Sochi and the Heroes of Telemark, by Mark Erickson

I watched the Sochi Opening Ceremony. Kyrgyzstan had a cool flag, and I learned that Nepal has the world’s only nonrectangular flag. I was surprised that Iceland had only five athletes. Mexico had one out of a population of 118 million. By contrast, Sweden had 111 out of a population of less than 10 million. The USA had 220 participants. Netherlands have a total of 85 winter Olympic medals and 82 are from speedskating. The Olympics are such a sociological study of sport. Another example: South Korea stresses short-track speedskating and the country continues to medal. I digress. Norway has the most winter Olympic medals ever…ski jumping and xc skiing being the country’s areas of expertise. In this connection, I remember watching this movie, starring Kirk Douglas, as a teen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heroes_of_Telemark

So perhaps Norwegians take great pride in xc skiing based on the country’s ability to thwart Hitler?

I’m typing this entry and watching the women’s hockey game for gold (USA v Canada), and Canada just tied the game with 54 seconds left. Uff da!!

Back to the entry. I strongly prefer the Winter Olympics over Summer. The Winter Olympics has more speed, more air, more spins, and hockey. According to the Wall Street Journal, Canada and the USA have 63.65% and 21.3% chance of winning the gold medal in mens hockey, respectively. Parenthetically, gold won by the USA mens team in 1980 is THE BEST SINGLE SPORTING EVENT I HAVE EVER WITNESSED. Anyway, I am hopeful that in the era of PROFESSIONAL athletes competing in mens hockey that Team Sweden wins the gold medal at Sochi. (Kudos to Peter Forsberg.)

– Mark Erickson