Don't Panic

I remember during the 2008 Olympics, Canada had no medals after the first week and there were great cries of anguish across the nation. A few voices of reason tried pointing out that the vast majority of events where Canada had a shot at medals were scheduled for the 2nd week of Olympics but they were generally drowned out by cries wondering where we had gone so wrong and what had caused such a disaster. Of course, as it turned out, Canada ended up with 18 medals and one of it's better showings at the Summer Olympics.

So I'm sympathetic to 'Own the Podium' CEO Roger Jackson's recent attempt to preempt the same sort of media nonsense from recurring in Vancouver. But his comments that Germany and the U.S. would have more good medal chances earlier in the competition piqued my curiosity. So I took a look at the Associated Press' event by event medal predictions and matched them up against which day the events were going to occur on to produce the following chart:



As you can see (following the red line on the chart - click on the chart to enlarge it), based on AP's predictions, Jackson has a point. Both men's and women's hockey and curling, as well as the short and long track relays all happen towards the end of the Olympics and these are all decent chances for a medal for Canada.