Discussion: Will Canada "Own the Podium" in Vancouver?

Since all compasses point to Canada this should be a legit poll for an orienteering website. ;-)

Will Canada achieve her goal of winning the most medals at the winter Olympics?

Yes or no and how many medals?


YES 32

No 24.

YES 26

I wonder if any non-Canadian will say "yes" and any Canadian "no"...

I'd say yes if I knew what Canada was.

Well hopefully Alex Bilodeau can put Dale Begg-Smith in his place.
Of course, now that I've written this, spyware will destroy my computer.

Actually, to the Aussies and Norwegians out there, how much was your high performance programs cut back following hosting?

I thought it might be easier to do it as an actual poll. Cast your vote.
http://langbakk.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/own-the-p...

good idea about a poll Brent.

juffy: Canada explained

Cor. It's just like Australia without the dropbears and eating the national symbol. *fascinated*

Although you probably could eat a maple leaf without having the Japanese laugh at you.

They don't eat Maple leaves, they suck the juice out of Maple trees, don't they?

Will Vancouver have snow for the Olympics? yes-0 no-32

I can't think of any worse marketing for Whistler/Blackcomb other than to host the Olympics when they have a near record mild winter.

The slush covered hay being used for some of the events behaves just like real snow according to the organizers.

I'll go with yes 27.

No 27. Bald Eagle would probably taste pretty gross.

In some circumstances, depending on which event it is, I can see that a medal count of 1-0-0 would be a success, while one of 85-86-86 would be a failure.

Have to say YES even though it will be tough.......29.

Juffy.....what is your address down there in Perth? I'll explain to you what Canada is ;)

yes 1- Men's hockey gold. That is the only way that Canada can "win the games". Everything else is a feel-good story.

It is kind of strange the way the media covers the Olympic games. The common concept is that there is no snow in Whistler. The truth is that there is more snow in Whistler than ever before - the media is confusing Vancouver (where the mogul events take place, which has very little snow) with Whistler (where the downhill, cross country, and Barebones take place which has a record amount of snow this year).

Don't believe everything they tell you on TV.

See snow accummulation chart for Whistler Blackcomb

Vancouver (where the mogul events take place, which has very little snow)

Which raises the question, why didn't they plan to have the mogul events at W/B from the start?

Maybe they succumbed to the pressure to have the events in a more media/population accessible location than where the terrain was best. There could be parallels to orienteering here...

There's usually skiing at Cypress well into March. Canadian snowshoe racing champs were there two years ago in March and there was plenty of snow for us.

Maybe they succumbed to the pressure to have the events in a more media/population accessible location than where the terrain was best.

I still think one would want to have all the skiing events in one place. Whatever. Poor choice by the organizing committee, IMO.

For the Vancouver snow, they were actually storing in a glacier somewhere, and were trucking it in. No joke!

Drewi there's some serious logistical benefits to having those events closer to Vancouver.

I skied at Cypress this time last year post Sprint Camp and it was awesome conditions. They've had lots of World Cups for these events there. Just sometimes the weather doesn't co-operate.

>Which raises the question, why didn't they plan to have the mogul events at W/B from the start?

I think this was to provide the Yanks something to complain about when Canada's kicks their asses.


>Just sometimes the weather doesn't co-operate.

Like in 1980 in Lake Placid when snow was trucked in from err umm Canada.

I think a lot of factors were at play in choosing Cypress for many snow events, including the historically good snow there and possibly most importantly the logistics. Whistler is a very small town and it is packed to the brim right now. It is not just athletes, officials, and spectators that need housing, but also thousands of service people - including restaurant & shop workers, security (huge numbers), transportation staff, and so on. There are loads of temporary housing in Whistler right now - and it isn't all that good. In fact a lot of Whistler volunteers are being housed on a cruise ship that is docked in Squamish, about 60km SW of Whistler.

To add more events in Whistler would have been very tough. Not that we wouldn't have loved to have them here!

When planning for these events years in advance there is no way to know what Mother Nature is going to do that year. Vancouver, Cypress in particular is suffer for the lack of snow this year, which I understand is very unusal for them. Then there is the USA where every state but Hawaii has had some kind of snow in the last 24 hours and for a lot of the areas it was either their first ever snow or the first time in a very long time and there are parts of the east coast that is having the snowiest winter on record. THAT IS MOTHER NATURE FOR YOU! The Olympics just like the rest of us will just have to do the best they can and deal with it as they find best for them. Mother Nature is just one of those things you just can't plan. It really is ashame though that this has be to an unusual year for them but the games must go on and they will I'm sure.

As Australians will remember, during the Salt Lake City games a couple of Australian comedians started a campaign for the 2010 Winter Games to be held in Smiggins Holes. Maybe the IOC should have listened to them.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiggin_Holes_2010_Wi...)

You Canadians are just trying so hard, aren't you?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487035...

Secret cabals, cheekiness, and a tad cocksure?

Yeah we are because

"We are an experiment going right for a change, with influences that range from a to zed. And yes we say zed instead of zee."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AHJN558jTg

Everyone knows that slam poetry is so late-90s. And only the most annoying of hipster have neck-beards.

The changing snow conditions played a major role in the biathlon today (Canadian in top ten!) and will be very interesting in the individual start races on Monday. I know the purists aren't a big fan of all the mass-starts, but I guess it does add a more level playing field.

That was a magnificent performance by the Canadian in the biathalon finishing in 6th place. Just because something isn't a podium finish doesn't mean it wasn't an amazing performance. I agree with you Nev, that neck-beard was terrible. I found the whole opening ceremony a little too PC and bland, except for the fiddler part.

Well hopefully Alex Bilodeau can put Dale Begg-Smith in his place.

It was exciting to see just that happen. Congrats to all of Canada!

Nice job for sure.

Bravo Alexandre BILOD'OR

Normally when a medal winner migrates to Australia we claim him or her as our own very quickly. In this case it was Gold and Silver for Canada!

If this was Gold and Silver for Canada, can Australia claim all the medals speed skater Christine Nesbitt is going to win?

