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- Norway Skiing Away with Medals Race
Norway Skiing Away with Medals Race
Posted by John Dewan on Feb 19th 2018
We worked with the Wall Street Journal to develop Olympic medal projections and shared them in the Journal
here
and in the Stat of the Week a couple of weeks ago
here. With a week left of
the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the model is working pretty well. Except for the United States.
There are 61 of 102 events completed at this point. Norway is on pace to win the medal title as was originally
projected. However, the United States was projected to tie with them and they are far behind. Our updated projections are:
| Current Projection | Original Projection | |||
| Gold | Total | Gold | Total | |
| Norway | 16 | 38 | 12 | 36 |
| Canada | 11 | 35 | 11 | 33 |
| Germany | 12 | 30 | 13 | 32 |
| USA | 10 | 22 | 11 | 36 |
For the United States, the number of gold medals is not far from the original projection. However, their total medal count in our current projection is only 22, compared to 36 originally. Here is where they are falling short by sport (as of Sunday night):
| Total Medal Projection Shortage for USA - By Sport | |||
| Sport | Current | Original | Difference |
| Freestyle Skiing | 4 | 9 | -5 |
| Long Track Speed Skating | 1 | 4 | -3 |
| Cross Country | 1 | 3 | -2 |
| Biathlon | 0 | 1 | -1 |
| Alpine Skiing | 2 | 3 | -1 |
| Luge | 1 | 2 | -1 |
| Curling | 0 | 1 | -1 |
| Figure Skating | 2 | 3 | -1 |
| Snowboard | 8 | 7 | 1 |
The biggest shortages for the United States are happening in Freestyle Skiing and Long Track Speed Skating. Nevertheless, the excitement generated by the likes of Shaun White and 17-year-olds Red Gerard and Chloe Kim with their gold medals in Snowboard continues to fuel the American team. The United States is currently projected to exceed its original medal projection in that sport.