Olympics are at an end

I will be moving onto other topics shortly, I just thought I would post some stats about various aspects related to the games.

In 21 Winter Olympic Games, Canada has won 52 gold medals. Of these medals, 14 were in these games and 34 of them have been won in the last four Olympic Games. We have won an alltime 144 winter games medals, 83 in the last four games. Canada is a winter sports force now.

The shift for Canada came after the 1988 Olympic games when we once again did not win a single event. Each games since then have seen us do better and better. Part of this is due to more funding for Canadian athletes, part is a legacy of Calgary, part is that all professionals are allowed into the games, and finally, a lot of the new events are ones in which Canadians are good.

There is nothing to indicate that anytime in the near future Canada will not finish in the top four of nations at the winter games. The odds of Canada topping the medal table in 2014 in Sochi is high, higher than Norway or Germany.

In the summer games Canada has also improved, but nearly as much as in the winter games. We can be confident of winning three gold and 12 to 20 medals total. With 300 or so events in the summer games versus 86 in the winter, Canada does not achieve the results one w0uld expect of the country. But the summer games are not any sports we identify with being Canadian, we do not believe that "This is Our Game".

The winter games inspire us, the summer do not seem to, which is something odd to say as someone from Vancouver Island. At three gold per summer games, a BC resident should win a gold every other Olympics and two medals per games. Vancouver Island achieves on average 4 medals per games and normally one gold.