There is some great competition going on here in Whistler - take today's Nordic Combined for example. What a superb race. The spirit in the Village is insanely upbeat. Everyone is having fun. I'm exhausted already - I don't know how I'm going to survive two more weeks of this!

BTW: Did anyone notice Brian May is in charge of the fore-runners for the cross-country races.

We'll take her as a swap!

A bit off topic, but has somebody found a really good live streaming option for cross-country events? Don't have cable and NBC sure won't show it.

I haven't checked it but ctv are advertizing in the newspaper today that they have all events streamed live.
try ctv.ca

Today's stat. 60,00 Canadian women play hockey. I AM impressed!

www.ctvolympics.ca for live streaming in HD. There should be a link on the right to see the schedule of events for the day. As far as I can tell you can only watch the events on the day they happen.

> Today's stat. 60,00 Canadian women play hockey.

According to the Globe and Mail. Female hockey players by country.

China 179
Russia 257
Slovakia 263
Switzerland 752
Finland 3,527
Sweden 3,633
USA 59,109
Canada 77,461

That is awesome. If I become female and Chinese I might be able to make their Olympic team.

j-man, I think your chances of orienteering becoming an olympic sport in your lifetime are better ;)

We'll see I suppose.

What is awesome to see are the number of firsts at these Olympics. US' first medal in nordic combined, Sweden's first gold in women's nordic skiing since '68, Canada's first ever gold on home soil/snow and another first just recently as the US takes the first ever gold medal wearing denim!

http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1000109861/news...

According to all the Aussie newspapers Dale (two dads) Begg-Smith was robbed of gold.

AFAICT, CTV live stream only works in Canada.

Just another reason.....

The Aussie newspapers might have said that but you could tell their heart wasn't really in it.

Thanks J$. I have been trying with no luck, and the error message didn't make that clear.

Nah, the Aussies can keep him. As Mike Grange said in the Globe: It takes a special someone to make a fortune by designing Spyware.

The US doing great in Nordic Combine was unreal to watch.

Congrats to our friends up north on their first home gold! The pride during the medal ceremony was palpable -- and deserved.

On countries benefitting from athletes from other countries great 8th for "Canadian" Babikov in men's 15k free Norway has to top it all though claiming half of Kristina Groves's bronze because she has a Nowegian mother. http://m.db.no/2010/02/15/sport/ol_i_vancouver/ol_...

Sitting here watching Canada beating up on Sweden in women's hockey it struck me how much more developed orienteering is internationally than hockey and some other sports at these Olympics. There was discussion how Hockey Canada is going to hold a summit to help develop women's hockey internationally. Perhaps similar to the O-Ringen camp each year. Does IOF currently have a developmental strategy for international orienteering?

I have often thought that--viz., that orienteering (ski, foot) is more developed internationally than a lot of Olympic sports. But, is ski orienteering too similar to other Nordic disciplines to get peoples' attention? It is pretty pedestrian compared to the curling-skate-cross event we are likely to see next time.

Hey dude, who's "owning the podium" so far?

Through 2/17, the leaders are:
1 USA (14 total medals)
2 Germany (10 total medals)
3 France (7 total medals)

But I don't care about total medals. I just care about gold medals.

Ok, then we've got:
1 USA (5 gold medals)
2t Germany (3 gold medals)
2t South Korea (3 gold medals)
2t Switzerland (3 gold medals)

Yeah, but the USA has a lot of people. What about medals per capita?

1 Norway (1 medal per 972,000 citizens)
2 Estonia (1 medal per 1.34 million citizens)
3 Austria (1 medal per 1.67 million citizens)

Isn't Norway a pretty wealthy country? What about GDP per medal?

1 Estonia (1 medal per 18 billion in GDP)
2 Latvia (1 medal per 24 billion in GDP)
3 Slovakia (1 medal per 44 billion in GDP)

Yeah, but the raw totals are skewed in favor of big countries and you would expect a small country to top the last two measures because the law of large numbers means it's much less likely a big country will be far from its expected value. So all of your measures are biased against Canada. I'm happy to report that Canada does own the physical podia, though.

How about medals per female hockey players?

I actually wasn't posting this to slam Canada. I kept these figures in 2008, so I thought I would keep them again in 2010, so I shared them.

In 2008, the medals per capita top five were:
1 Bahamas (2 medals)
2 Jamaica (11 medals)
3 Iceland (1 medal)
4 Slovenia (5 medals)
5 Australia (46 medals)

The Bahamas and Iceland are the tiny countries here, Jamaica and Slovenia are approximately an order of magnitude larger than that, and Australia another order of magnitude larger than that. Australia won the "best of the bigs" category.

The 2008 medals per GDP has less variance in it.
1 North Korea (6 medals)
2 Jamaica (11 medals)
3 Mongolia (4 medals)
4 Armenia (6 medals)
5 Georgia (6 medals)

North Korea is the outlier here. They have a population an order of magnitude larger than the other four on this list. North Korea has more people than Australia, but a GDP that is 400 times less. I guess North Korea won "best of the bigs" here.

It doesn't take much to shoot to the top of the medals per capita list if you don't have much capita. That is feet's law of large numbers penalizing Canada--that juggernaut--and its neighbor to the south, the US.

If we define a "big country" as one with at least 20 million people.

Here are the Top 3 in 2010:

1 Canada (1 medal per 5.7 million citizens)
2 Germany (1 medal per 8.1 million citizens)
3 France (1 medals per 9.3 million citizens)

There's a Canada-friendly number for everyone!

And since drewi requested it, here's a Canada-unfriendly number!

Medals per Female Hockey Players
1 China (45 female hockey players per medal)
2 Russia (86 female hockey players per medal)
3 Slovakia (132 female hockey players per medal)
...
8 Canada (13,000 female hockey players per medal)

Geez, people. I'm not trying to penalize Canada. I just thought I'd share some fun medal numbers that aren't readily published anywhere.

And let's be honest, if you're rooting for Canada, it's silly to count medals now, because the Hockey finals haven't happened.

I liked this US Snowboarder Nate Holland quote "Canada can Own The Podium, we'll just rent it"

so far the US is doing a great job on that rental...

http://www.kelowna.com/2010/02/15/u-s-snowboarder-...

