Author Topic: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views  (Read 112273 times)

Offline Monika

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #110 on: March 02, 2010, 01:51:15 am »


And the Swedish ladies here will have to forgive me when I tell the truth; that the major thing for Norway is always to beat Sweden, so in that respect the games were especially successful this year....  :P

Lol, well it´s the same thing here in Sweden. As long as we beat Norway, we´re happy :laugh:


Offline Sheriff Roland

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #111 on: March 02, 2010, 10:45:26 am »
Here's a Canadian reprospective look at the games. I'm just quoting the last few paragraphs. Use the link for a complete read.

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/2010wintergames/2010+heartwarming+Olympic+odyssey/2630814/story.html

2010: A heartwarming Olympic odyssey

Tens of thousands of people poured into downtown streets Sunday, as they had each night of the Olympics, to celebrate and cheer not only Canada's hockey win but merely being Canadian and part of these Games. And as usual, it wasn't just a young crowd spilling from bars.

There were seniors, babies in strollers, kids holding glow-sticks and middle-aged men and women waving flags tied to hockey sticks. And at the intersection of Smithe and Howe, at 9:30 p.m., there was a full-on street hockey game, complete with nets.

Five hundred people stood and watched and cheered every goal,
no matter which team scored.
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Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #112 on: March 02, 2010, 12:43:57 pm »
I'm sure the winners of them are proud as all get-out of their achievements--as they should be--but as far as I'm concerned, the medals themselves are ugly.

I really like the look of the medals......very different.


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Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #113 on: March 03, 2010, 07:53:55 pm »


Hmmmm. The analysis and the journalism seems--might be--a bit partisan, no?


http://www.slate.com/id/2246514/

America's Joy, Austria's Sorrow
Why the economic model predicting Olympic medal counts drastically underestimated the U.S. haul.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Tuesday, March 2, 2010, at 3:40 PM ET




At the outset of the Olympics, I checked in with Colorado College economist Daniel Johnson, the Canadian-born curling enthusiast who has developed a model that generates pretty accurate predictions about countries' medal performance. The model, you'll recall, is simple. The economist studies only five variables: population, income per capita, climate, political structure, and host-nation advantage. Johnson's predictions for 2010, which include only those nations expected to win 10 medals or more, can be seen here (PDF). Now that the Olympics have ended, Johnson and I conducted a postmortem to see which sporting nations outperformed and which disappointed. Here's the full 2010 medal count table.

Conclusion: The United States was the Shaun White of medals, exceeding even very high expectations. Canada did about as expected, and Russia pulled the equivalent of skiing off the slalom course after the first gate. Germany was also a medaling champion. The model projected Germany's medal haul would fall from 29 in 2006 to 20 in 2010. And yet Germany came in second with 30 medals—50 percent more than projected.

Canada, which typically does well in the Winter Olympics, was expected to ride the host-nation status to a world-leading 27-medal haul, though only five were expected to be gold. Johnson notes that the home-snow advantage generally adds about three medals to the total a host nation would be expected to win. In fact, though Canada won 26 medals, 14 of them were gold. "They covered their home advantage," said Johnson. "They did exactly as expected."

The model projected that the United States would tie for second with 26 medals. But Americans took home a whopping 37. "Not only did they win the most of any nation ever, but they outperformed the model by the biggest margin ever," Johnson said. (At this point in the interview I interrupted Johnson's discourse with aggressive chants of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!") Was it possible that the United States had something of a home-snow advantage? After all, Vancouver is just over the border, American athletes traveling to Vancouver didn't have to make much of an adjustment to time or cultural differences, and there were large numbers of American supporters at several events. "Many of the U.S. athletes in Vancouver were closer to their homes than Canadian athletes who live in the eastern part of Canada," Johnson notes.

Other surprises: Austria, expected to win 25 medals, won just 16, in large measure because its ski team schussed like sheiss.  The Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, and Norway) were expected to increase their medal haul substantially from 2006, with Finland expected to win 14. But instead, while Norway won 23 of its projected 26 medals, Sweden and Finland both disappointed. Finland won just five medals, and no golds. And Russia, which was projected to win 23 medals, the same as in 2006, performed disastrously, winning just 15, including a measly three golds.

As always, individual performances and hair-thin margins played a role. Take out the great performances of Apolo Anton Ohno, Lindsey Vonn, and Julia Mancuso, and the U.S. performance wouldn't be as impressive. I've got a couple of other theories for some of the variation from the model. Russia's athletic performance is in relative decline because the whole country is in relative decline. In the post-Soviet era, Russia's health, life expectancy, and population have declined. In the past two decades, many of its most ambitious citizens, including world-class athletes and their families, have emigrated. "Emigration probably has some impact," said Johnson. "For any nation where quality of life is diminishing, people with world-class opportunities leave." In Beijing, for example, gymnast Nastia Liukin, a Moscow native, won medals for the United States, not Russia. Italy, another country in economic and demographic decline, similar fell on its face in Vancouver. The model, which perhaps gave too much weight to Italy's impressive 2006 Turin performance, projected the Italians would win 19 medals. They took home only five.

