Gonna take a detour from the WHL this morning to take a peek at some Olympic stats.....if you live in Canada, you may be vaguely aware of the teeth-gnashing going on in some quarters right now over the failure of some Canadian athletes at these Games to live up to what was expected of them. Basically Canada has 9 medals right now and were expecting to have between 5 and 10 more at this point. The "Own The Podium" funding initiative put into place for these Games (to help Canadian athletes achieve medals at these home Games), is now being derogatorily referred to in some places as "Loan The Podium".
But here's some really interesting numbers I put together though....the number of overall top-six finishes in the Games so far:
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | 4th | 5th | 6th | Top-6 | |
| USA | 7 | 7 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 38 |
| Canada | 4 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 11 | 7 | 33 |
| Germany | 6 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 28 |
| Austria | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 23 |
| Russia | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 20 |
| Norway | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 20 |
| France | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 16 |
| Switzerland | 5 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 15 |
| Netherlands | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 13 |
| South Korea | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 13 |
| China | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| Sweden | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Italy | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| Japan | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| Finland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Slovenia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Poland | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 6 |
| Slovakia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Great Britain | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Belarus | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Kazahkstan | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Latvia | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Czech Republic | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Australia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Croatia | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Hungary | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Ukraine | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Estonia | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Canada is actually 2nd overall in top-six finishes, behind only the USA....but the USA has 24 medals out of their 38 top-six finishes (63% of their top-six finishes are medals), Germany has 18 medals from 28 top-six finishes (even better at 64%), and Canada has only 9 medals from their 33 top-sixes (27%).
Clearly, Canada is coming very close to medals in many events, but they are falling just short of the podium whereas other countries are "finishing the job", so to speak.
It's an odd thing....I mean, in most sports the difference between being 1st and being 6th is not that great. Most events have multiple athletes who are capable of winning with a good performance on any given day, and somebody who is first today could be sixth tomorrow. But Canadians are consistently coming up on the short end this year.....what do you think is causing this.....the added pressure of competing at home? Bad luck? Something else?
3 comments:
I think it has to be the pressure. I mean if you saw the ski-cross race yesterday, the Canadian is in clear in third on the second last jump coming up to the finish and falls. That's just how it's been going this whole time and it's kinda sad. If we don't even get a medal in men's hockey then that's a major fail, and it isn't looking good. If we beat Germany, we could see the best quarterfinal game of all time in Canada vs. Russia.
Matt
Blame the anthem. Too much standing on guard instead of racing through the open door.We always open the door for the elderly, infirm, and less fortunate. We are the perfect host and as Bob Seger wrote "always willing to be second best".
I wouldn't call 9 medals a failure. I think people forget that other countries do put a lot of money and time into athletics too. We get to watch the best in the world at what they do. It's not easy and you have to continue to compete. The home pressure thing is always brought up but the U.S. won the medal count in 2002 at home. And are leading this year and Vancouver is a 30 minute drive from the U.S. border it's not like they are in enemy territory there.... Look at 2014 how much pressure will be on Russians to win the count in what will be very hostile for U.S. and Canadian athletes.
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