Who Really Won the Olympics?

The London Olympics are over and as expected, America came out on top. For me, it was not a particularly enjoyable fortnight as the time difference meant that I missed most of the great performances. Back home in Canada though, there has been much national angst as Canadian athletes brought home a solitary gold among 18 overall medals. Personally, I thought that was a reasonable achievement; we are not blessed with America's population so to garner 18 medals is fine, even if 12 were bronze. As James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail said, there's no shame in celebrating bronze, as long as it is not in hockey.

One of the problems with the Olympics is the unbalanced playing field. It is not really fair to compare countries against one another based purely on medals. There are so many other factors that can be used to get a better idea of which nation performed beyond their expectations.

As an example, let's compare medal totals for Canada (1-5-12) and Brazil (3-5-9). Sure, Canada gained one more medal overall, but Brazil had the better record. Even then, gold medals alone are not a proper measurement either; North Korea's 4-0-2 puts them ahead of Spain at 3-10-4 in the official rankings. And medals don't even take into account populations or economics. Most notably, Grenada's single gold coming from a population of just over 100,000 is amazing. So rather than accept the prevailing standard, I decided to combine all of these elements to get a more interesting look at the medal standings.

First, I awarded points on a 5-2-1 basis for gold, silver, and bronze. These are purely arbitrary numbers based on a gold being worth more than 2 silvers, while a silver is equivalent to two bronzes. Again, just an arbitrary choice which actually didn't affect the rankings much. As an example, Japan (7-14-17-38-80) and France (11-11-12-34-89) switched places with Japan falling from 6th to 8th and France jumping up 2 spots by virtue of their extra 4 golds (those numbers are G-S-B-Total-Points). Canada suffered one of the biggest drops, falling from 13th to 22nd, just ahead of Belarus who had one of their gold medals taken away after the winner was caught doping.

The next step was to divide this point total by the population, which I took from the always reliable Wikipedia. Multiplying this number by 1,000,000 results in a stat that I have creatively dubbed Medal Points/Million People or MPMP. To illustrate, the US had 317 points using the 5-2-1 system and with a population of about 314 million, gets 1.01 MPMP, in other words about one medal point for every million people. This puts them 40th on the list with the aforementioned Grenada taking 1st at 47.62. Canada falls down to 47th at 0.77. The top 10 by this stat (MP are medal points):

Nation          MP     Pop      MPMP
Grenada          5    105,000   47.62
Bahamas          5    353,658   14.14
Jamaica         32  2,705,827   11.83
New Zealand     39  4,434,590    8.79
Trinidad & Tob   8  1,317,714    6.07
Hungary         53  9,962,000    5.32
Croatia         19  4,290,612    4.43
Lithuania       14  3,187,700    4.39
Slovenia         9  2,057,970    4.37
Denmark         21  5,584,758    3.76

The problem here is that less populous nations have a massive advantage as you can see above, where not a single country has a population above 10 million. So I also incorporated each nation's economy using GDP per capita, which is a reasonably accurate measure of a country's wealth. Dividing GDP per capita (in $US) by Medal Points gives a number (GDP/MP) that represents how much each Medal Point cost each resident of that country. It is obviously just a theoretical calculation, since each nation doesn't spend all of its wealth on sport, but it gives a rough idea of how much each medal "costs". Naturally, poor countries with a few medals are at the top of the ranking. Ethiopia, the poorest nation to take home a medal (GDP is just $360 per person), managed 7 medals for 20 medal points, which means each Ethiopian paid $18 for each medal point. Qatar, the richest country in the world with a GDP 273 times greater than that of Ethiopia, netted only 2 bronze medals, each costing over $49,000. Canada ended up in 54th, with each medal point costing $1,868. The top 10 and bottom 5 are below:

Nation      MP     GDP     GDP/MP
Ethiopia    20     360       18.0
China      267    5414       20.3 
Kenya       23     851       37.0
N. Korea    22    1200       54.6
Russia     204   12993       63.7
Ukraine     49    3621       73.9
Uganda       5     478       95.6
Cuba        37    5397      145.9
USA        317   48387      152.6
Jamaica     32    5402      168.8
...
Bahrain      1   23132    23132.0
Singapore    2   49271    24635.5
Hong Kong    1   34049    34049.0
Kuwait       1   47982    47982.0
Qatar        2   98329    49164.5

So how can these varied measures be combined to give an overall ranking? After much thought and experimentation with complicated mathematical formulae that involved logarithmic analysis (yeah, right) I decided to simply average the 3 rankings: medal points (MPR), medal points per million (MPPMR), and GDP/MP. Here are the top 20 and bottom 5:

Nation         MPR    MPPMR   GDP/MPR   AVG
Great Britain    4      14      13      10.3
Jamaica         20       3      10      11.0
Hungary         11       6      19      12.0
Cuba            17      12       8      12.3
Russia           3      30       5      12.7
USA              1      40       9      16.7
Kazakhstan      14      21      17      17.3
South Korea      7      28      18      17.7
Ukraine         13      39       6      19.3
Belarus         23      19      16      19.3
Germany          5      32      24      20.3
Australia        9      11      41      20.3
France           6      31      27      21.3
New Zealand     15       4      45      21.3
Georgia         38      15      15      22.7
China            2      66       2      23.3
North Korea     25      43       4      24.0
Czech Republic  21      18      35      24.7
Netherlands     12      16      47      25.0
Italy           10      38      28      25.3
...
Greece          75      68      78      73.7
Morocco         79      83      61      74.3
Kuwait          79      61      84      74.7
Hong Kong       79      72      83      78.0
Saudi Arabia    79      82      80      80.3

So Great Britain actually "won" the Olympics! Jamaica and Hungary round out the top 3, while the US falls to 6th due to their large population. Belarus remains in the top 10 despite losing that gold. Canada ended up right in the middle at 43rd out of 85 countries that won a medal, exactly where we like to be. Smarter sports fans could probably figure out a way to include all those nations that went home empty handed, but I think the final result here is pretty intriguing.

Obviously, this is an arbitrary analysis with no scientific merit whatsoever. Please don't take it seriously. You can easily adjust the rankings by playing with the weightings or changing the point system. It is actually rather interesting to do so; if you would like the original data, please let me know and I will forward it to you.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to Sochi in 2014. At least I'll be in the same time zone!

Best,

Sean

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The Olympics in Canada

I complained heartily about Japanese coverage of the Olympics but was in for a surprise when I returned home. I used to think Canadian television offered a balanced look in these events, but while here, I hardly saw anything that didn't involve a Canadian athlete. In a shocker, CTV broke away from the Slovakia-Sweden quarterfinal to interview the women's bobsleigh teams who had won gold and silver the day before. Slovakia scored twice during the break, and I was disappointed that the interviews couldn't wait until the intermission.

To be fair, Canada had a great Olympics, perhaps the best Winter Games of all time, and the celebrations and media coverage were well-deserved. After a difficult first week that was highlighted by the US defeating Canada in the preliminary round of hockey, there was a lot of national hand-wringing about the "Own the Podium" program. But the second week proved to be worth the wait. In the last 5 days, Canada pulled down 8 gold medals for a final total of 14, by far the most of any nation.

So congratulations are in order for the Canadian athletes who did the country proud. I am very happy to have come home so see some classic Canadian moments, capped off by Sidney Crosby's Golden Goal. I would have liked to have seen some other events but obviously viewers want to see Canadians winning as much as possible. In that, we are no different from any other nation.

Crosby v Miller

As an aside, it's interesting to note that Buffalo visited Pittsburgh back on February 1st, when Crosby beat Ryan Miller 3 times, including the game winner in a Penguins' 5-4 victory. On the last day of the same month, facing the same goalie on a stage far more important, Crosby needed just one goal to secure his place in hockey history. I wonder if that game a month ago had any bearing on the Olympic outcome.

The Sabres are at the Igloo again tomorrow (March 2nd) in another scheduling quirk. I'm curious to see if Miller will suffer any letdown (although he won't start this game). He was the tournament MVP but has played a lot of hockey in the past few months; it will be interesting if his level of play drops down the stretch.

In fact, the NHL teams with several Olympians may suffer a drop in performance as the season nears completion. The Ottawa Citizen's Ken Warren wrote an interesting piece yesterday on how teams with many Olympic players are upset in the playoffs. Worth reading and keeping in mind as the playoffs are just over a month away.

Best,

Sean

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More on the Olympics

NHK sucks a bit less

Last week I complained about NHK's coverage of the Winter Olympics. Somebody must have been listening, because since then, I have seen a lot more coverage. Today, they even showed the Canada/US hockey game live and in its (rather depressing) entirety. Another discovery was that they were live streaming other events on-line. So I was able to watch Canada's Jon Montgomery win the gold medal in men's skeleton, as well as all the bobsled crashes yesterday. Even better, this live streaming comes without commentary. It would be great to have all the feeds from all the events shown like this - with the sounds of the fans and the competitors, and no pointless rambling from announcers who add nothing to the enjoyment of the event.

So NHK no longer totally sucks in their coverage, they just partially suck. And as I am leaving in two days, that's where the bar shall remain until 2014.

Canada stunned?

I obviously watched the US/Canada game this morning and was not surprised to see the Yanks take the victory. Anyone who watched the Canada/Swiss game knew that the home team was vulnerable to good goaltending and despite putting tons of shots against Jonas Hiller, they were still only able to muster an overtime win.

So why was everyone expecting them to overrun the US, who have the best goalie in the NHL in Ryan Miller? I though the US had more than a fighting chance, and with Martin Brodeur not playing well (he gave the puck away on the USA's second goal and generally did not look sharp), the match was clearly in the American's favour from the get-go. One of the benefits of being overseas is that I don't have to listen to the national hand-wringing whenever Canada loses in international hockey. But by now, I would expect the nation would be used to losing big games. It happened in 1998 in Nagano (a game I attended that still ranks as my worst sports memory), and again in 2006 in Torino. One gold medal in three tournaments does not lend strength to the claim that "Hockey is Canada's game".