Why aren't you trying to penalize Canada? Abstinence isn't any fun and it doesn't help lower teen pregnancy anyway.

Best Olympic moment so far, Sven Kramer. NBC deserves it the way they butcher the curling play-by-play. Unwatchable TV.

Right. Abstinence education (E) may not have an impact on teen pregnancy (we can postulate that, no need to prove it) but I fail to see how abstinence (A) itself wouldn't have a very significant impact. And, I think the working assumption is that A and E are both unfun, but A is significantly less fun than E. Not that it matters, I suppose.

I wouldn't think commentary would make any difference to the watchability of curling.

On the subject of commentary--are there other people who find general NBC commentary to be insufferably inane?

Inane - NBC commentator pointing out that the "Finnish Mafia" of snowboard half-pipe speak Finnish.

j-man - I think we can consider Slate's Olympics Sap-o-Meter to be conclusive evidence that there are such other people.

Oh yes--that was brilliant!

I donèt know who owns the podiums but kudos to whoever created them from large peices of BC cedar (or was it fir). They look great.

Thank you jtorranc! That is my kind of metric. Bravo!

SvenKramer draws a distinction between Canadian press and US press. Indeed a magic moment!

I thought Olympics commentary was insufferably inane wherever you were in the world. It certainly is in Australia.

I think it's more inane here in Australia than any other place I have ever watched the Olympics from, including the States, Sweden, Spain and Russia.

gordhun,

It's western larch and others. The 23 podiums of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are made of 18 wood types from all over the province.

Wood for the podiums have come from Clayquot Sound (Coastal Western Red Cedar), the Westbank Firs Nation Community Forest (Lodgepole Pine), the Prince George Community Forest (Blue-Stained Lodgepole Pine) and the Bella Coola Valley (Sitka Spruce) .

http://www.dailytownsman.com/article/20100203/CRAN...

Boris. I think the inanity of commentary becomes more obvious when you are a cultural outsider, so you must be finding this period particularly tough. There was a time when the winter olympics had hardly any Australian competitors. That was before the introduction of the newer sports. With no competitors to speak of, there was far less of the local parochialism to both distort the coverage and encourage the use of local commentators with local profiles and no knowledge to match.

I have given up watching as i can't stand Eddie Everywhere. He thinks he's on the set of the Footy Show still.

TheInvisibleLog>> I understand that the focus is on the events in which Australia has competitors - every nation does that - but the in-studio commenting on Channel 9 ranges from clueless to incompetent to simply insulting, though I see that news stories are picking up on their idiocy (http://au.sports.yahoo.com/news/article/-/6826354/...)

Going back even further, up until (I think) 1984 Australian TV didn't bother to send a crew to the Winter Olympics as well, and just took the American coverage, which was suitably nauseating.

>which was suitably nauseating.

do you believe in miracles?

"Miracle on Ice" was in 1980, Lake Placid. :-)

Not challenging the idiocy judgement. But it does raise an interesting question. Maybe Eddie's real sins are twofold.. trying to pretend he is both funny and qualified to comment. A couple of other Australian commentators have form for being funny and getting away with it.. 'Hello Boys'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKFWE1xt_x0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FTFsc65weM&feature...
Get rid of Eddie. Bring back Roy and HG.

Yup, those are really funny!

yes Janet it was in 1980 which is 'up until (I think) 1984' to use blair's words and yes the coverage was suitably nauseating.

Forget the Miracle on Ice - does anyone else remember Randy and Tai?

Ah, I guess Australian commentary is inane + everything Boris said. So, NBC isn't the worst, as hard as that is to believe.

My second favourite Olympic moment. Major newspaper correspondent covering nordic skiing ....errrr.... watching The Office

Commenting on hammer´s observations from the women´s hockey game between Canada and Sweden (13-1):
Canada may not own the podium, but they sure owned the puck in that game. After the game the Swedish coach commented on a question why they didn´t shoot more (shots after two periods 43-4 to Canada) - "It´s not easy to shoot more when the other team has the puck!"

Concerning the question about Canada helping to develop women´s hockey world-wide: Has Canada ever bothered about what´s going on outside it´s own professional hockey sphere? It took a long time before they realised that good hockey actually was played in other countries as well and it took some beatings by the russians to accept that they weren´t necessarily the best by default...

A bit outside the Olympic perspective perhaps, but regarding hammer´s question: Does IOF currently have a developmental strategy for international orienteering?

I may not know about all the fine detail, but in my eyes there has been very little developmental work initiated by IOF. This has been done very much on more or less individual initiatives by "missionaries" like Peo Bengtsson and Jörgen Mårtensson or the PWT people.

Originally O-ringen - the organization - was made up of Swedish elite runners that had an interest in spreading the sport. It´s not until later that O-ringen (and the O-ringen camp) and it´s "flagship", the 5-Day competition has been taken over by the Swedish federation.

>took some beatings by the russians
technically the Soviets - Russia has never won Olympic hockey gold. ;-)

We all know that the strength of the Soviet teams was the Belarusians (as Sweden well knows).

I have to say that I have enjoyed the US Olympic coverage so far. You have far less biased coverage than we have had in Canada in the past (not sure if CTV is doing a better job than CBC).

In particular, I have been super impressed to get full coverage of the cross-country skiing. Go USA!

The only coverage of either skiing or biathlon that I have seen in Sydney is the endless replays of Petra Majdic falling off the course during warmups yesterday.

Olympics TV coverage here in Sweden is excellent.
We get all the action in the XC and biathlon events - there´s at least one race going on every night (9 hr time difference so it´s prime time). In addition to that also a lot of alpine skiing and curling where we have some Swedish hopes.
Not so prime time but rather in the middle of the night/early morning we also get all the hockey action that involves Sweden - even the unfortunate Canada game in women´s hockey :(
Everything else that´s not chosen for SVT:s main coverage can be seen on the web without commentators. I don´t know if it can be seen outside of Sweden, but it may be worth a try if there´s something special you want to see.

Back on topic. No.

