice hockey 2002

Medalists in specific events:
gold medal women’s super-G 1998 Winter Olympics
who won women’s figure skating 2002 Olympics

Olympic records:
Olympic record women’s 1,000 meter speed skating

Individual records:
how many gold medals won by Apolo Anton Ohno
Bode Miller Olympic medals

Selected athlete biographies and details:
Michelle Kwan bio
Michelle Kwan home town
how tall is Michelle Kwan

–Mark Stumpf, Steve Heller, Instant Answer Team