The Olympics start in two weeks! Yay! Does anyone want to repeat the pool from Beijing?If so, please declare your country(s) and estimated medal count in the comments.
I'm going for Canada, with eight golds, seven silvers, and five bronzes. And, um, Team GB I guess. Two silvers (curling) and a bronze (skeleton).
Rules from last time:
Bragging rights will be assigned according to the number of medals per head of your country's population (otherwise you Americans will win waaaay too easily). 3 points for each gold medal, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze. Declare your nationality if possible, but if this will breach your anonymity then you can just trash talk the rest of us and then tell us your country's final score at the end. We'll obviously have more than one person supporting some of the countries, so please predict the number of gold, silver and bronze medals your team will win. (Again you don't have to declare the country, just let us know how closely you guessed. I'm assuming that we're all honest!). I'll use these predictions to award a winner in the almost inevitable case of a tie-break.
OK, I'm going to claim Finnishness here. 'coz Britain and Germany won't be much good. I'll predict 1 gold, 5 silvers, and 4 bronze. One of the medals will be in the hockey - silver after losing to Sweden in the last minute.
ReplyDeleteHyvää suomea! Ihana suomi!
"One of the medals will be in the hockey - silver after losing to Sweden in the last minute."
ReplyDeleteFAIL
(I hope)
I'm going to admit it: I'm confused. Is the goal to choose the country that will get the most points, or is it to come closest to the number of each medal our country wins? If it's the second one, does it have to be the country we live in or originate from, or can we pick whatever country we want?
ReplyDeleteSorry, this was in the old Beijing post but I forgot to copy it over. Picking the country that gets the most medal points (3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze) per head of population wins you the contest. Getting close to the actual number of medals won is the tie-breaker.
ReplyDeleteYou can choose any country you want, although last time most people went with the country(s) they're from / live in / have another kind of connection with. In the winter games, small Northern European countries (esp. Scandinavia!) are a good bet, although Canada has a decent shot with a relatively small population.
I've also just remembered that Chall and I have a $20 side bet on the outcome of the Sweden-Canada women's hockey preliminary round game that I'm going to! I'm prepared to make (selected) other side bets with whoever feels like it!
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks for clearing that up! I'll have to think about it, because the US will win a crap load of medals (as usual), but the population thing might screw that up (same with China I imagine).
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I'm only going for Team GB (doooooooomed) because I have to!
ReplyDeleteCath: HAHA, now I remember. I even know what I would like for my 20CAD prize (simple shipping fee of something that I can send to your addy. Maybe we could do a trade off or something similar? it's a MEC thing, and the shipping to US is a hard bargain for the shop, much better to send person to person, although maybe a bit messy? Do you have anything that you would like, that I can get shipped to your house in case the unthinkable happens? give it some thought. Maybe I should wait with this until the game is played... hmm... ;) )
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to think about this. Many sports with an opportunity for the team Sweden. At least 3 golds... and 4 silvers.... in my dreams. Most likely it's going to be like 1 gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze but I'll get back in a while and post real numbers.
Alright, I have absolutely no German in me, but I'm going with Germany. Medal count: 10 gold, 14 silver, 5 bronze.
ReplyDeleteHmm...seeing as how the country I would actually root for (my country of origin) doesn't have winters, I'm thinking it's not going to do well in the medal count for the Winter Olympics! :-) Will have to pass on this one and wait for World Cup.
ReplyDeleteChall, we'll decide when we know the result! I'd be happy to help you get your hands on some MEC stuff though, regardless of who wins. You can just get it shipped to me (or tell me exactly what you want, I work about four blocks away), I can send it, and you can pay me by PayPal or whatever.
ReplyDeleteSweden has an excellent chance of winning this medal points per capita competition, I'd have thought! What's your population?
Alyssa, sounds good!
Mad Hatter, but I thought they had mountains in Bolivia?!
Can't wait for the World Cup!