That's a bit obvious now.

And what is become scarey obvious is that Canada might not even own the hockey podium. A couple bad bounces and a hot goalie and Canada goes down to the Yanks. Canadian men now have to play Germany and if they win that Russia in the Quarter Finals. Do you believe in Miracles?

The only coverage of either skiing or biathlon that I have seen in Sydney is the endless replays of Petra Majdic falling off the course during warmups yesterday.

At least if you're getting the full clip, you will see an Attackpointer - Cheesesteak - helping Majdic out of the gully. He's wearing a pink service tech vest over bright blue sleeved jacket.

His version of the story is here.

Two Attackpointers actually. I was acting as course marshall nearby when I heard the crowd yelling at me that someone had gone into the trees. I ran over to help but, as cheesesteak says, the only help she wanted was to know the fastest way back to a new pair of skis. You might see my boots on the video ;-)

As for "Own the Podium" - there is a little part of me (a Canadian) that is hoping the program doesn't work. The blatant focus on podium finishes in Olympic sport does so little to help many other sports. Orienteering, obviously, suffers from an almost complete lack of support. But also very big sports, like soccer, can suffer because they only provide a chance at two medals per Olympics (men/women) (and those are really zero chances for a country like Canada). I would certainly like to see the Canadian sport organizations focus their efforts and resources and funding according to somewhat different criteria

Ah, that explains the mysterious info I received about AZ being in possession of Majdic's broken pole...

AZ, I agree that it would be nice to see more (any) dollars for sports like O. However, I think OTP has worked (although the media may not see it that way). The fact that millions of Canadians believed that we could be the top medal country is surely a positive and a major shift in the psyche of the nation. I think there are more people glued to their sets to watch Canadians with a chance to be on the podium. Whether they get there or not I think the athletes will have inspired others. The other thing is that OTP has meant that Canada had more World Cup or equivalent podiums this year than ever before so there are benefits beyond what happens at the Olympics. For the record, I still think Canada will get around its total of 24 medals from Torino and climb into the top 3.

I suppose it may be partly due to the OTP program that the Canadian XC skiers did so well at the double pursuit the other day. 5th, 8th, 9th and 16th is not bad in tough international competition - a real team effort!

Not so much recognition in the local press (I only checked the Vancouver Sun) but I hope they get their share of praise even if they didn´t reach the podium.

Bubo, I put a comment on my training log yesterday about the Canadian XC skiers in the 30K pursuit yesterday because there was a discussion on the local sports radio station about their performance being so incredible yet similar placings in other sports are considered failures.

http://www.attackpoint.org/log.jsp/user_298

As I said in my log...

"If you were to tell me 10 years ago that 3 Canadian men would be in the top 10 at an Olympics XC ski race and ahead of ALL Norwegians I would have laughed my ass off. But they did it."

Truly awesome and incredibly inspiring.

Just read in your log about the great XC results - and of course I understand that this must have been noticed in media that I don´t have access to.

Being generally pro-Canadian after my many visits to the country it was very nice to follow the race at a point where all four Canadians were in the leading group.

Whether Canada will own the podium may be beside the point. After yesterday's hockey game, the more urgent question may be, "Will Canada own the net?"

never have I seen one team get so dominated by another...and win the game.....that was tough....but 7th in Men's hockey again will not be inspiring;) Good thing GOLD is still in the cards.

Well, the Canadian men got some press in Norway, too.
http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/02/21/sport/ol_i_vanc...
Kershaw, who was 16th might have been higher but he fell.

The Olympics special section in today's Seattle Times newspaper had a couple articles by the Times' Ron Judd and Pete McMartin of the Vancouver Sun. Both have smug-looking head shots, and their articles put them in the podium hunt in the snarky columnist event, which is only slightly more sport-like than ice dancing. I thought they were an entertaining read:
Hey, Canada: Cheat --Ron Judd
Canada to America: Quit winning all our medals --Pete McMartin

Another funny Judd piece: Winners versus Whiners

good reads. I liked both articles...makes you wonder if anyone will ever want to proclaim they'll "own the podium" again. Nothing like putting pressure on the canadians and ticking off their competition..

I wonder who'll own the podium this summer at the O events in Whistler? Anyone what to claim it as their own?

This thread has owned the AP discussion podium.

No, I'm pretty sure that dubious honor belongs to this thread...

For non Canadians you probably don't know that our Prime Minister prorogued (shut down) our Parliament since late last year until after the Olympics are over - so things have been pretty quiet on Harper's extended holiday. But now we are getting the first hints that when Prime Minister Harper tables his budget when they finally get back to work in March the Own the Podium program will be cut.

But it is the comments section in the article below from the Globe and Mail that I thought is most interesting for Attack Pointers that share a love of sport and recreation. Some very good comments about the need for overall public and private sports funding from schools to communities to the International level.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ottaw...

Trying not to be harsh here, but in tough economic times, everyone needs to share the pain. And, apologies--maybe the PM will be hard pressed to justify such expenditures when measured against, er... disappointing outcomes.

Anyway, Canada is not alone in the misery. But, maybe this is a blessing in disguise for you as you may now be more like the Americans. [The Americans are the people renting your podium. Maybe you could charge a bit more?] ;)

The podium is used under license from the IOC, like everything else "Olympic".

Glenn has a good point and the IOC ranks nations by # if gold medals first regardless of total medals so.........

;-)

Well, if you really thought that number of golds is the way nations should be ranked, why did you start this thread by asking about total medals? ;-) back atcha.

I wouldn't be surprised if Canada takes the top spot in golds with two curling and two hockey golds to be given out.

A follow-up to my earlier post.

Again, the question for my CAN friends: more OTP and/or aspersions at S.H. (and/or less medals) or more individual accountability and gumption and more medals? (Not that I am advancing a causal explanation, but I would be happy for CAN to pursue their remedies, the US to go its way, and to watch this play out again in 4 years.)

two hockey golds to be given out.

I don't know about curling, but Canada's going to have to fight for those hockey golds!

I don't know about curling, but Canada's going to have to fight for those hockey golds!

