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Vancouver Olympics: Thread 3, Day 17 (Closing Ceremony)
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Someone else already said it, it doesnt matter how much money you throw at sports, you cannot guarentee success. Hell, the same is true in business and just about every venture.
I know this is an extremely low threshold, but as long as our athletes arent embarassing to watch compete, and make us proud of sending them to the event I am pretty happy.
I would be more interested to see the Medal & Diploma combined count for each country. (Diploma is what you get for places 4th - 8th right?). Since that shows how competitive your country really is. The top 3 positions are determined either by standout athletes that no amount of money can buy since it is natural talent in an extreme abundance over the competition, or else due to some lucky breaks and flukes. The top 10 I feel is a more representative sample of who the best in the sport are.
MWO: Adamski
The Yankees don't get that excuse and neither does Canada. I'm sorry, but that, too, is sports. Money doesn't guarantee success, but money brings an expectation of success, especially when you roll out a program explicitly named "Own the Podium". If you don't end up owning said podium, nobody's going to let you forget it.
For better or worse this is pretty much accurate. If the men's hockey team comes away with gold the apparent failure of Own the Podium will be largely irrelevant to most people.
However I will say in defense of the program that Canadian athletes seem to be doing better in events that they historically haven't had much of a presence in. For example Canadians finished 4th in the men's team cross-country relay today, an all-time high. Granted this isn't a medal and thus doesn't meet the goals of the program, but it is nevertheless reason to support its effects.
Medal Events, top 5 finishes
USA: 7/8/10/6/4 (35)
Germany: 7/9/5/2/5 (28)
Canada: 5/4/1/6/11 (27)
Norway: 6/3/5/4/2 (20)
Austria: 3/3/3/6/4 (19)
Russia: 2/3/6/8/0 (19)
That to me shows a much more competitive Olympics exhibition than the final medal count would suggest.
MWO: Adamski
You must be trolling.
Also, the Canada women's hockey team will demolish all in its path. All.
The men's side just needs more time to gel, and there might not be enough time. On paper, the Canadian team looks incredible. With regards to the US loss, Miller was just fantastic. Best game of his life? Maybe. I don't remember the shots count, but it was around the 40 mark for Canada. The man was just on fire that night.
they don't it be like it is but it do
That's really interesting - our Athletes are just about good enough to finish in the top 5 as often as the Americans, but they can't quite get those medals.
Miller is on fire every night. If the rest of the team (mainly the forwards, as the defensemen are actually doing rather well) starts to produce like they can, the U.S. could easily ride Miller into a gold medal finish. The guy is pretty much unflappable. Not to mention he is a great leader, and when the rest of the team looks to him they see a rock. I can only imagine the confidence boost that gives them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5zQJVpi7U
According to the numbers Gnome posted, the expectation would be 71% for US and 37% for Canada. I don't know if this is even possible, but I think it would be interesting if anyone had information about expectations versus actually placing and if they happen to be radically different for any countries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYoTJItSPt0
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/vancouver-medal-count-projections-day.html
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Seems to me it's more of a fun little exercise - he's using public projections and averaging them.
The salient point is that Canada is likely to do far better in the remaining events than the US.
I also just wanted to give a shout out to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, they skated beautifully last night earning another gold Canada can be proud of!
No that's the thing. Canada is only likely to do better if we presume the predictions were correct. They've proven to be off. There's not much chance of Canada getting 7+ more golds when they have 5 so far or 16+ more medals when they have 10 so far. Other than curling and women's hockey I don't think there are even many events where Canadians are considered strong favorites left.
edit
Hell the US is even in contention in 2 woman bobsled today since we got a silver last time in since we got silver last time and Nordic Combined has us as one of the favorites. Vonn and Mancuso have another event tomorrow, Ohno has another event tomorrow, etc
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The projections are based off remaining events, not totals. I'm not going to go down event by event, but again, the point is that prior to the games, the Canadians were thought to be strong favorites in a lot of events which have yet to award medals.
The projections so far have been inaccurate for Canada and a couple of others, but to call them all "wildly inaccurate" is disingenuous.
An interesting exercise would be to go event by event with those that remain and look at exactly where Canada is expected to pick up these 16 medals, but I don't care that much.
That was a cool video.
*Slow clap*
An ex-pat living in Texas showed me that the other day. Very well done. Gave me warm fuzzies.
Except Gretchen Bleiler has actually been very successful in her sport.
Predicting 160% of actual (Canada's total medals) is wildly inaccurate, and those projections have been high in every event except snowboarding.
Hell, the projections suggest they'll win 3.6 more medals in the 4 remaining short track events when they've won 1 so far, in one of the events they have nearly no contenders, and two of the events are relays where they can get at most one medal. It projects 2.8 more medals in speed skating in 4 events, 1 of which has no Canadian competitors, 2 of which are team events that feature the same athletes that have underperformed expectations. They project 2.6 more in freestyle skiing with 3 events to go and only 2 with qualified Canadians.
The whole thing presumes the expectations were accurate when so far they've proven inaccurate, even event to event. Everyone acknowledges this, yet those projections are still the base. That's why its not that useful for projection unless we presume the variance is random, which its clearly not.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
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I'm assuming GS is tape delayed in the US?
Appears to be according to my local listings.
The one thing that stood out to the NCB guy? Canada has the same amount of people in it than California... REALLY?!?! That's the one thing?!
That video was pretty great, yeah.
I liked that at the end, Tom slipped in that, well, another thing that stands out is that Canada has a stronger and better-recovered economy. :P
Although, it is pretty silly to think sometimes how a single state has more people than our entire country.
I like Mancuso more :P
Yesterday I watched most of the match between GBR and DEN for womens' curling.
It was good.
Seriously, though, why are all these athletes so good-looking? They could double as actors/actresses in most cases.
Maybe training for an Olympic sport, through some unknown mechanism, makes you more attractive than sitting a desk all day.
I am not just talking about build, but facial structure as well. A lot of them look pretty good, and not just body-wise.
Currently DMing: None
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If she completed the course, she's not a victim. If she got a DNF, it counts.
Let's not ignore Tessa Virtue, the best looking figure skater ever. (and proud Canuck)
That gold medal draped around her neck isn't the only thing getting attention.:p