As it was for the Austrian skiers, the Vancouver Olympics were a little chastening for Prof. Johnson and his model. Over the past few Olympics, the model has a 94 percent correlation with the actual medal count per country and about an 88 percent correlation with the actual gold medal haul per country. But this year, not so much. "The predictions were less accurate this year than in any previous Olympics for which we've run numbers," Johnson said. "That suggests to me that something changed and these games were unusual."

The big difference was that the giant traditional powerhouses Germany and the United States won so many more medals than expected—at the expense of smaller Scandinavian and central European nations. And this may simply be a case of the rich getting richer. "There is a general sense that Germany and the United States provided athletes with a lot of financial support," Johnson said. Observers of the U.S. economy will identify in these Olympics a familiar phenomenon: an increasing concentration of asset-based wealth (in this case: gold, silver, and bronze) among those with the most money. And they're willing to spend cash to protect their elite status.

See you in Sochi.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2010, 11:39:20 pm by jmmgallagher »
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #114 on: March 03, 2010, 08:28:39 pm »
I just can't relate to this at all. Medals are won by athletes, not countries.
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Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #115 on: March 04, 2010, 09:37:05 pm »

I just can't relate to this at all. Medals are won by athletes, not countries.


Unfortunately, some people have a very unsportsmanlike attitude!

(And--see the photo: which fellow looks nervous  and which one does not!)


http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/35687205/ns/sports-olympic_sports/

Russian Olympic boss quits after worst showing
Tyagachev steps down after nation won only 15 medals in Vancouver



A picture taken on November 4, 2004 shows then
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and
Leonid Tyagachev, left


By David Nowak

updated 9:30 a.m. ET, Thurs., March. 4, 2010

MOSCOW - The head of the Russian Olympic Committee says he resigned in the wake of Russia's worst performance at the Winter Games.

Leonid Tyagachev said in televised remarks Thursday that his decision followed the "unexpectedly" poor results of the team at Vancouver.

Russian news agencies reported his resignation Wednesday, but the Olympic Committee denied it.

Russia placed 11th with three golds and sixth in the overall medal count with just 15 medals. That total was two fewer than its previous low in Salt Lake City in 2002.

The results proved particularly embarrassing as the country takes the torch for the next Winter Olympics in its Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2014.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
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Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #116 on: March 04, 2010, 10:13:59 pm »
One of the biggest blows to Russia's medal count was the figure skating results.

Russian pairs have dominated this sport, and these past games, their pairs didn't even medal.

No Russian women were even considered a threat these games.

Evgeni Plushenko was favored for gold, and got silver.

Russian's have almost always won Ice dancing, except for when Torvill & Dean (UK) and Anissina & Peizerat (France) won.  This Olympics, the best they could do was bronze.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Sheriff Roland

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #117 on: March 12, 2010, 01:00:00 pm »
For those who don't know, hockey is big in Canada. They say that 80% of the country (man, woman and child) watched the gold medal game between Canada & the U.S. (the States had beaten the home team in the round robin match up).

BTW, Canada ended up with the gold medal, even though the U.S. tied up the match with only 24 seconds remain to play. The game was won in overtime when Sydney Crosby scored.

Anyways, back to the fact that Canadians are crazy for hockey.

The city of Edmonton (Alberta) has released a graph indicating water usage (ie, toilet flushing) during the game, compared to the previous day's water usage.


BTW, if you're going to watch just one paralympics event, make sure it's a sledge hockey match.
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #118 on: March 12, 2010, 02:17:01 pm »
That graph is very funny and telling, friend!! I wonder what it would look like if Labatt's issued a graph of beer consumption that could be overlaid on it!

I finally got to see k.d. laing's performance of Hallelujah, my friend Chuck had taped it. Wow, can that woman sing!!
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Offline Sheriff Roland

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Re: Vancouver Winter Olympics - News and Views
« Reply #119 on: March 15, 2010, 01:41:28 pm »
CTV hasn't allow the live feed of k. d. lang's performance of 'Hallelujah' be released onto youtube, but someone's managed to post an audio of the performance ... for the time being anyways.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPJkiB2o0sw[/youtube]

Today, (13-03-04) I found this slightly trunkated, but live version of the original performance from the Vancouver games. Still worth it.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKrkEOlyJo8[/youtube]
« Last Edit: March 05, 2013, 10:39:34 pm by Sheriff Roland »
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