Canada finished in 6th place overall in the round-robin tournament. Interestingly, if they had beaten the Swiss in regulation, they would have finished 4th and advanced to the quarterfinals directly. So it's not the loss to a good US team that sent Canada to the qualification round, but the inability to beat a less talented Swiss squad.

Now Canada takes on Germany, and they should win to move on to face Russia in the quarterfinals. I'll be in Toronto on that day and although I had planned to check out the Raptors and Trailblazers, I'll be in my hotel watching the hockey game with the rest of the country. I am hoping that the extra game gets Canada some additional time to work out their problems. I think we'll see Luongo against Ovechkin and the Russians; when Washington visited Vancouver earlier this season, Ovechkin was held off the scoresheet. Hey, I know it doesn't mean much, but when you're down, you gotta be optimistic.

Best,

Sean

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Surprise trip to Toronto and Ottawa!

I've had it with the Olympic coverage here, so I've decided to do something about it - spend the last few days back in Canada. OK, I'm not being entirely truthful; I'm not returning home just to watch the Olympics. In reality, I had a bit of good news that freed up the last week of February and the first week of March. The only question was where to go.

With my parents still living in Ottawa, I knew I had to spend a few days there, and a quick check of the hockey schedule revealed the Senators would be hosting the Rangers on March 2nd and then Toronto on March 6th. So I knew I would be in Ottawa for that week, but I wanted to add another city in there for some more live sports. I first considered Vancouver for a few nights to enjoy the Olympic atmosphere, but hotel prices were sky-high, so that plan was quickly rejected.

I then looked at the Toronto sports schedules and found that the Marlies, Raptors, and Rock were home on four consecutive nights from February 24th. A quick check of flights and I knew I had my destination. The full schedule for this trip is below (updated Feb 27th after I missed the Cavs/Raptors game due to jet lag and Olympic Hockey). It all came together rather quickly but it will be a lot of fun. And I'll be able to see the Olympic hockey semi-finals and finals live and in English!

Feb 24 Portland at Toronto (NBA) 7:00 Watching Canada-Russia QF in Detroit Airport after flight delay
Feb 25 Hershey at Toronto (AHL) 7:00
Feb 26 Cleveland at Toronto (NBA) 7:00  Watching Canada-Slovakia SF
Feb 27 Orlando at Toronto (NLL) 7:00
Mar 2  NY Rangers at Ottawa (NHL) 7:30
Mar 5  Barrie at Ottawa (OHL) 7:00
Mar 6  Toronto at Ottawa (NHL) 7:00
Mar 7  Hartford at Toronto (AHL) 4:00

Best,

Sean

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Why Japanese Olympics coverage sucks

I am not a big fan of the Olympics, and it's probably because I've lived in Japan for the last several Olympiads. It's said the Games bring out the best in people; this may be true for the athletes but it's certainly not true for fans or broadcasters, who become extremely and annoyingly nationalistic. For a country like Japan that is already far too self-centered, the coverage on NHK becomes downright nauseating.

The worst case happened today, Wednesday morning. I had watched the women's snowboard cross qualifications and was looking forward to the medal races, which are quite exciting with 4 racers hurtling down the slope at the same time. Scheduled to start around 7:30 a.m. here, the race was nowhere to be seen. NHK's main channel was showing the morning news while the Japan-US women's curling match was show on the cable channel. Even with a Japanese boarder in the final sixteen, the event was completely ignored. To make matters worse, Canada won the gold but I've still yet to see any coverage of the event on any of the stations here. Nice job NHK.

I understand that viewers want to see their nation's athletes, but here that's all we see. Medal events that don't involve a Japanese athlete are simply skipped while we see replay after replay of Japanese athletes finishing somewhere below 3rd place. When a Japanese actually wins a medal, we are then treated to endless interviews of this previously unknown commodity, who is suddenly a national hero.

To be fair, all countries extol their medal winners (after ignoring them for the past 4 years), but in Japan it just goes too far. Despite live hockey on right now, NHK's cable channel is replaying the men's 500m speed skating, where Japan picked up a silver and bronze medal. Yesterday. Unbelievable. Perhaps I shouldn't blame the broadcaster, who must appeal to the simple-minded Japanese who would rather yet again see a 2nd and 3rd place finish than watch some live sports with the best athletes in the world.

I believe that as the rights holder, NHK should show as much live competition as possible. With 3 available channels, every medal event should be covered live regardless of the participation of this country's athletes. The Olympics is supposed to be about a sports competition that brings the world together in mutual understanding, but here, it's just an opportunity for the population to remain convinced that Japan is the only nation that matters.

On-line Olympics

After all that complaining, a compliment to the Olympics internet site at www.vancouver2010.com - great live updates with detailed stats that cannot be found on television. An excellent companion when you are fuming about the crap coverage you are forced to watch in a foreign country.

Best,

Sean

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