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Vancouver Olympics: Thread 3, Day 17 (Closing Ceremony)

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  • Gnome-InterruptusGnome-Interruptus Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    While I would like to see Own the Podium increase Canada's medal count, its not the main thrust for me. What I want out of the system is for Canada to be "competitive" in as many events as possible.

    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.

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  • GoslingGosling Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, Probably Watertown, WIRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    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.

    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.

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  • VarcaynVarcayn Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Gosling wrote: »
    And please recall that Canada has long settled on one specific event, men's hockey, as the one specific make-or-break gold medal they wanted. They don't get gold in men's hockey, the entire Olympics is a failure.

    Canada isn't eliminated yet, but they just lost by 2 to the Americans, had to go to a shootout to get past Switzerland, and now have to go through four single-elimination matches when they could have gone through three, the first two of which are Germany and Russia.

    If they don't win all four matches, the entire Olympics is a failure, as per the expectations of Canada as a whole. Those are very specific, very un-movable goalposts.

    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.

    Varcayn on
  • toxk_02toxk_02 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    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.
    This was a brief comparison from yesterday posted somewhere else, I've updated it through today.

    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)

    toxk_02 on
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  • Gnome-InterruptusGnome-Interruptus Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    toxk_02 wrote: »
    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.
    This was a brief comparison from yesterday posted somewhere else, I've updated it through today.

    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.

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  • RaakamRaakam Too many years... CanadalandRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    I thought the Canadians were over scored on ice dancing, their program seemed simple compared to the Americans, and bunches of it seemed to have no relation to the music(which wasn't dynamic at all).

    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.

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  • RobmanRobman Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Anyone see that fascinating statistic of raw number of Top 5 finishes vs. medal conversion? America and Canada are nearly neck and neck in terms of number of Top 5 placements, but America has over a 70% chance of getting a medal based on a top 5 finish, whereas Canada is something below 30% (?).

    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.

    Robman on
  • ProsperoProspero Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Raakam wrote: »
    I thought the Canadians were over scored on ice dancing, their program seemed simple compared to the Americans, and bunches of it seemed to have no relation to the music(which wasn't dynamic at all).

    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.

    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.

    Prospero on
  • Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Ok, these Hitler freaking out videos are super played out, but this one of him freaking out about Canada losing to the US in that hockey game cracked me up.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5zQJVpi7U
    "Half of Canada will kill themselves!"

    Al_wat on
  • khainkhain Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Robman wrote: »
    Anyone see that fascinating statistic of raw number of Top 5 finishes vs. medal conversion? America and Canada are nearly neck and neck in terms of number of Top 5 placements, but America has over a 70% chance of getting a medal based on a top 5 finish, whereas Canada is something below 30% (?).

    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.

    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.

    khain on
  • ScottyScotty Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
  • SixSix Caches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhex Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Interesting that Canada's projected to win another 16 medals (including another 7 gold) compared to the US's 8.

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/vancouver-medal-count-projections-day.html

    Six on
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  • PantsBPantsB Fake Thomas Jefferson Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Six wrote: »
    Interesting that Canada's projected to win another 16 medals (including another 7 gold) compared to the US's 8.

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/vancouver-medal-count-projections-day.html
    The statistical projections for medal count have been wildly inaccurate so far and it actually looks like Nate is simply going with a small scale wisdom of the crowds here. Kind of embarrassing analysis compared to his normal work in both sports (PECOTA) and politics.

    PantsB on
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  • SixSix Caches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhex Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    PantsB wrote: »
    Six wrote: »
    Interesting that Canada's projected to win another 16 medals (including another 7 gold) compared to the US's 8.

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/vancouver-medal-count-projections-day.html
    The statistical projections for medal count have been wildly inaccurate so far and it actually looks like Nate is simply going with a small scale wisdom of the crowds here. Kind of embarrassing analysis compared to his normal work in both sports (PECOTA) and politics.

    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.

    Six on
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  • DmanDman Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Off the top of my head Canada has a better shot at medals than the USA in mens and womens curling and hockey but we are way too far behind on medals to catch up at this point. I did find the number of top 5 finishes we have to be interesting. I think all those top 5 finishes matter even if their don't earn medals. I think they show that our athletic programs are still strong even if they didn't earn us as many medals as intended.

    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!

    Dman on
  • PantsBPantsB Fake Thomas Jefferson Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Six wrote: »
    PantsB wrote: »
    Six wrote: »
    Interesting that Canada's projected to win another 16 medals (including another 7 gold) compared to the US's 8.

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/vancouver-medal-count-projections-day.html
    The statistical projections for medal count have been wildly inaccurate so far and it actually looks like Nate is simply going with a small scale wisdom of the crowds here. Kind of embarrassing analysis compared to his normal work in both sports (PECOTA) and politics.

    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 islikely to do far better in the remaining events than the US.

