Eye on Olys

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/02/2010 (5905 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NUMBERS GAME

7-13-15-17-24 

Canada’s medal overall Winter Olympic medal totals dating back to the seven won in Albertville in 1992 through to the 24 captured in Turin in 2006.

 

THE EGGHEADS HAVE CRUNCHED THE NUMBERS AND…

According to Businessweek, Canada is going to win more Olympic medals than any other nation over the next few weeks. And they feel they’ve got the data — and a 94 per cent accuracy rate — to prove it.

"The numbers say it will be Canada’s year," said Daniel Johnson, an economics professor at Colorado College.

Johnson, who used to live in Vancouver, analyzed Olympic data going back to 1952 and — instead of studying the athletes and their performances — focused on each country’s per-capita income, population, climate and home-field advantage. And the data predict Canada will finish with 27 medals — one more than Norway and the United States.

Even though Canada failed to win a gold medal in the two previous Games it hosted — the Summer Olympics in Montreal in 1976 and the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 — Johnson cites the increased funding through the Own the Podium program as key.

 

THE SIMP-STONES? D’OH!

Olympic fans, curling fans, The Simpsons fans should remember to tune in on Valentine’s Day — Homer, Marge & Co. will be stepping onto the pebbled ice in an episode to be aired on Feb. 14. The story will see Homer taking Marge out skating, upon which they’ll come across a curling squad at work. Homer, Marge, Principal Skinner and his mother will join the curling team and compete with them in the Olympic trials before moving on to the Vancouver Games.

Two ways to look at this, say curling diehards: There is no such thing as bad press, even with the sport potentially being mocked in front of millions of viewers. And, secondly, the game will never attract young fans if it is constantly being ridiculed by popular culture.

"As long as The Simpsons doesn’t ridicule the sport, it might do some good," 1999 worlds and five-time European champion Hammy McMillan told The Scotsman.

 

FYI

"Wünderteam?" Think again. Seems like folks in Austria are more than a little worried about their alpine ski team heading into Vancouver. The perennial powerhouse on the slopes — a squad that won a record 14 medals in Turin — hasn’t looked nearly as invincible over the past couple of winters. Get this: The Austrian ski federation made 17 coaching changes in the off-season. And Canadians thought we were obsessive about hockey… Consider these numbers: The inaugural games, Chamonix, France, in 1924, featured 294 athletes from 16 nations competing in 13 events from five different sports disciplines. In Vancouver, it’s expected 5,500 athletes from more than 80 countries will compete in a record 86 sports… Don’t know what it accomplishes, if anything, but check this out if you’ve got 30 seconds to kill: http://www.ctvolympics.ca/hockeytwin/. By answering a few questions, fans can find out which Canadian Olympic men’s hockey player is their "twin." For the record, yours truly took the test and my twin is Nashville Predators’ defenceman Shea Weber.

 

— Ed Tait