Take a look at this comment chain between /u/Iphikrates and I.

I redid the numbers crunch. Between 500BC and 380BC, during the height of Sparta's powers, there's no record of Sparta taking a single win in the combat events (boxing/wrestling, boy's boxing/wrestling). But what it really stood out in was the chariot race. During this period, of 27 recorded victors, 11 (40.7%) were from Sparta. Athens was second at 5. Sparta did not perform any better than chance in any other event, not even winning a single time in the stadion or hoplitodromos. This demonstrates that at the height of Sparta's powers, Sparta's Olympic athletes weren't really physically better than the other cities'. But they were rich.

However!
Sparta performed exceptionally well before its height of power. Sparta absolutely dominated in the 8th century. Between 700-604BC, Sparta won no chariot racing, but of 25 recorded winners of stadion 15 (60%) were from Sparta and of 5 recorded wrestling winners all were Spartans. They were no slouch in the 7th century either. Between 600-504BC, with 4 out of 25 stadion winners and 5 out of 11 wrestling winners being Spartan. But their chariot wins had jumped from none to 4 out of 14.

I wonder if /u/Iphikrates could comment on this, and the accuracy of the list of Olympic winners on wikipedia. A lot have been said in this sub about the tradition of Lycurgus as reported by Plutarch as likely to be untrue, but I wonder if this is evidence that there was indeed a tradition of Spartan Education that was implemented by someone in archaic Sparta that slowly faded away, as I believe Plutarch accused them of.

Also interestingly, in the 7th century Athens jumped out as the rich city state with 6 chariot rate winners. But the one dark horse was Croton, taking 8 stadion wins and 6 wrestling wins, besting Sparta in both categories. Could /u/Iphikrates or anyone talk about Croton in this period?