They aren't gimmies, but all four of Canada's teams are in the semifinals, and are probably the favorites, statistically, in all of them.

Men's curling, women's curling, and women's hockey all finished 1st in the round-robin stages. And we know now that the men's hockey team is on a mission....

Which one? The US men's hockey team is clearly on a mission.

I was referring to the Canadian one, that has won games in dominating fashion since their loss to the US. The US win over the Swiss wasn't quite as dominating as a team on a mission would suggest. (I know that the US outshot the Swiss by a gazillion, but when the game is tied in the 3rd....)

I kind of figured what you meant, and I know the Canadian psyche appreciates giving them the benefit of the doubt :)

>why did you start this thread by asking about total medals?

I started this thread to answer that very question because Canada took a rather different approach to the medals at these Olympics by aiming to be #1. Last time Canada hosted the winter olympics we didn't win any gold and placed 12th in the medal standings. So to aim for #1 is by some people's accounts a very different approach to sport in Canada. It seems to have polarized public opinion though.

Like you said Canada is on a mission for hockey golds. If we win them it is expected (not a miracle).

I guess my question was more about total medals vs. gold medals. You mentioned that the IOC ranks by gold medals, but the ladder on the Vancouver2010 website ranks by total medals. It appears unlikely that Canada will win the podium in total medals, but I wouldn't be surprised if they win with the most golds.

Canadian women just advanced to the gold medal bonspiel (did I use that term correctly?) in curling...

Going for gold

From Junk

re: gold vs total
I mentioned it because it has crept into the media in the last 24 hours.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/nationworld/wire/sns...

bonspiel = curling tournament. Most would call what you had in mind a match though I, for one, wouldn't get in a huff if you preferred "game" or some other rough equivalent.

I am pretty sure curling golds count as negative in the total standings.

I'll have you know Boris that curling actually means something here in Canada - there was about 10 people sitting around a computer in our department society office this mornign at school watching our semifinal match - and all of us were quite into it... though that may have something to do with the fact that we're all engineerings and have quite a good grasp on the physics behind curling :)

From what the Canadians with whom I used to work told me many years ago, curling is a HUGE deal in Canada.

Yeah, and American Football is a HUGE deal in the US. That doesn't make it a sport other people like or particularly care about...

true enough - but apparently we need all the medals we can get :)

I have started to like curling.

A Canadian friend of mine says that you have to drink a lot of beer to appreciate curling.

I can do that.

Europeans did care about American Football a little bit when David Becham played it for Los Angeles Galaxy.

American football vs. curling? The players in curling probably have more play time but watch out curling is about to get nasty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnskbLViqOw

Definitely some parallels to orienteering.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/sports/olympics/...

What are the criteria for inclusion in the Olympics?

And what are the criteria for being kicked out of the Olympics?
Be careful if you are too good I guess...

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/hockey/story/2010/02/26...

That's what happened to Olympic softball, right?

Pretty much.

Orienteering has more parity than a lot of sports.

TheShadow knows...
I still think Canada will get around its total of 24 medals from Torino and climb into the top 3.

Nice prediction theShadow - looks like you will be right on.

Number of Gold versus Total Number.

Nice to see Canada on top of the medals list - at least those lists that rank by Gold medals. But really, for realistic comparison, each medal type should be given a multiplier factor.

Gold=1, Silver=0, Bronze=0 - that's more or less the "gold count" and is silly as it discounts Silver & Bronze except for 'tie-break'

Gold=1, Silver=1, Bronze=1 - the "total count", equally silly.

The factors have to show the relative accomplishment of each medal type. And the answer, according to the Canadian Olympic Committee is:
Gold - $20,000, Silver = $15,000, Bronze = $10,000.
That is the incentive payment they make to Olympic medal winners

So, by the Canadian Olympic Committee's criteria, could someone do the math and tell me who is owning the podium.

USA.

maybe not Boris because I think it is $20K for a gold PER ATHLETE? Hmmm, so 25 womens team hockey players x $20K plus 2 pairs skating x $20K plus 5 short track relay x $20K plus.... ;-)

or you can use the $25K for gold the US gives if you wish.

If Canada gets one more gold then it will break the record for the most gold medals won by a host country of the winter Olympics. Current record is 10 by the US at Salt Lake. Considering Canada won no gold in Calgary OR Montreal that is a pretty darn good accomplishment.

Rather interesting that the record is 10 when Phelps can win 8 himself in the summer. Way, way way, too many track and field and swimming medals in the summer. Either that or Canada should propose these additional medals for existing sports:

coed curling
hardest slap shot competition
2 on 2 hockey
hockey shoot-out relay
curling and beer drinking nordic combined

If Canada gets one more gold then it will break the record for the most gold medals won by a host country of the winter Olympics. Current record is 10 by the US at Salt Lake. Considering Canada won no gold in Calgary OR Montreal that is a pretty darn good accomplishment.

I'll say! Canada is doing an amazing job relative to those past performances, and for that matter, in absolute terms.

11 (or more) gold would also be a record for most gold won by Canada in ANY winter or summer Olympics. Canada's best ever was 1984 in LA (a boycott games) when 10 golds were won.

13 golds is the record for most gold by a country at a Winter Olympics.

10 gold is pretty darn good. We, the US, are the best at getting third place!

The world is changing. Its not just Canada. Just look at the figure skating! What happened to podiums dominated by Russia and the USA?

Hammer, how many additional "don't fall over on white stuff activities" do you want to include?
There's already don't fall over on white stuff
- going downhill
- on the flat
- with a gun
- turning corners
- turning lots of corners
- turning corners in a car
- turning corners on a tray
- jumping downhill
- jumping on the flat while turning

And you think "don't drown for 1/2/400m on your front/back/side" is bad?

Who cares?

I guess you can add ice sports:
don't fall over while
- going in circles
- going in smaller circles
- going in smaller circles and pushing someone's butt once in a while
- pretending to dance
- pretending to dance in a pair
- pretending to dance in a pair in a slightly different way
- sweeping the stuff you are trying not to fall over on

I think there should be a Winter Olympic decathlon, with the following one possible list of 10 events:

Alpine skiing:
- GS
- Moguls
- Ski cross

Snowboarding:
- GS
- Snowboard cross

Nordic skiing:
- 1.5 km classic
- 5 km freestyle
- 20 km freestyle

Short track speed skating:
- 500 m
- 1500 m

>What happened to podiums dominated by Russia and the USA?

