I've been keeping an eye on the daily Olympic Medal Count Projections over at FiveThirtyEight, in which they pool/average various predictions about how each country will do in this year's Winter Olympics and compare those numbers to the actual results. For several days early on, Canada, the U.S. and Germany were all forecast to be in a very tight race for the most medals of the games (around 32 each). As the actual competitions have unfolded, though, the U.S. has pulled out in front and Canada has started to fade. Today's projection (the first link, above) has Canada and Germany battling it out for the 2nd spot (getting 28 to 29 medals), with the Americans expected to take home 4 or 5 more trinkets.
When I first saw that Canada was expected to be at or near the top, I was shocked. I said to Vicki how surprised I was to hear that. But I should've realized that the people doing the prognosticating probably weren't aware of just how likely Canadian athletes are to disappoint, when it really matters. So far in this year's games I've heard of one athlete of ours who failed to show up at the "check-in" point for his event on time and was disqualified; one of our favoured bob sled teams rolled their vehicle completely over during a run yesterday; and two brothers were in a speed skating final with three other men last night, meaning that the only way neither of them would get a medal was if the pair of them managed to finish dead last... which they proceeded to do!
Canada currently has the largest variance deficit (-3.9, tied with Germany) against the projections, for medals that have already been awarded. The U.S., conversely, has the biggest positive variance (+3.4). That right there says a lot about the differences between the two countries, when it comes to competing on the world stage. No wonder so many American athletes are arrogant, insufferable jerks!
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