Professor proffers Olympic predictions

Any Canadians expecting the gold medal dominance of their Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics team to translate into improvement for the London 2012 Summer Olympics team will be disappointed if predictions released March 12 come true.

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan-native Daniel Johnson, an economics professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo., predicts Canada will win 17 medals, including four gold, in London. That was also his prediction for Beijing 2008. The actual tally four year ago was 18 medals and three gold. Not too shabby, eh?

Well, maybe if you're the Canadian Olympic team. That would put Canada in 15th on the gold medal scale and 12th overall. On overall medals, Johnson predicts Canada will be surpassed by Netherlands and Hungary (19), Italy and Japan (31), Australia (38). On the gold medal scale, he believes India, Poland and Netherlands will win 5. Romania (6), Hungary (7) and Australia (8), he predicts, will also beat Canada.

Johnson boasts a remarkable 93 percent success rate in his Olympic predictions over six consecutive Games, and his model does not include athletics. He instead relies on a nation's per capita income, population and its proximity to the host city.

Johnson predicts the U.S. will win the most overall (99) and most gold (34). China (67 including 33 gold), Russia (82 including 25 gold), and host Great Britain (45 including 20 gold) are the top four. According to Johnson's March 12-issued news release:

"During the last Summer Games, in Beijing in 2008, Johnson’s model forecast that the U.S. would top the medal count, and it did, winning 110 medals (seven more than predicted). He also correctly predicted that China would top the gold medal count, and it did, winning 51 gold medals (seven more than predicted). During the last Winter Games, in Vancouver in 2010, the model predicted 27 medals for Canada (they won 26 instead), but the American and German teams both vastly outperformed expectations and topped the podium more often."

What Johnson doesn't mention is that his prediction for Canada's gold medals in Vancouver 2010 was a paltry 5. Canada won a record 14.

Read more here and see the ranked prediction table below.

2012 Olympic medal predictions by Dan Johnson

Professor proffers Olympic predictions

Any Canadians expecting the gold medal dominance of their Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics team to translate into improvement for the London 2012 Summer Olympics team will be disappointed if predictions released March 12 come true.

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan-native Daniel Johnson, an economics professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo., predicts Canada will win 17 medals, including four gold, in London. That was also his prediction for Beijing 2008. The actual tally four year ago was 18 medals and three gold. Not too shabby, eh?

Well, maybe if you're the Canadian Olympic team. That would put Canada in 15th on the gold medal scale and 12th overall. On overall medals, Johnson predicts Canada will be surpassed by Netherlands and Hungary (19), Italy and Japan (31), Australia (38). On the gold medal scale, he believes India, Poland and Netherlands will win 5. Romania (6), Hungary (7) and Australia (8), he predicts, will also beat Canada.

Johnson boasts a remarkable 93 percent success rate in his Olympic predictions over six consecutive Games, and his model does not include athletics. He instead relies on a nation's per capita income, population and its proximity to the host city.

Johnson predicts the U.S. will win the most overall (99) and most gold (34). China (67 including 33 gold), Russia (82 including 25 gold), and host Great Britain (45 including 20 gold) are the top four. According to Johnson's March 12-issued news release:

"During the last Summer Games, in Beijing in 2008, Johnson’s model forecast that the U.S. would top the medal count, and it did, winning 110 medals (seven more than predicted). He also correctly predicted that China would top the gold medal count, and it did, winning 51 gold medals (seven more than predicted). During the last Winter Games, in Vancouver in 2010, the model predicted 27 medals for Canada (they won 26 instead), but the American and German teams both vastly outperformed expectations and topped the podium more often."

What Johnson doesn't mention is that his prediction for Canada's gold medals in Vancouver 2010 was a paltry 5. Canada won a record 14.

Read more here and see the ranked prediction table below.

2012 Olympic medal predictions by Dan Johnson

Cool Britannia or Tool Britannia?

It didn’t take long on May 19 for someone in cyberspace (do they still call it that?) to compare the phallic, one-eyed London 2012 mascots Wenlock and Mandeville to penises (can we say that on radio?).

What would you rather have? A union jack-draped bulldog named Winston with bad human teeth, wearing a bowler hat and monocle while hoisting a mug of room-temperature beer with his paw?

The mascots will be $30 million souvenir sales drivers for the next Summer Olympics and Paralympics, which already have a cubist logo that someone likened to Lisa Simpson getting ahead, if you know what I mean.



Can’t wait to see what kind of torch they’ll come up with in the new, Cool Britannia. Certainly it can’t top Vancouver’s joint-shaped torch.

The design of the Olympics, as we learned in Vancouver, is something that can never please all the people, all the time.

The least-controversial and perhaps most-popular element VANOC delivered was the look of the Games itself. Directed by the late Leo Obstbaum, the multi-layered, wavy green and blue, mountains and sea textured collage is almost all gone. You can still see some of it on the northeast side of the Pacific Coliseum.

Of course, VANOC had a rocky start in 2005 with its Ilanaaq the Inukshuk logo inspired by the English Bay inukshuk left over from Expo 86. Original artist Alvin Kanak never got recognition. Many people pointed out that there is no Inuit tribe in British Columbia, so why use a symbol of the north? The answer was easy. The federal government wanted to tell the world Canada was flexing its muscles in the Arctic. Don't trespass on our frozen tundra, eh!




The man becomes mountain-themed Paralympic logo was perhaps more suitable, but it was for the lower-profile Paralympics.

Mascots Miga, Quatchi and Sumi were one-part First Nations mythology and one-part cute Japanimation. Orange-toqued sidekick Muk Muk -- based on a real Vancouver Island marmot -- was never given the life-sized treatment.

Cuddly miniature versions are available at bulk liquidation sales for a fraction of the price paid by tourists at Games-time. (Hey, I thought sales records were set?)



So, welcome to the world, Wenlock and Mandeville. Because you’re British, someone probably told you already to keep a stiff upper lip. I’ll just tell you this from personal experience: A reader called me a dick once and I laughed at him.

While you’re ridiculed at home, you’ll be replicated by the millions in Chinese toy factories for the next two years. Just hope your bosses at London 2012 do what Vancouver 2010 executives failed to do: show and tell people where those factories are and how the workers are treated.

Make transparency a legacy of London 2012.

Vancouver 2010 didn’t have the heart and mind to be so bold.