WADA ;-)

Hilarious, Mike.

It was meant as a joke (esp. given Canada's track and field doping history) but it is wonderful that there has been no doping issues (so far) from these games. I guess that is why the press had to be critical of everything VANOC (and Canada's women's hockey team) did because there were no doping scandals to write about.

Of course, the real medal tally ignores all sports where the distance covered is less than about 10km and the winning time in the men's competition is less than about an hour, and where judges are needed (or where there are bogus combinations, as in nordic combined - and I only include biathlon because there's no plain shooting event at the winter games). That brings it down to
- biathlon (15km W, 20km M, and relays M/W)
- Nordic (10km freestyle W, 15km M; 30km classical W / 50km M, relays M/W)
- under some doubt as to its inclusion, speed skating (5000m W, 10000m M)
- hockey (M/W)
- and just possibly curling since it lasts so damn long.

Among these 'real' sports, the clear leader is Norway (4 gold, a silver, and a bronze). There are no American medals and one Canadian bronze (and a silver in curling) until yesterday.

;)

Any more the 50Km is essentially a 1Km race with 49Km of drafting.

Eventually all sports will have -cross added to them to give the Olympics that special Nascar feeling. Ski jump cross (think of the awesome wipeouts with 4 skiers going down the jump at the same time!), bobsled cross (put them on the downhill course and cover the sleds with corporate sponsors' logos), speed skating cross (oh wait that is covered by short track), cross country skiing (covered by the sprint), figure skating (hockey), ... Okay everything else is already done.

you just need to be careful with biathlete-cross, it could get bloody

I think the "most medals ever!" and "most golds ever!" this year are misleading. Because at every Olympics, there are increasingly more medals to be won.

2010: 266 medals (I'm not sure if this is right)
2006: 252 medals
2002: 234 medals
1998: 205 medals
1994: 183 medals

If you're going to compare "best Olympics ever!", then maybe % of medals is a better way to look at it.

This reminds me of the box office movie sales. Of course a movie is going to make more money now than 10-15 years ago! Have you seen ticket prices?

Interestingly, if you adjust for inflation, a movie from the 30s is at the top of that list.

Speaking of money...

Canada's Own the Podium program: $110M invested over 5 years ($22M/year for 5 years).

Canada's Men's Hockey Team Annual Salary: $123.6M ($5.4M/athlete/year)

I was thinking - that's a lot of money on the ice when the Canadian/Russia teams were shaking hands.

US-Canada will be even higher. Over $200M in annual salaries.

The big 4: CAN $123.6M, USA $80.9M, SWE $72.3M, RUS $69.4M

What happened to podiums dominated by Russia

Medvedev's edict was: no more embarrassments, no more dirty Olympics. It turns out that the people will believe the tale of "they catch only Russians because they really don't like us" only up to a point. Past that point, it turns out the people would rather prefer a 6th (or 11th) place in the medal table to several more doping scandals.

Plus, it's a new world; people born in ~1980—1990 no longer faced the situation in which Olympic sports were their best shot at getting famous and having a somewhat financially secure rest of their lives. There are a lot of other opportunities that bring money and fame—just like in the rest of the world.

Ironically Putin is now fuming and promising to take action...

a great photo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/gallery/2010/mar/0...

Good job Canada--both on the field and in putting on a worthy Olympics. And good job Norway winning one of the marquee events in a dramatic finale.

@hammers post:

petter northug of germany ... thats what it says under the picture! :D

If I ignore the Australian commentary by our Eddie, Canada put on a great show. Well, Canada wasn't responsible for Eddie anyway. There were some spectacular moments, including that Polish women's 30k? cross country win, the semi final finish by Germany in the skating teams 'pursuit' event and the men's short track final. And for some local sentimentailty, Jacqui Cooper finally landing a great jump in the aerials after all these years. It was a sentimental finish to a long career in which she won everything except an Olympic medal.

Ok, the Olympics are over, so let's take a look at the final medal table in a few different ways.

Total Medals
37 USA
30 Germany
26 Canada
23 Norway

Gold Medals
14 Canada
10 Germany
9 Norway
9 USA

Weighted Medals
$535,000 USA
$465,000 Germany
$435,000 Canada
$360,000 Norway
These numbers are based on Canada's program of rewarding $20,000 per gold, $15,000 per silver, $10,000 per bronze. (Requested by AZ)

Ok, now let's take a look at the numbers with respect to people and economies. Now, I know this is an imperfect stat, as feet and j-man pointed out earlier referencing the law of large numbers. (For the serious stat junkies, check out this.)

Population per Total Medals
211,000 Norway (people per medal)
523,000 Austria
684,000 Slovenia
849,000 Sweden
----
1,308,000 Canada (8th of 26 medal-winning nations, 1st of 15 amongst countries with at least 10 million people)
8,343,000 USA (20th of 26, 1st of 4 amongst countries with at least 100 million people)

Population per Gold Medals
540,000 Norway (people per gold medal)
1,297,000 Switzerland
1,867,000 Sweden
2,093,000 Austria
----
2,429,000 Canada (5th of 19 gold medal-winning nations, 1st of 15 amongst countries with at least 10 million people)
34,300,000 USA (14th of 19, 1st of 4 amongst countries with at least 100 million people)

GDP per Total Medals
$12.1M Latvia (GDP per medal)
$16.0M Norway
$16.3M Belarus
$16.5M Slovenia
----
$50.7M Canada (12th of 26, 1st of 12 amongst countries with at least $500 billion in GDP)
$385.7M USA (22nd of 26, 1st of 3 amonst countries with at last $4 trillion in GDP)

GDP per Gold Medals
$41.0M Norway (GDP per medal)
$49.0M Belarus
$79.5M Sweden
$80.7M Switzerland
----
$94.2M Canada (7th of 19 gold medal-winning nations, 1st of 12 amongst countries with at least $500 billion in GDP)
$385.7M USA (17th of 19, 2nd of 3 amonst countries with at last $4 trillion in GDP)

---------------
Results-wise, the USA did amazing with 37 total medals (a record!), and Canada did amazing with 14 gold medals (a record!). But I think I'm just as impressed with Norway. Here's a country with less than 5 million people (5th smallest country amongst medal-winners), yet they finish top four in total medals and gold medals. Obviously, they top the charts in the population-per-medals standings, and it's not even close.

