God what a long post, who cares which skinny African wins the stupid race even if he is wearing the vest of another country.

Even that British bloke who comes from Somalia weighs less than your 10 year old daughter, no one is interested in some skinny African running fast.

Some bloke with muscles running fast for 9 seconds or at most 45 seconds is ok but some African who weighs 8 stone racing a bunch of other Africans who weigh 8 stone, who wants to watch that?

I thought you are American? Sorry, but I could not resist. You remind me of all those first generation immigrants for whom everything is better "back home" yet they make their livelihood "here". To whom I say, "if everything back home is so awesome, why do you live here?"

We (the Dutch) have always, and most probably always will win predominantly speed skating medals in the Winter Olympics because it's one of the only winter sports that we can practice in our own country.

We (the Dutch) have always, and most probably always will win predominantly speed skating medals in the Winter Olympics because it's one of the only winter sports that we can practice in our own country. In Vancouver we did also win a gold in the Women's Parallel Giant Slalom, and as mentioned a short track bronze this year (and some missed chances for other medals).

But this time around its really so much more than other olympics. Many Dutch people (mainly journalists) have been questioning the status of speed skating as we seem to be dominating it so much more this time around, worrying about the status of it in the future. To the athletes who performed well it seems like a sad conundrum: you are criticized if you underperform, and yet you get criticized when you overperform. Are we supposed to be punished because other countries fail to perform? When comparing the Americans to the Dutch I think that they definitely underperformed and we overperformed, but for most other countries I think their performance was on par, ours was just much better than expected.

I can outline a couple of reasons why we are so dominant in general, and a couple of reasons why we were so dominant in Sochi in particular:

General:
- Skating is in our culture. Not because we commute by work on skates like some WaPost article claimed (really?), but because its one of those nationa pastimes, with the Elfstedentocht as a shining example. And let's face it, winning sparks interest for future young athletes and this in turn assures future top class athletes. With this cultural experience comes exposure, as most skating competitions are nationally televised. When you see the broadcasts you will see predominantly Dutch advertisements on the boarding of the skating oval, regardless of where the race is held.
- We have a lot of competition in skating. There is a huge amount of competition before you will ever be able to compete at the national championships, let alone the world cups or the olympics (more in this in the Sochi in particular reasons). Apart from the long track skating, there is also a big marathon skating competition, and we also draw talent from short track and inline skating (the latter is also a big source for American speed skaters).
- We do do other things besides skating. Many people skate outside in winter when it gets cold enough, but this is not nearly the case every year. We are also a decent cycling nation (Marianne Vos?) as well as rowing and swimming and probably some other sports I'm forgetting. Team sports that are most popular are soccer and field hockey, but also volleyball etc. But no, most of these sports do not draw from the same pool as the skaters (although there is some competition within endurance sports I guess). Very few athletes really earn million dollar pay checks in any of these sports, so people generally choose a sport for the reason that should be most important: their love for it. Not money. This is not to say that getting paid to compete in your sport professionally isn't a draw, it is, but most do not expect to be set for life when their skating career is over.
- We have professional teams. Skaters are contracted, no need to get a day job, enjoy a decent, or for a select few, great salary, as well as top notch support. In addition, skaters have status in Holland. Being a sports celebrity in Holland is far more pedestrian here than it is in the U.S. but along with the tv exposure you are definitely among the select few nationally known athletes.

Sochi in particular:
- The professional teams that we had have evolved, with most of them now focusing on niches within speed skating such as the sprint distances, or endurance distances, and most teams are either male or female only. In the past, skaters usually did a lot more distances (so called "all-round"), but as competition has increased, most skaters have had to specialize in specific distances. This is more the case for the men than for the women as the longest distances are longer for them (5k for the women, 10k for the men).
- Selection. We had our olympic trials in december. The level of competition there was insanely high, with most distances seeing new world records for low-countries (as explained, there's a speed bonus at altitude). All athletes knew they had to go through these trials, whether they were Olympic champions in 2010 or not. This was not necessarily a good thing as it meant that for most riders, these trials were even more important than the Olympics themselves, and required a peak fitness to even qualify. Most other countries had far easier trials, especially for those athletes that were likely to excel internationally anway. Especially on the 5k and 10k for men, the events were more competitve nationally at the trials than they were at the Olympics.
- Prioritizing. Even though we are so dominant, we were only able to send 10 skaters per gender to the Olympics. Of course we could send 5 per distance and see where we end up, but of course there is a limit. If Kenya and Ethiopia were allowed 10 athletes at the Olympic Marathon they'd have a field day too. So we have had to prioritize. We did this by analyzing our performances internationally, to see where we did best, and where we would hav the highest chance of earning a medal. This meant that being third at the 5000m at the trials would earn you a spot in the Olympic team, but winning the 1500 was valued much worse. It all depended on how many distances each athlete did well at. This system was developed at a university and I'm sure they will get their share of praise when the evaluation of the Sochi Olympics has concluded :)
- Not training at altitude as much. I think in the end this was not the most important point for the Dutch, but may have been for the Americans. Heerenveen is obviously at close to sea level, whereas Salt Late is much higher. For the Dutch team it was not a completely conscious decision to train at low altitude. Your home base is at altitude, so thats where you train most of the time anyway. But for their training camps, it was a factor, going to Inzell in Germany, rather than Calgary or Collalbo (where the Americans practiced on an outdoor track at altitute???) The Americans could have deciced to train more in Milwaukee instead.

I'm sure I forgot some points but this is what I've got.

I am not an immigrant, the same way my American wife was not an immigrant when she lived in Norway.
What year are you living in? 1880. You need to get updated on the whole working and living around the world thing.

