Dutch Speed Skating Dominance

The Netherlands has now won 19 of 27 available speed skating medals. There are 3 events left (women’s 5K and both team pursuits), so there will be 36 medals given out in Sochi for speed skating. The Netherlands has won 70.4% of the medals available for speed skating to date, and if they fail to win any of the final 9 medals (dream on), they will still win 52.8% of all the speed skating medals.

How does this rank at the Winter Olympics? Well, it trails a few performances, but those were in early Games, and usually in sports with only 1 to 3 events available for a nation. Looking at the list below for all nations winning 2/3rds or more of a sports medals at one Winter Olympics, the Netherlands performance is really incomparable. Only the German Democratic Republic’s (East Germany) winning 8 of 9 luge medals in 1972 is in the class, but that is only in 3 events. Finland’s winning 8 of 12 cross-country medals in 1952 is the most comparable, but that is still in only 4 events.

 

[table]

Sport,Year,NOC,Won,Medals,%%%

Nordic Combined,1924,NOR,3,3,100.0%

Nordic Combined,1928,NOR,3,3,100.0%

Nordic Combined,1932,NOR,3,3,100.0%

Ski Jumping,1932,NOR,3,3,100.0%

Nordic Combined,1936,NOR,3,3,100.0%

Ski Jumping,1948,NOR,3,3,100.0%

Luge,1972,GDR,8,9,88.9%

Cross-Country Skiing,1924,NOR,5,6,83.3%

Speedskating,2014,NED,19,27,70.4%

Cross-Country Skiing,1952,FIN,8,12,66.7%

Cross-Country Skiing,1948,SWE,6,9,66.7%

Luge,1988,GDR,6,9,66.7%

Bobsledding,1932,USA,4,6,66.7%

Alpine Skiing,1936,GER,4,6,66.7%

Ski Jumping,1964,NOR,4,6,66.7%

Bobsledding,1980,GDR,4,6,66.7%

Bobsledding,1984,GDR,4,6,66.7%

Ski Jumping,1924,NOR,2,3,66.7%

Bobsledding,1928,USA,2,3,66.7%

Skeleton,1928,USA,2,3,66.7%

Ski Jumping,1928,NOR,2,3,66.7%

Ski Jumping,1936,NOR,2,3,66.7%

Nordic Combined,1948,FIN,2,3,66.7%

Nordic Combined,1952,NOR,2,3,66.7%

Ski Jumping,1952,NOR,2,3,66.7%

Ski Jumping,1956,FIN,2,3,66.7%

Biathlon,1964,SOV,2,3,66.7%

Nordic Combined,1972,GDR,2,3,66.7%

Nordic Combined,1976,GDR,2,3,66.7%

Nordic Combined,1980,GDR,2,3,66.7%

Nordic Combined,1984,FIN,2,3,66.7%

[/table]

2 thoughts on “Dutch Speed Skating Dominance”

  1. While there are 36 total medals, the best any country could do is win 32. Each country can only enter 1 team in the team events. This would bump up the Dutch percentage even more.

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