So I did a little more research with the Norwegians, and I found something peculiar. Since 1992, Norway has averaged 23.2 medals (range 19-26) per games. However, previous to that (1956 through 1988), Norway only averaged 9.1 medals (range 4-15) per games. It's a pretty sharp increase, too. Then I decided to compare the medals won by Norway's peer nations over the same time frame.

1956-1988
Norway 9.1 medals per games
Finland 7.9 medals per games
Sweden 6.2 medals per games

1992-2010
Norway 23.2 medals per games
Finland 7.7 medals per games
Sweden 7.0 medals per games

Percent Increase from 1956-1988 to 1992-2010
Norway 155%
Finland -2%
Sweden 13%

I'd say that something happened in Norway between 1988 and 1992 that drastically increased medal production. Increased funding? New emphasis on sports? Anybody know? I'm wondering if Canada modeled Norway's approach for this year's "own the podium".

It's worth noting that your link to the REStat article references an article in a top-6 general interest economics journal. A few of those is normally enough to get tenure at a top department. That may be the worst such article I've ever seen (notice the tiny citation list), proving that even journal editors can be captivated by the Olympics.

On Norway: I guess you are remembering that Lillehammer (1994) is in Norway.

This is more coincidence than anything else, but the Norwegian Government Pension Fund [one of the biggest SWFs in the world] was created in 1990. It functions a lot like a university endowment and (now) has a lot of money and distributes 4% of its NAV back to the state.

I have no idea how large it was when it started, what the money is going to, etc... but given the detail and speed of kupackman's recent analysis, he may be able to assess the impact, if any.

Yeah, my first thought was Lillehammer in '94. But the surge (5 in 1988 to 20 in 1992) in Norwegian medals started two years earlier and well, is still going 16 years later. Will Canada still own the gold medal podium in 2026?

This was published today. Though, it doesn't specifically target the 1988-1992 increase.

Can we include something akin to "cultural cohesiveness" as a variable? I think the combination of that small population can explain a lot. Of course, in more statist countries with large population, you can mobilize things, but it has a decidedly different feel when this mobilization feels organic, as opposed to being imposed.

Just after the Calgary games in '88 the games were awarded to Lillehammer. They started up Olympiatoppen which is their version of Own the Podium.

Yeah, I just discovered Olympiatoppen myself. Here's an article from 1998, and one from 2010.

Another reason for the norwegian success in the 1992 games was the invention of stone grinding for cross-country skis in 1989. The norwegian national team made the discovery more or less by chance and managed to keep quiet about it for several years.

One thing that has yet to be included in the stats we are looking at is the fact that the total number of medals has been steadily going up as more events are added. For any of these stats to be truly meaningful they need to be shown as a percentage of total medals available. What do the historical trends look like then?

dkonopotez - getting back to the original question it looks like you were closest to correct with 26 medals.

and in the "oh so close category"....
Most 'copper' and 'nickel' medals (4th and 5th place): Canada with 23

Most top 5 finishes: US and Canada each with 49.

By my definition above, Canada won the games. And there were a number of feel-good stories as well.

One factor to consider when looking at medals per population is that in some countries (Norway as one example), nearly all of the population has some reasonable opportunity to be exposed to winter olympic sports. In other countries (US being the one I'm most familiar with, but I'm sure there are others; Australia I'm sure would be another example), a fairly large percentage of the population, based on the climates they live in, really don't have a realistic opportunity to get involved in winter olympic sports.

There are all sorts of factors to consider. Proximity to winter weather (Norway). A lot of people and a lot of money (USA). Even more people (China). Hockey sticks sold per capita (drawing a blank ;-).

Wikipedia has nice lists of countries with populations and GDPs. There isn't a list of winter-iest countries, otherwise, I definitely would have included that statistic.

Patrick, you have two "GDP per Total Medals"; should the second be Gold Medals?

Don't forget almost every single lifty in Whistler is an Aussie. If Canada wants to get really mean about OTP it will stop issuing job permits and keep these guys away from our snow ;-)

Hey, thinking about Devon Kershaw's heart-breaking reaction to being less than two seconds from the gold medal in yesterday's 50km - do you think it should be any consolation to him that he might actually have been the fastest from start line to finish line? The winner was bib number 1, and so started right on the line, while Devon K was number 28 and so would have started, what, five or six rows back?

Based on his reaction - I wouldn't want to be the one to tell him that.

Lets take the statistics down to the really local. Three of the Australian team (including maybe a medalist?) came from the one primary (elementary) school. Cooma is a rare school in Australia... it isn't far from winter snow.

their time should start when they cross the line....similiar to a marathon chip. Why don't they do it that way in X-country? Seems a little unfair to give the higher ranked skiers a head start.

In marathons the official time is still "gun time". The chip time is really for personal reference/bragging rights, not for awards.

Gun to tape - not line to tape.
It wouldn't be as much fun to watch - you wouldn't actually know what time anyone was on!

then they should just make a really looonnnngggg start line so everyone goes the same distance.

with all due respect i am pretty sure the result would have been the same if kershaw and northug would have changed their starting positions...

...or have the finish line earlier for those starting in the back rows...

I always favoured chip time over gun time. Now there's a practical reason for it.

I'm with naomi.

Ditto

Everyone knows that in a 50 km mass start race the whole pack will be skiing together for about 40 km before things start to happen.

As far as I remember Devon K was actually in the lead some time during the race - it´s not like he was those 20+ metres behind the whole time unable to catch up or burnt all his energy catching up with the pack after the gun...

