Casts of Mind

"perhaps to be too practical is madness, to surrender dreams this may be madness"

There's a funny section in Jane Jacobs 'Systems of Survival' where she illustrates how differently someone with a commercial syndrome mindset views things vs. how someone with a guardian mindset views things. In the book, Jacobs weighs the benefits of a society like medieval Europe where people are separated by birth into either a guardian life or a commercial life vs. our current approach which allows people to do whatever they please, allowing greater flexibility, but potentially at the cost of some moral confusion.

Anyway, I only bring that up, because the most rational, most commercial syndrome minded pundit in Canada is, in my opinion, Dan Gardner, so I was wondering ahead of time how Gardner would react to the two week, irrational, Guardian syndrome festival that is the Olympics.

Gardner didn't let me down, as he churned out post after post after column after post after post after column after post after post after column after post after post after post after post after post after post after post on the Olympics, every last post critical, with all of the posts amounting at root to Gardner pleading with Canadians to stop being so irrational, taking pride in the Canadian athletes when everybody knows that you only buy medals not win them, or that athletes have to work too hard as children to become world champions or that McDonald's food isn't necessarily the healthiest choice or whatever he felt might serve his goal of convincing people not to support the irrational Olympics.

The funniest part was in the comments on this column, where commenter 'Shiner' repeatedly, politely, tries to get Gardner to admit that maybe people just like to cheer for the home team to win and if that's irrational, who cares - but Gardner was completely incapable of even acknowledging the question, getting more and more upset and snippy throughout the exchange without ever engaging Shiner's main point. To the pure rational (commercial syndrome) mind, any activity that doesn't promote comfort and convenience is irrational and rational is a synonym for 'good' or 'right'. The notion that something could be both irrational and good just doesn't compute.

Most of the time, a commitment to rationality is a good thing, as when Gardner is debunking homeopathic medicine quacks or pointing out the inefficient way we go about satisfying our obsession with security. But during the Olympics, an uncompromising commitment to rationality just seems a little silly. Speculating, I think that may be part of the appeal of the Olympics - in a world dominated by rational commercial thinking, the Olympics represent a rare outpost of acceptable guardian type activity. Anyway, not to worry Dan, the Olympics are over now, so you have a couple of years of unrelenting rationality to look forward to. :)

Vancouver 2010: Results Summary

I discussed my approach to measuring Olympic success back in this post but here's a quick summary, before I post the results updated for Vancouver.

1) 4 points are awarded for a gold medal, 3 points for a silver, 2 for a bronze. This reflects the higher value placed on gold and silver, as well as the drop off from 3rd to 4th, with many athletes who finish 4th in one Olympics, continuing on for 4 more years for the chance to get a medal, but I've never heard of an athlete who got bronze going for 4 more years to try and get silver.

2) In each sport, I compute the percentage of total points available for that sport that each country has achieved rather than adding up the number of medals. For example, if the Americans were to get one gold, one silver and one bronze in Nordic Combined, then they would have 9 points out of a total 27 (27 because there are 3 Nordic Combined Events, and each event has 9 total points available) for 33% of the total freestyle skiing points. This controls for increases in the number of events within a given sport over time. It's a judgment call, but would it really seem right to count biathlon (with 10 events and 30 medals) for 5x the value of hockey (2 events, 6 medals)?

3) Each country's total score is expressed as a percentage of total points available (which is 100% for each sport). This corrects for inflation over time due to steady increases in the number of sports competed.

So here's the total for Vancouver (medal count in brackets - total - gold/silver/bronze):

1. Canada 15.5% (26 - 14/7/5)
2. U.S.A. 15.2% (37 - 9/15/13)
3. Germany 13.4% (30 - 10/13/7)
4. Austria 7.4% (16 - 4/6/6)
5. Norway 6.4% (23 - 9/8/6)
6. China 4.5% (11 - 5/2/4)
7. Russia 4.5% (15 - 3/5/7)
8. Switzerland 4.4% (9 - 6/0/3)
9. South Korea 4.1% (14 - 6/6/2)
10. Sweden 3.4% (11 - 5/2/4)
11. France 3.3% (11 - 2/3/6)
12. Poland 2.2% (6 - 1/3/2)
13. Finland 2.1% (5 - 0/1/4)
14. Latvia 1.9% (2 - 0/2/0)
15. Netherlands 1.8% (8 - 4/1/3)

This is the first time that Canada has ever topped the medal table by this methodology. Canada comes out ahead despite having 11 fewer medals than the U.S. because the Canadian medals were shinier (more gold, less silver and bronze) and because they came in sports with fewer events (e.g. hockey, curling) vs. those with more events (e.g. Alpine Skiing). The Austrians were likely disappointed by their lack of success in Alpine Skiing, but off the slopes they did quite well. The most extreme example of how the methodology penalizes countries that only excel at one sport is the Netherlands, which won 8 medals to the Latvians 2, but won almost all of them in long track speed skating and ranks lower as a result.

