Olympics.2006.11

Figure 1

Figure 1 — Updated probability distribution for Canada's 2006 winter Olympic medal total (click to enlarge). Prediction is based on the probability assessment here, updated as events are decided.

Things You Shouldn't Say …

… when contemplating the possibility of winning your next hockey game in the qualifying round:

And of course, it is the question: Shall we win [and face Canada in the quarter-finals] or shall we play a good game to get a 0-0 result [and face Switzerland]? There are many questions going through our heads right now. — Bengt-Ake Gustafsson

… after being beaten once:

You know I always say that you can beat Chad Hedrick once but you can't beat him twice — Chad Hedrick

… after being beaten for the third time:

I would say, if you re-ran the race it would be a 90-95 per cent chance that Shani or I was gonna win the race … — Chad Hedrick

… at a post-race press conference with your teammate and rival:

I'm just throwing it out there. It would have been nice if after I won the 1,000-meter race, he could have been a good teammate and shook my hand, just like I shook his hand — and hugged him — after he won the 5,000 meters. — Shani Davis

And Speaking of that Race …

I will admit it, I am kind of enjoying the rivalry between Davis and Hedrick. Hedrick is a very, very bad loser, and Davis is a very, very bad winner, but at least there is nothing at all phony about them. And they are both very gifted athletes, so I can forgive them, as long as I don't have to live with either one of them.

However, it would be remiss not to make a point about the performance of gold medallist Enrico Fabris from Italy. Check out these splits. Fabris was 25^th at the 300 m mark, 23^rd at 700 m, 11^th at 1100 m, and first at the finish. His last three laps went 26.68, 27.14, and 27.73 seconds. He covered each of the last two laps faster than any other competitor. On the last lap he was almost nine-tenths of a second faster than the nearest skater.

On the opposite side of the coin was the third American skater, who finished ninth. Joey Cheek was "livin' the dream," as an old coach used to say — he led at 300 m, 700 m, and 1100 m, before somebody threw a piano on his back and he finished up with a 30.67-second lap. That last lap was the sixth-slowest put up by any of the 39 competitors — and he gave up almost three full seconds to Enrico Fabris.