Putting Yorkshire on the map... an A-Z of our Olympic prowess

Tourism officials say they spotted the golden opportunity to celebrate the county’s Games prowess after five athletes from the region grabbed golds.

It was launched online today and print copies could be produced after the event, tourism agency Welcome to Yorkshire said. The guide pinpoints all 43 of the county’s finest athletes and includes a profile on each.

It also features the locations of five golden postboxes, painted in honour of gold medal winners Jessica Ennis, Alistair Brownlee, Ed Clancy, Katherine Copeland and Andy Triggs Hodge from as far south as Sheffield and as far north as Stokesley.

Tourism chiefs decided to design the guide following demand on social networking sites, including Twitter, to know more about the region’s contenders.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “Yorkshire’s success at the Olympics has really put the county on the map globally. We are a true sporting county, our landscape lends itself to a life outdoors and so we fully expect people inspired by the achievements of our brilliant athletes to come to the county that has competed like a country in London.

“As a result of the increased interest in Yorkshire from around the world we are producing a golden map of the county so visitors can celebrate the success of all our athletes and be a part of what is fast becoming a wonderful Yorkshire summer.”

Yorkshire alone currently has more gold medallists than Canada, South Africa or Japan, meaning if God’s Own County was a nation, it would sit among the top 15 countries in the international medals table.

And Welcome to Yorkshire has also devised its own medals table based on population to prove the White Rose county has plenty to be proud of.

As of Wednesday, Yorkshire had more medals per head than anywhere else in the world - one medal per 0.71 million people. The Netherlands was second with a medal for every 1.2 million and Great Britain, excluding Yorkshire, was third with one per 1.57 million people.