To put Canada's performance at Vancouver into historical context, here are a couple of charts (click to enlarge). The first compares Canada's percentage score with that of Norway, Austria, the U.S.A., Germany (adding the West and East scores for the years of two German teams) and Russia (using U.S.S.R. or Unified Team scores for the relevant years).

The second chart is Canada's performance on it's own, you can see that despite only winning two more medals than in 2006, Canada scored much higher in Vancouver.

Olympic Wrap-Up

Wow, that was a pretty incredible two weeks. I have to give credit to all the blue jacketed volunteers who covered the city with huge enthusiasm for their often thanked but little rewarded task - and I should also give thanks to the weather :) - even if it didn't cooperate beforehand with the warmest January on record leading up to the games, a full week of sunshine is rare February treat in Vancouver and certainly helped turn the mood around after a rough first couple of days - and the skies even cleared again for the last day of competition and the closing ceremonies here on Sunday.


For posterity (because my memory is going), here are a few of the highlights for me, from the Olympics.

* After 6 hours of wind, fog and rain that alternated between pounding and blowing, seeing Jasey-Jay Anderson, 4 time Olympian, win gold with a come from behind victory against Austrian Benjamin Karl. I stood, along with the rest of the crowd, for the final run down the hill, but crouched a little so as not to block the view of the woman with the small child who was behind us in the stands. Only after Anderson's win, when the media came up into the stands did we realize that the woman was Anderson's wife and the child his young daughter.

Anderson actually had a real struggle with his first qualifying run down the hill, and needed a good time on his second run to even make the knockout stage. But he flew down the hill on the second run and qualified 10th (out of 16 that made the knockout round). Then in the semis he almost went down but somehow kept his balance well enough to still win the race.

Having seen the conditions at Cyrpess for myself, I have to say it was a true miracle of planning and effort that all the events at Cypress went off as scheduled.


* The men's short track relay team, changing their tactics at the last minute to do their relay transfer from the opposite side of the ice from the rest of the teams for the last few exchanges. While the Koreans, Chinese and Americans slowed each other down in the last few exchanges on the congested track, the Canadians opened up a lead that nobody could make up. In a straight skating competition I bet the Koreans beat the Canadians every time, but with better teamwork and strategy, the Canadians took gold.

* Then the next day, the men's long track relay team win gold. On the final corner, Mathieu Giroux, originally a short track skater, brings some innovation to long-track from the world of short-track. In the long track pursuit event, three teammates skate and the time is set by the last one to cross the line. On the final corner Giroux put his hand on the back of teammate Lucas Makowsky and helped push him around the corner. After the Canadians won the gold by .21 seconds, the teammates agreed that this innovation brought over from short track (where teammates pushing each other as they make the relay exchange is a key element) made the difference in winning gold.

* On the topic of the long track pursuit, in the semi-final on the women's side between Germany and the U.S. - with the Germans looked to be heading to victory. But then on the final corner the veteran Anna Friesinger-Postma lost her balance and almost fell over. Friesinger fell back so much that her teammates basically came to a stop at the line waiting for her. Almost unable to skate at all on the final straightaway, Friesinger threw herself over the line on her stomach, pounding her fist on the ice in despair, believing she had cost her teammates a chance to skate for gold - and then she looked up a few seconds later and smiled in shock as she realized that despite her near collapse at the end, she still crossed the line a couple of tenths of a second ahead of the last American skater.

* Earlier in the Olympics, at a time when the Canadian team was struggling a little, Jon Montgomery, a man with nerves of steel, or maybe no nerves at all, comes from behind on the final run to win the men's skeleton event, and leads a celebratory walk through Whistler village, grabbing and chugging a pitcher of beer along the way, becoming an instant legend.

* Peter Northug, with the weight of a country's expectations on his back, makes up a ton of time against some of the best skiers in the world, to bring Norway from 4th to 2nd for a silver medal in the men's cross country relay, and then caps things off with a gold medal sprint to the finish in the 50k marathon.