    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

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  • SixSix Caches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhex Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    PantsB wrote: »
    Six wrote: »
    PantsB wrote: »
    Six wrote: »
    Interesting that Canada's projected to win another 16 medals (including another 7 gold) compared to the US's 8.

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/vancouver-medal-count-projections-day.html
    The statistical projections for medal count have been wildly inaccurate so far and it actually looks like Nate is simply going with a small scale wisdom of the crowds here. Kind of embarrassing analysis compared to his normal work in both sports (PECOTA) and politics.

    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 islikely to do far better in the remaining events than the US.

    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


    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.

    Six on
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  • AridholAridhol Daddliest Catch Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Scotty wrote: »

    That was a cool video.

    Aridhol on
  • RocketSauceRocketSauce Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Man, I'm developing quite the crush on Lindsey Vonn.

    RocketSauce on
  • AlejandroDaJAlejandroDaJ Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Better her than Gretchen Bleiler, the freaking Anna Kournikova of women's snowboarding.

    AlejandroDaJ on
  • saint2esaint2e Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Scotty wrote: »
    US + Canada = <3

    *awesome video*

    *Slow clap*

    An ex-pat living in Texas showed me that the other day. Very well done. Gave me warm fuzzies.

    saint2e on
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  • Wet BanditWet Bandit Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Better her than Gretchen Bleiler, the freaking Anna Kournikova of women's snowboarding.

    Except Gretchen Bleiler has actually been very successful in her sport.

    Wet Bandit on
  • PantsBPantsB Fake Thomas Jefferson Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Six wrote: »
    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.

    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.

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  • SixSix Caches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhex Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    it's interesting that the projections for Canada were so far off while for everyone else they were much more accurate. I wonder if there was a home country bias at play that made for some undeserved optimism.

    Six on
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  • quovadis13quovadis13 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Women's curling now, and Giant Slalom starts shortly too. A whole butt load of people competing too (like over 100). Look for Whistler to claim alot more victims today.

    quovadis13 on
  • deadonthestreetdeadonthestreet Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    China is pretty amazing at curling.

    deadonthestreet on
  • SixSix Caches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhex Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    quovadis13 wrote: »
    Women's curling now, and Giant Slalom starts shortly too. A whole butt load of people competing too (like over 100). Look for Whistler to claim alot more victims today.

    I'm assuming GS is tape delayed in the US?

    Six on
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  • JHunzJHunz Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Six wrote: »
    quovadis13 wrote: »
    Women's curling now, and Giant Slalom starts shortly too. A whole butt load of people competing too (like over 100). Look for Whistler to claim alot more victims today.

    I'm assuming GS is tape delayed in the US?

    Appears to be according to my local listings.

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  • DibsDibs Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    That video was awesome.

    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?!

    Dibs on
  • saint2esaint2e Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Man. GB is just not having a good second half of this curling match. Well done Canada.

    saint2e on
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  • LaOsLaOs SaskatoonRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Dibs wrote: »
    That video was awesome.

    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.

    LaOs on
  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Man, I'm developing quite the crush on Lindsey Vonn.

    I like Mancuso more :P

    a5ehren on
  • delphinusdelphinus Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Skip for GB women's curling team :^::winky::^:

    delphinus on
  • LaOsLaOs SaskatoonRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    delphinus wrote: »
    Skip for GB women's curling team :^::winky::^:

    Yesterday I watched most of the match between GBR and DEN for womens' curling.

    It was good.

    LaOs on
  • ProsperoProspero Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Mancuso is a babe, and Vonn is a babezilla. I never realized she was that much taller than Mancuso until I saw them next to each other.

    Seriously, though, why are all these athletes so good-looking? They could double as actors/actresses in most cases.

    Prospero on
  • tinwhiskerstinwhiskers Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Prospero wrote: »
    Mancuso is a babe, and Vonn is a babezilla. I never realized she was that much taller than Mancuso until I saw them next to each other.

    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.

    tinwhiskers on
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  • ProsperoProspero Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Prospero wrote: »
    Mancuso is a babe, and Vonn is a babezilla. I never realized she was that much taller than Mancuso until I saw them next to each other.

    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.

    D:

    I am not just talking about build, but facial structure as well. A lot of them look pretty good, and not just body-wise.

    Prospero on
  • AegisAegis Fear My Dance Overshot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Yeeesh, ski cross just claimed the last rider of the 1st run. She went down hard at the finish line.

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  • GoslingGosling Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, Probably Watertown, WIRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Aegis wrote: »
    Yeeesh, ski cross just claimed the last rider of the 1st run. She went down hard at the finish line.

    If she completed the course, she's not a victim. If she got a DNF, it counts.

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  • ScottyScotty Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Prospero wrote: »
    Prospero wrote: »
    Mancuso is a babe, and Vonn is a babezilla. I never realized she was that much taller than Mancuso until I saw them next to each other.

    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.

    D:

    I am not just talking about build, but facial structure as well. A lot of them look pretty good, and not just body-wise.


    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

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    Scotty on
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