There´s one very good way to solve the "chip time over gun time"-problem though: Don´t use the gun at all but go back to traditional individual start times. Then everyone gets their time between start and finish line,

So, who was the best male and female classic style skiier in Vancouver? Nobody knows, there was not such races there. There was mass starts, skatings and sprints and sprint relays but no a single race with classic style & traditional distance with individual start times. I wouldn't mind getting cross country skiing back to olympics, but maybe those good old days are gone for good and this is the way of the future. What next, will we see referees giving points for artistic impression and skiing costumes in Sochi cross country skiing races? Maybe same applied to O would take O to summer Olympics.

Re: kupackmans analysis...

It´s truly impressive what Norway has achieved in the last six Winter Olympics! That may be hard to admit, being a Swede, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Norway has always been a "wintry" country - as have Sweden and Finland - and my feeling was that they had always been a dominating force in all kinds of skiing and skating. Apparently that was not the case when looking at the medals tables from earlier games.

Olympiatoppen is certainly one of the reasons for the improvement. Another reason could be that they all of a sudden also became very succesful in alpine skiing (freestyle and snowboard included) - something unheard of in the early days.

Traditional skiing, skating and ski jumping (+ nordic combination) have always been some of the major sports in Norway. Even with the growing competition from the rest of the world - in sports that used to be exclusively Scandinavian - Norway has managed to stay on top while Sweden and Finland have lost their previous positions to Italy, Germany, France and the likes.

Nordic countries could probably improve their medal count by steering kids who like speed skating but are too short to compete at the world level with the traditional long track skaters towards short track programs. No wait! Don't do that! That would negatively affect Canada's (Quebec's) medal count.

Finland had a very bad Olympics over-all this year (1 silver, 4 bronze) and all Swedish medals this time came at Whistler - all in traditional winter sports (XC skiing, biathlon and alpine). Oh yeah, we stole the GOLD from the Canadian curling women too ;)

We did have a few medal hopes in snowboard and ski-cross but apart from that we have very few athletes competing in anything else than the "traditional" winter sports. We´ve lost a lot of ground (ice) in speed skating while the traditionally succesful ski jumping is more or less dead in Sweden these days.

I guess short track could be one way to go, but most of the indoor skating rinks are used for hockey (as in Canada, I presume). Bobsleigh, luge and skeleton barely exist at all - I think there may be only one place (at the most) to do that in Sweden.

4 man bob... nothing else matters too much!

>Oh yeah, we stole the GOLD from the Canadian curling women too ;)

well if you were watching the game Canada stole it from themselves with two bad mistakes in the final and extra end. BUT that worked out for the better as it made the men's hockey gold the record breaking 14th gold medal all the more sweeter.

Can you steal something from yourself?

I saw the final plays and if not stealing from themselves - they already HAD the gold, but gave it away...

Saw the whole hockey final and enjoyed it a lot. The US team put up a good fight - not playing as well but never giving up. I didn´t see any other hockey games - wrong time (early morning hours or middle of the night) but my feeling is that this must have been the two best teams. It would have been very hard for a Swedish team to beat them (Canada) the way they played in the final.

Bubo,

Having watched a lot of the Olympic hockey, I would say most teams seemed to elevate their games when playing Canada. When they played amongst themselves the calibre seemed to fall off - not sure why. Just an observation.

always nice to beat the home nation....?

No they dislike Canada. The Great One said so in his 2002 Salt Lake Rant. ;-)

I'm sure no one (well hardly any one) dislikes Canada .... :)

I think other countries get very inspired when the play Canada in hockey is that it is pretty much accepted that Canada is and has always been THE hockey power in the world. Thus, everyone knows they need to bring their top game if they are going to even stay close to them.

One (US) hockey commentator said prior to the games that only two people on the US team would have been able to make the Canadian team. Whether true or not (I'm guessing it's not), it's an example of the high regard for Canadian hockey.

I think it's pretty common for people to up their game when the competition is tough. Exactly why American orienteers need to get their butts to Europe... and American hockey players to Canada. ;-)

I don't know - Canada wasn't very popular at Copenhagen in December. I might have to take the flag off my backpack for my next European trip.

How could anyone dislike Canada? Ridiculous. It would be like disliking maple syrup, or sphagnum moss.

kupackman:

the reason norway did a lot better from 1992, is from the major defeat in 1988 with very medals, one of the worst olympics ever, and norway then decided to really reorganize everything. also, because of the increase of "norwegian beneficial" sports per olympics, like more cross country skiing distances, biathlon etc. whereas there is only one hockey medal, and one curling medal, that might have helped as well.

I suspect ski-orienteering would also be considered "norwegian beneficial".

for sure

Inspired by Canada's "Own the Podium" program for the 2010 Olympics, GVOC is launching its own Own the Podium program for the Western Canadian Orienteering Champs and World Ranking Event in Whistler this summer, as they are the hosting club for the events.

GVOC members competing in the events will be allowed to test run the orienteering courses up to 250 times each prior to the events. The area will still remain embargoed for runners of all other clubs.

When asked about the program, event director* Adrian Zissos explained "We hope that our Own the Podium will help give Whistler locals that 'feel-good' feeling when they see their hometown heros climb to the top of the podium. Imagine how the sport of orienteering can develop in Whistler."

This good news may just be what one Whistler resident has been waiting for a long time. "This is just awesome!", commented Martin Pardoe, a formed Canadian national team member who calls Whistler his home. "It's time to come out of o-hibernation and bring home some golds".

* and newly appointed Chief Strategic Officer in GVOC

The worst part of it, I hear, is that orienteers from other clubs will not be able to forerun the courses when they come to Whistler for spring/ summer skiing or golf. They will be limited to the beer patios, the ski runs and the fairways. The good news is that those are very nice places to be from April to June.
The bad news is that when the outsiders go to register for the Barebones events in Whistler they may forego the expensive (for barebones) 'championships' events all together in favour of the more reasonably priced 'open' categories.

With the Olympics over, how is the fund-raising "Own the Podium" auction going? I'm suspecting Qatar and Russia to be the top bidders. Bidding does end at midnight tonight, yes?