* While I'm on the topic of cross country, the men's team from Canada didn't win any medals but they put up a ton of best ever finishes for this country in men's cross country, with, if I counted right, 7 top ten finishes including a 4th and two 5ths. Canada's previous best finish in the 50k, for example, was 44th, but Devon Kershaw came 5th this time around, under 2 seconds behind the leader, and all 4 Canadian entrants came in the top 35.

* The raucous curling crowd serenading Kevin Martin and crew with O Canada near the end of the 10th end of the final, as the Norwegian skip Thomas Ulsrud, remarkably gracious in defeat, looked on and shared a laugh with Kevin Martin, telling him it must be such a great feeling to be able to curl in front of such an amazing home crowd. Also, Martin's almost perfect freeze in the 7th end, the shot of the match that allowed him to take a pair and carry his lead home from there.

* The Slovakian men's hockey team. They beat the Russians, they beat the Swedes, they damn near put the tying goal in on Canada with seconds to go, and they were quite unfortunate not to take the Bronze from Finland. The whole team played with a ton of heart and won a lot of respect from the hockey fans in Vancouver.

* So many other great performances, I'd be here all day trying to list them, Bilodeau and Heil performing so well under incredible pressure, our women's bobsled team going 1-2, Hamelin winning the men's 500m (short track) and his girlfriend Marianne St. Gelais winning silver in the women's 500m, gold for Christine Nesbitt, two medals for Groves and a final medal for Olympic legend Clara Hughes, Canada setting a (event expansion aided) all time record for gold medals at the Winter Games, Maelle Ricker and Ashleigh McIvor winning gold up at Cypress, the Dutch fans in Richmond, so at home in a land of dykes, beer, and speedskating, great performances by the Americans, winning the most total medals, and the Germans and the Norwegians finishing near the top of the medal table as well, and on down the line.

* Joannie Rochette, enough said.

* And of course, gold in the men's hockey, although I'm not sure I need to put it on the list for posterity, since I doubt it will ever be forgotten: Luongo making a nice shoulder save after a giveaway by Niedermayer, Niedermayer regrouping to make the outlet pass to Crosby, Crosby flying down the ice and trying to split the defense, winning the race to the corner for the puck and poking it to Iginla, who makes an incredible pass to Crosby who fires home the winner so quickly that the cameraman, the commentators and most importantly, standout American golaie Ryan Miller had no chance to react.

* I'm sure I missed a ton of things, and although I did try to see every single event I sadly missed a lot of them, but if I tried to cover every memorable moment, I'd be here all night.

Olympic Notes, Day 7

I see that Nate Silver, over at 538 (which I really should add to the blogroll one of these days), is making a mockery of my humble medal tracking efforts. Not content to use one set of predictions, he aggregated several, and not content with a simple chart, he made a fancy table, and not content with tracking predictions for the top countries, he's tracking all the countries.

Of course, he's still just going with the flawed old-school medal count, so there's still some work to be done over there, but it's nice to see someone else applying a little bit of quantification to the Olympics as well.

Back to the events themselves, kudos to Christine Nesbitt. Having an off day, stumbling out of the blocks and still winning a gold medal is a sure sign of dominance in your field! It's too bad Groves came up just short for the Bronze (in a great skate) or she could have been on pace for a 4 or even 5 medal performance at these games. Here's hoping that she continues her strong skating and takes the 1500m.

Finally, should be a fun hockey game against the U.S. on Sunday!

Olympic Notes 2

As a longtime fan of the Olympics, winter version in particular, it sure is fun having them take place in my hometown.

Referring back to my earlier post on medal expectations, after 6 days Germany and Canada are pretty much tracking as expected. But the U.S. has had a huge opening few days, racking up 14 medals where they were only expected to be at 10 so far. I said (not on the blog, but trust me) ahead of time that I expected the U.S. to top the medal count, and my reasoning was that they had so much depth in so many events that they had a good chance to capitalize on mistakes by other teams and surprising performances by their athletes. Trust the U.S. to try and own 'our' podium :) Still, watching great athletes like Shaun White, Shani Davis and Lindsey Vonn win their events today, it's hard to begrudge them their success too much.

Not to say that the race to top the medal standings is over (don't panic, remember), but the way the U.S. is going, it could be soon.

But enough about the U.S. :) I don't imagine I'll ever forget Alexandre Bilodeau flying down the hill to gold in the moguls. And congratulations to Maelle Ricker for a dominating performance in the women's boardercross.

