Sidney Crosby Seals Gold Victory For Men's Hockey: Who Cares? Photo: The Star-Ledger

Canadians can now stop the hand-wringing, and finally we can hoist the red and white high towards the clouds, but how large was our Vancouver Olympic victory really? We did win more gold medals than any other country in Winter Olympic history. In terms of sporting success and country size, our victory was actually much larger than most people think. With a population nine times larger than ours (which means a much larger young population base from which to select top athletes) and with significantly larger financial resources, the U.S. won only 11 more medals, and they actually won significantly fewer gold medals than Canada. Put another way, Canada won 0.466666′ gold medals per million people (the medal some people consider the only one worth winning), while the United States won only 0.033333′ gold medals per million people. Yes, the Americans won the most medals, but they did not win 9 times more medals which their population would suggest they should. Furthermore, most of these medals were not the more prestigious gold medal category. When factoring in population and financial considerations, some small countries actually do extremely well in Olympic events, even if the medals won are few in number. So given Canada’s small stature and her gold medal record, even when considering the home-field advantage, we accomplished truly Olympian athletic feats: we actually did more than own the podium.
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