Go Canada EH?!

[LordOfChaos]

 

Canada topped Olympic medal standings for first time ever

 

DARA

Andy Wong,The Associated Press

Canada's Dara Howell celebrates after taking the gold medal in the women's freestyle skiing slopestyle final.

nextplay/pausepre1/1

 

 

 

 

For what may be the first time in history, Canada was atop the medal count at an Olympics — at least for one day.

This holds true for both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

While the Canadian Olympic Committee was trying to confirm this, it appears that at no other time has Canada led the Olympic Games in medals.

As competition drew to a close on Tuesday evening in Sochi, Canada stood with nine medals.

On Monday, after three days of competition, Canada had seven medals, including three gold and three silver.

Before you got out of bed Tuesday morning, Team Canada added two more medals to make it nine medals after the first four days of competition. Huntsville's Dara Howell took gold and teammate Kim Lamarre, from Quebec City, won bronze in women's slopestyle skiing in events Tuesday.

As we reach the end of Day 4, Norway has now slipped ahead of Canada with a total of 11 medals. Canada has nine — four gold, three silver and two bronze.

Canada's sport leaders are aiming to win the overall medal count in Sochi after finishing third in 2010 with 26.

Bruce Kidd, one of Canada's greatest athletes and a sports historian, said he believes this is the first time this has ever happened. He said Canada has never led "in recent memory" but that he can't be sure if this is the first time ever.

Canada came close to leading in 1998 because Canada won a gold on the first day (Ross Rebagliati), but Russia won a gold and a silver that day. Canada was second.

Chris Rudge, the former CEO of the COC, believes this is the first time Canada has led at an Olympics. However, he doesn't think we should read too much into it.

Four years ago, Canada got off to a slow start and the nation's nerves were on edge because many of this country's best events were backend loaded, and this year, new events such as slopestyle and team figure skating — sports that favour Canada — came early in the schedule.

"We've always come on strong at the end," Rudge said. "Yes, it probably is true that this is the first time Canada has led at an Olympics, but does it mean anything? It's a bit of a mug's game. We really won't know until we get to the end of the Games. Having said that, it certainly does not detract from a spectacular performance by those athletes."

Michael Chambers, COC president from 2001 to 2010, said that without an "auditor's pencil," he can't prove this is the first time Canada has led an Olympics.

However, the odds are so small that he is willing to believe it. The COC does not keep statistics on such things, he said. "I have no recollection of us winning so many medals in the first few days," Chambers said. "It only makes sense that this is the first time we have led."

No matter if this can be confirmed or not, the fact that Canada is leading at this stage of the Olympics is certainly something to crow about. And people are certainly letting the world know where Canada stands.

 

[PimpedOutPete]

Hey Murray

 

As far as the IOC is concerned, Canada won the medal race in Vancouver is 2010.  The convention used by the IOC is to sort by the number of gold medals the athletes from a country have earned. In the event of a tie in the number of gold medals, the number of silver medals is taken into consideration, and then the number of bronze medals.

 

The gold first ranking system described above is used by most of the world media, as well as the IOC.

 

Here was the medal count from Vancouver 2010.

 

 

So its apples to some and Oranges to another. Either way, its an amazing accomplishment for this Country.

[Sammy]

Other measurements, not official of course, take into consideration total medal count of all athletes. So a team of 15 players counts as 15 medals. Which would make winning hockey matches that much more important.