2010 Olympics Day 6: Defiant Fatigue

The COC issued this flash quote from Canadian biathlete Megan Tandy after the 15 km race on Day 6:

I felt pretty decent on the ski trails, defiantly fatigued on the last loop though.

To all my friends on the Mission Team: I wish you defiance in your fatigue as you start Day 7!

On another somewhat superficial note, Canada witnessed another one of Maëlle Ricker's talents tonight. If you didn't hear it, the Snowboardcross Olympic champion stepped into the CTV broadcast booth for a chat and started giving great commentary on the half-pipe competition she was watching. She sounded like a pro.

The usual medal table and picture are presented below. Day 7 is looking like a great chance to get on the "plus" side of my original prediction, and also a great chance for the Whistler team's first medal. For those of you in North America who are supposed to be working today, I'll point you to the great Vancouver 2010 official web site, where (for example) you can monitor live race splits in progress in the Men's Super G this afternoon.

I also love the GeoView presentation of the 2010 Athletes.

Sport	Event	Athlete	Category	Result	Impact
Initial Prediction					27.05
Day 1					-0.75
Day 2					+0.45
Day 3					-0.50
Day 4					+0.00
Day 5					-0.70
Speed Skating - LT	1,000 m - W	Nesbitt, Christine	Lock	GOLD	+0.10
Speed Skating - LT	1,000 m - W	Groves, Kristina	Outside	4th	-0.10
Figure Skating	Singles - M	Chan, Patrick	Possibility	5th	-0.35
Snowboard	Halfpipe - W	Nicoll, Mercedes	Outside	6th	-0.10
Alpine Ski	Super Combined	Brydon, Emily	Outside	14th	-0.10
Day 6					-0.55
Current					25.00

2010 Olympics Day 4

Svein Tuft of the Day for Day 4: JP Le Guellec

It was a bit tricky to find an unnoticed noteworthy performance today, but in the end I had to give it to Jean Philippe Le Guellec for the second time.

I didn't see any of it, but it sounds like Le Guellec had a very weird day. He officially finished eleventh — a very respectable finish on its face. But in fact, Le Guellec was fifth to cross the finish line. As I discussed on Sunday, Le Guellec was supposed to be the sixth athlete to leave the start line in today's 12.5 km pursuit. Instead, due to a starter's mistake, he left fifth, about 30 seconds before he was supposed to. He crossed the finish line in fifth place, but after a post-race adjustment to correct for the error, he ended up eleventh.

"The guys just let me out too soon. Why, I don’t know," said LeGuellec, 24, of Quebec City. "I was just like, well, if worse comes to worse I’ll be disqualified or there’ll be a time adjustment. Whatever, do your race, have fun and that’s what happened."

After 2.5 kilometres and five-out-of-five shooting, LeGuellec appeared to be in second place. But his coaches were scrambling to make sure he knew he really wasn’t, that 30 seconds had to be added to his score. At the end of the race, with a decent 18-for-20 shooting, LeGuellec seemed solid for fifth, with no one in his sights behind him. He slowed down at the end to acknowledge the boisterous crowd.

But when he crossed the finish line and organizers added the 30 seconds to his time, he dropped to 11th.

"I am upset," said LeGuellec. "I came in fifth and I’m 11th. There’s nothing much we can do, it’s done."

LeGuellec forgave the official who let him go early. "You can’t blame the guy. With the hype of the Olympics and everything, there’s things that can happen," said LeGuellec.

Jean Philippe gets extra credit for handling the offical's error with such equanimity.

Medal Prediction

Nothing much happened to my medal prediction today. Maëlle Ricker's gold medal gave my prediction a boost of 0.35, but Dominique Maltais' fall took it away. My prediction still stands at 26.25 medals (the update table is at the end of this post).

Since there's nothing that interesting to report about my prediction today, I thought I might look at progress so far in a different (and more optimistic) way. As I noted in my original prediction, there were three major media organizations that also made medal predictions on an event-by-event basis. How are they doing so far at predicting Canada's results?