Cath: 9 million, give or take I think ;)
ReplyDeleteMEC stuff sounds lovely. THanks in advance. there is one specific duffle bag I miss a lot... I brought the huge one, but miss the middle size one that is excellent for weekend/week trips....
World cup? of what? proper football (soccer)? yeah... we're out of that one so I'm not even trying to feign an interest ;)
Um...er...yeah, sure...Bolivia has mountains...I think! :-)
ReplyDeleteChall--My country is out of it too (has never made it as far as I know), but that's beside the point. The real point is to play a World Cup pool for bragging rights when we all make better picks than Massimo! :-)
MH. there is that of course :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's less than a third of Canada's population, so you only need to win a third of our medals to win the competition!
ReplyDeleteWorld Cup? THE World Cup! Football!
Mad Hatter, very true. The trash talk on the Euro championships pool was so much fun, I didn't care who won!
Mad Hatter: I see you've protected your archives, so I can't link to the trash talk. Is it safely preserved somewhere in case we need it for the World Cup?
ReplyDeleteOh, yes...it's all still there just waiting for us to pull it back out for another good laugh! I didn't want that blog just sitting out there without me around to keep an eye on it. :-)
ReplyDeleteOh goodness, Olimpics are here already?!? I have to look at the schedule so I don't miss the whole thing, eh? Also, if you find yourself watching an event where neither of your favorites are in play and Ukraine is (yeah, I am sure that will be a frequent occurrence ;), please cheer for Ukraine for me! (I know I am now a US citizen, and I do cheer for US, but it does get a little old after awhile - how many medals can go to the Americans after all?)
ReplyDeleteYep! There are official signs, ads, vehicles etc. everywhere, and some of the road closures are already in effect.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to cheer for Ukraine if UK and Canada aren't represented!
I have to say I am a bit hesitant about the Twins and their schedule for the hockey prep (also, I m trying not to think too much about the match up last Saturday.... that HURT ;) ) but hopefully that will end with something good (although lately the hcokey team hasn't done very well.
ReplyDeleteI'll sort out my bet later today, promise!
Oops, I wrote a new post asking you how you felt about the Sedins' Olympic prep before I read this!
ReplyDeleteAfter some thought, it would be best if you order the MEC bag and send it my address, rather than me buying it. That way it'll arrive optimally wrapped for shipping to you, and I won't have to abuse my credit card too much (I know you'd repay, I trust you completely, but it might take a while. Mr E Man won't be working full-time until the movie industry restarts after the Olympics, although he does have a few odd jobs lined up).
Might take a while because of international money transfer issues, not because of you :)
ReplyDeleteOk, so now I have looked over the stats (history etc) and it's looking like it could be intetresting. It's not going to be Turin (14! medals, 7 gold) but I'm hoping for not a repeat of Salt Lake (0 gold, 2 silver and 5 bronzes).
ReplyDeleteI'll go somewhere in between 10 medals; 3 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze.
If Anja Pärson wins her four skiing things, and the female ski-shooters do their thing, I'm way low on medals. But I think we can count on some nerves to be bad and if I am off on the low count, I can always be happy :) The curling however, I believe in the woman team there!
I'm a bit late, but I'll join!
ReplyDeleteI think the Dutch will get some medals for ice skating. The Kiwis will get some ski-medals (although I have no idea if there are kiwis going to the olymics...)
But Canada will be the overall winner. 7 gold, 6 silver, 3 bronze (?????? a very wild guess, and I wouldn't know for what exactely)
Two golds in hockey, obviously!
ReplyDeleteIf I cared about the Olympics I suppose I would support Italy and Canada, and I think I could do it without any problem because I don't see Italy ever being a threat to Canada in ice skating, curling, or hockey.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the World Cup, what can I say, MH, other than we should wait until the time comes to see who gets beaten... knowing me, knowing you, it's the best we can do :-)
Yeah, sure... Massimo doesn't care about the Olympics... does anyone else find it suspicious that he has avoided all sports pools ever since Mad Hatter and I kicked his ass in 2008?!
ReplyDeleteUSA: 10G, 8S, 6B
ReplyDelete