And yes, Norway still has 11 golds and that is good since I am Norwegian.[/quote

OK, carry on then. You're a Norwegian living in America, so I guess everything is better back home :-) I do get the working all around the world thing though. The living part, I am two minds about. I understand that people can move around the world constantly. How long have you lived in the US? Just curious?

Why should endurance sports be pushed? I say this as more of a short-course triathlete, but I still don't understand this theory on ST that it's important for endurance events to be watched like football (gridiron). I enjoy watching football. Two hours of watching people run a marathon, or eight hours of watching an Ironman? Where's the draw? Furthermore, how does it make America inferior that we enjoy watching team sports instead of endurance sports? How is the one inherently superior?

Furthermore, so the Dutch dominate a sport that is clearly culturally important to them and they invest funds and talent in. That's natural. However, when America dominates the sports that are culturally important to us, and invest funds and talent in them... it's bad, somehow. Inferior.


Can you, or anyone, please explain this logic?

Also this one, 'You can invent your own sport and pretend you are best in the world"

Here you have examples to explain how it is possible to work and live in other countries. I have friends that live and work in Dubai, but no one ask if they immigrated to Dubai, they just live and work there. I have friends that grew up in Saudi Arabia, but no one ask if the are Saudi Arabian. For some reason the same logic does not work for someone when it comes to living in the US. My wife did not become Norwegian living in Norway, she is American and that is OK with me.

By the way, Ole Einar Bjorndalen has lived in Austria the last 10 years or more. Do you consider him Austrian or Norwegian? UK's Andrew Musgrave is currently living in Norway and has done that since he started HS. Is he Norwegian?

If channel surfing ever becomes a recognized sport, I can almost guarantee a Gold, Silver and Bronze for the US.

The Dutch can win as many speed skating medals as they want, as long as they keep putting the Dutch women's field hockey team on the field for the Summer Olympics.

Fleck,

I would suggest that you concern yourself less with The USA. Why do you care so much about American sports, American sports programming and Americans in general.

Second, you and the Dutch kook coach have it all wrong. Different countries prefer different sports. It's not right or wrong. Just a matter of preference. For example, baseball is slow as hell. I don't watch it but millions of Americans love it. American football is also slow as hell. Takes nearly 4 hours to play a game ant it's nothing but stops and starts. It's not better or worse than any Olympic sport. Just different.

By and large the best US sprinters will get identified and funneled into track and field. Pointing to Usain Bolt and suggesting that he would have ended up in football ignores the US history in men's olympic sprinting which remains 2nd to none. Maurice Greene didn't end up in the NFL, neither did Tyson Gay or Justin Gatlin, Dennis Mitchell or Carl Lewis. Sure there are guys that could have made an olympic team and choose football instead. I am not sure there are many guys that could have won Olympic gold and chose football instead. Bolt would very likely have been identified early in the US and his olympic history would have been similar.

The americans having slaves back in the day sure has helped them when it comes to doing well in sports, aside from swimming it seems.

It's more likely the above sprinters did not have great hand eye coordination for catching the ball, or lacked agility. Or maybe they just didn't like to get hit? Not everyone enjoys getting their bell rung day in and day out. You can see Renaldo Nehemiah for details. There is more to football than just raw speed and power. The best players are extremely agile regardless of size and remarkable athletes.

When I look at previous results in skating, I don't see how the U.S team expected to win many medals in speed skating. In Vancouver, Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick won the individual American medals. Shani is now 31 years old, he looked tired during these Olympics. Chad Hedrick is retired. There isn't much new blood. The U.S. Women were skunked in Vancouver. Isn't zero at Sochi par for the course?

Does anyone here expect a 31 yr old Usain Bolt to win a double again in Brasil in 2016? If he does, it won't be clean.

I know what you are saying. But maybe it goes the other way. America and Canada are very open countries and we take people from all over the world to help build our economies (by the way, I find the Dutch are very much that way). We give them easy access to all forms of employment and much easier access to become fully voting citizens. So perhaps this is why this mindset that I describe exists here, but perhaps not in Dubai, or Japan or Germany for that matter. Our Canadian XC coach grew up in the US and raced there. We don't consider Justin an American. He lives and coaches the Canadian team. To us, he's a Canadian now, just by his actions (living here, paying taxes, contributing to our country). I don't even know if the guy has a Canadian passport (yet).

Sorry for the sidetrack on this thread. To some degree I am glad that when an athlete switches countries, he/she needs to acquire citizenship in the new country to race under the new country. Mark McCoy from Canada (1992 Gold Medalist Hurdles) did that when he moved to Austria. Ahn just did that in Short Track switching from Korean to Russian citizenship.

By the way, this Russian sweep of the Men's 50K was pretty awesome just like their Biathlon relay win yesterday. I really enjoy it when the host country does well. Makes the olympics exciting (like UK in summer 2012):

So The Netherlands are better at Speed Skating than the US. So what. Very few in the US care about speed skating, if the masses in the US really cared about Speed Skating, we would dominate the sport ;0)

Phew, that was close! So glad Canada beat the Dutch in the medal count. Would hate to have that Dutch coach dump on us, too! ;-)

Thanks for proving the point the Dutch coach made. How did really caring about a sport and dominating at it work out in hockey these Olympics.

[
Hey what about we Aussies? We have won the medal count for all countries in the Southern Hemisphere!!! Yaaaay to us! Hahaha!
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Are you and the coach claiming that NFL football is easy because other countries don't play at a high level? Because that logic doesn't hold up, at all. There's more to competition than the Olympics.