The Associated Press predicted 30 medals for Canada. They were wrong about Charles Hamelin in the short track 1500 m, wrong about Manuel Osborne-Paradis in the alpine downhill, and wrong about Dominique Maltais in women's snowboardcross. They also missed Kristina Groves in the long track 3000 m, and Mike Robertson in the men's snowboardcross. So the AP predicted that Canada would have six medals by now, an overestimate of one.

Sports Illustrated also predicted 30 medals, and was also wrong about Osborne-Paradis. They also missed Mike Robertson, and Alexandre Bilodeau. So SI predicted that Canada would have four medals so far, an underestimate of one.

The Canadian Press predicted the astonishingly high total of 37 medals for Canada. They were wrong about Hamelin, Osborne-Paradis, and Maltais. They missed Mike Robertson, too. The CP predicted that Canada would have seven medals so far, an overestimate of two.

Sport	Event	Athlete	Category	Result	Impact
Initial Prediction					27.05
Day 1					-0.75
Day 2					+0.45
Day 3					-0.50
Snowboard	Snowboardcross - W	Ricker, Maëlle	Strong	GOLD	+0.35
Snowboard	Snowboardcross - W	Maltais, Dominique	Possibility	20th	-0.35
Day 4					+0.00
Current					26.25

2010 Olympics Day 2

Svein Tuft for Day 2: Jean Philippe Le Guellec

Jean Philippe Le Guellec, ranked 33rd in the World Cup sprint standings in biathlon, finished sixth in today's 10 km sprint event. The previous best-ever for Canada at the Olympics was an eighth-place finish by Steve Cyr in 1992.

It seems that Le Guellec was considerably smarter about his chances in this event than most of the pundits. Here's his take on the Whistler course, taken from an interview in the Province that ran this morning:

Just the trail here and the whole way the system is set up is that anything can happen. When you look at results, even on the World Cup, you can see the top 60 athletes and if three-quarters had shot one more target, they'd be on the podium or in the top 10. It's that drastic.

Le Guellec missed one of ten targets today. The order of finish in the sprint now determines the start order and interval in the 12.5 km pursuit event, which runs on Tuesday. In the pursuit event, racers are assigned staggered start times — in this case, based on the results of today's sprint — and the first competitor past the finish line is the winner. If you've never seen this, its very dramatic. Le Guellec will start in sixth position, 50 seconds behind the leader. Many of the event's biggest names will be starting behind him.

Honourable Mention: Sam Edney

When I first heard about Jean Philippe Le Guellec's result today, I thought the Svein Tuft for today would be a no-brainer. But luger Sam Edney had a great day, too.

Edney was 11th after run 1, 10th after run 2, and 8th after run 3. On run 4, he had the third-best time, behind only the powerhouse Germans, to vault into seventh place. That's a best-ever Olympic result for Canada in men's luge.

Medal Prediction

Of course Canada had a good day today overall. Kristina Groves picked up a bronze medal in the women's 3,000 m, and Clara Hughes finished 5th. And it was a super night at Cypress, with Alexandre Bilodeau winning Canada's first gold medal of these Games — or of any "home" Olympic games. Joining Bilodeau in the top 5 were Vincent Marquis and Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau, who were sitting 1-2 with four skiers to go.

The medal prediction has shifted upward since yesterday, and is still down slightly overall. The data are in the table and figure below.

Sport	Event	Athlete	Category	Result	Impact
Initial Prediction					27.05
Day 1					-0.75
Freestyle Ski	Moguls - M	Bilodeau, Alexandre	Strong	GOLD	+0.35
Freestyle Ski	Moguls - M	Marquis, Vincent	Possibility	4th	-0.35
Freestyle Ski	Moguls - M	Rousseau, Pierre-Alexandre	Outside	5th	-0.10
Speed Skating - LT	3,000m - W	Groves, Kristina	Possibility	BRONZE	+0.65
Speed Skating - LT	3,000m - W	Hughes, Clara	Outside	5th	-0.10
Day 2					+0.45
Current					26.75