I also have to mention the great sportsmanship shown by Kalyna Roberge in the women's 500m short track event. Sitting in third place in her 500m semi-final, with only 2 advancing to the final, she could have taken a chance of making a dangerous pass on teammate Marianne St. Gelais, risking both of them going down - as happened to the Koreans who were 1-2-3 on the final corner of the 1500m final on the men's side, before Ho-Suk Lee tried to pass teammate Si-Bak Sung and crashed them both into the boards allowing the U.S. to claim silver and bronze.

But instead of making a dangerous pass, you could see Roberge pull back to avoid crashing into her teammate, and St. Gelais would go on to make the final and claim a silver medal on her 20th birthday. Kudos to her, Roberge, and also Jessica Gregg who came oh so close to a medal finishing in fourth.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the Olympics as much as I am so far...

40. Olympic Break

Note: This post is the fortieth in a series. Click here for the full listing of the series.

Well, between the Olympics and being a little under the weather, I decided to postpone the post I had planned and just offer a couple of brief notes on the Guardian syndrome as illustrated by recent events at the 2010 Olympics.

Of course, the Olympics are an entirely guardian affair, with origins in the military and the emphasis on amateurism which parallels the guardian aversion to commerce, so here's a couple of examples of thing done right, respecting guardian ethics and things done wrong, in contravention of Guardian ethics.

1) A story about a company in Burlington working on a high tech snowboard for the Canadian Olympic team. We hear that, "the Canadians are being careful to protect their secret." (deceit for the sake of the task). We also hear that,

"it's [the new snowboard] not for sale, either. The deal Apex president Gerry Kavanaugh cut with Own The Podium, the program started to help Canada become the No. 1 medal-winning nation at the 2010 Games, gives them the exclusive rights.

Besides, you get the impression Kavanaugh and Apex manager Matt Clarke, who are donating hundreds of hours to the project, would not divulge anything to a competing nation, even under threat of torture."

A great example of being exclusive and shunning trading - and why those are good things under the Guardian syndrome.

Finally,

"Money certainly isn't the motivation. The project will cost Apex about $75,000 more than they're receiving from Own The Podium. Kavanaugh, 29, and Clarke, 22, are totally dedicated to helping the athletes. Clarke wakes up at 6 a.m. when the team races in Europe so he can get results on the Internet.

"It's pride really," Clarke said."

An example of how in guardian work, sacrifice is called for - not material gain and self-interest, as the purpose is not the promotion of comfort and convenience, but rather victory over the enemy.

---
OK, second example. One of the ethics that is a bit surprising in the Guardian syndrome is 'be ostentatious' - the first reaction is that being ostentatious is not necessarily a good thing. But consider the Canada pavilion. Hume is the architecture critic for the Star, but I haven't encountered a soul, no matter how penny-pinching, who doesn't feel more should have been done to present a Canadian Olympic pavilion that doesn't look like a makeshift warehouse. In other words, the government failed in its duty towards ostentation.

---
Last example, respect tradition. I'm referring to the singing of the national anthem during the opening ceremonies. Nobody disputes the talent of the singer, or the quality of the performance, but there was a lot of condemnation that the ceremony failed to respect tradition by 'jazzing up' the national anthem. (a few examples)

Back to regular programming next week...

Olympic Notes

I imagine that if the folks at VANOC did any 'worst case scenario' planning, it must have looked pretty similar to the first day of the Olympics, steady rain, continued uncooperative weather postponing the alpine events, a cauldron malfunction, and of course, overshadowing all else, the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in a training accident.

Still, watching the performances by Ammann, Malysz and Schlierenzauer in the ski jump as they soared down the hill in Whistler this morning was a good reminder of the pure athleticism that lies at the central core of all the hoopla that is the Olympics.

While I'm writing, I wanted to just mention a couple of posts I wrote prior to the 2006 games in Torino:

One: Explaining the methodology I used to construct a consistent historical comparison of national performance in the Winter Olympics over time.

and Two: The results of applying that methodology, updated to reflect the 2006 results. I'll update the chart at the end of these games

Good luck to all the athletes, especially the Canadian ones :)

Time to Get Started...

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.

Spring Olympics

I see that the local cherry trees blossomed over the weekend. I wonder when the last time that happened in January was. Four more weeks of this weather and the whole city should be in full bloom by the time the closing ceremonies roll around...

Congratulations

From a VANOC press release,

"VANOC confirmed today that it has exceeded its goal of ensuring at least 30 per cent of the seats at high-demand events are available to the public for purchase ― the highest ratio in recent Winter Games history"

30% of the tickets available to the public? Wow, that's really impressive!