Olympics.2006.12

Reader Sean asked for an updated probability table based on my original prediction of Canada's medal total for the 2006 Olympics. So before it gets overtaken by events on Day 12, here it is:

Table 1 — Medal win probabilities (remaining) for Canadians at the 2006 winter Olympics

Sport	Event	Expected Medals
Speedskating - Long Track	Women's 1500 m	1.00
	Women's 5000 m	0.60
Speedskating - Short Track	Women's 3000 m Relay	0.90
	Men's 500 m	0.75
	Women's 1000 m	0.35
	Men's 5000 m Relay	0.75
Hockey	Men's	0.75
Bobsleigh	Men's Four-Man	0.50
Freestyle Skiing	Men's Aerials	0.35
	Women's Aerials	0.10
Curling	Men's	0.75
	Women's	0.75
Figure Skating	Women's	0.10
Cross Country Ski	Women's Sprint	0.60
Alpine Ski	Men's Slalom	0.10
Snowboard	Men's Parallel Giant Slalom	0.10
	Women's Parallel Giant Slalom	0.10
TOTAL		8.55

In this table, I've only included events where I predicted a non-zero chance of winning. So to follow along at home, here's how it works: when Canada wins a medal, my "expected total" goes up by (1 - EM), where EM is the Expected Medals value in the table above; and when Canada doesn't win a medal, my "expected total" goes down by EM for that event. For events not shown above, EM is equal to zero. What happens to the probability distribution is more complicated.

As of today, my prediction stands at 22.6±1.8, that is, the 14 Canada has already won, plus the 8.6 above; the original prediction was 21.1±3.0.