• Women’s Skeleton Event Factsheets

• Freestyle Skiing Women’s Aerials Event Factsheets

• Figure Skating Men’s Singles Event Factsheets

• Cross-Country Skiing Men’s 15 km Event Factsheets

• Biathlon Women’s 15 km Event Factsheets

• Alpine Skiing Men’s Combined Event Factsheets

• USA Alpine Skiing Men’s Combined Event Factsheets
• USA Biathlon Women’s 15km Event Factsheets
• USA Cross-Country Skiing Men’s 15 km Event Factsheets
• USA Figure Skating Men’s Individual Event Factsheets
• USA Freestyle Skiing Women’s Aerials Event Factsheets
• USA Women’s Skeleton Event Factsheets

No new events are scheduled to end on Friday, 14 February

Day 5 ends with the same countries in the top 3 positions although a quieter day for Norway has allowed Canada and Russia to close the points gap. Germany overtake the USA to claim 4th in the table whilst Sweden drop out of the top 10. Latvia and, more surprisingly, Hungary join the table.

The scoring table is as follows;
1st 8 points
2nd 7
3rd 6
4th 5
5th 4
6th 3
7th 2
8th 1
If countries are level on points their single best result is the tiebreak. 8 points awarded to both Slovenia and Switzerland following the dead heat in the downhill.

[table]
Rank, Nation,Points,Tie breaker
1, NOR, 128,
2, CAN, 108,
3, RUS, 105,
4, GER, 100,
5, USA, 91,
6, NED, 85,
7, ITA, 56,
8, AUT, 55,
9, JPN, 54,
10, SUI, 53,
11, SWE, 45,
12, FRA, 37,
13, SLO, 36,
14, CHN, 35,
15, CZE, 30,
16, AUS, 20,
17, KOR, 16,
18, POL, 15, 1st
19, FIN, 15, 2nd
20, GBR, 13,
21, SVK, 11,
22, UKR, 10, 3rd
23, KAZ, 10, 5th
24, BLR, 8,
25, LAT, 6,
26, BEL, 5,
27, HUN, 2,

[/table]

The best site for statistical information on the web is at http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/. You should bookmark it and use it frequently during Sochi for information on what has gone before.

Yes, I do have something to do with it. The site is work done by me and a group of my associates who we call the OlyMADMen – there are about a dozen of us, led by Jeroen Heijmans (NED), Arild Gjerde (NOR), and Hilary Evans(GBR/Wales) (and Hilary is actually James Hilary Evans, to clear that up). Other main contributors to the site are Taavi Kalju (EST), Wolf Reinhardt (GER), Martin Kellner (AUT), Ralf Regnitter (GER), Paul Tchir (CAN), Ralph Schlüter (GER), Mørten Aarlia Torp (NOR), Magne Teigen (NOR), and David Foster (GBR). A few other Olympic stat freaks also help us out – Christian Tugnoli (ITA), Ove Karlsson (SWE), Stein Opdahl (NOR), Carl-Johan Johansson (SWE), Paweł Wudarski (POL), and others.

sports-reference.com/olympics is based on our own private website, which we use as our research site – its located at www.olympedia.org. Sorry, but for now it’s a private site, but we can allow you free access if you want it – just send us an email ([email protected]) or post your email below. You’ll love it, I promise you, if you like the Olympics. Olympedia and sports-reference are similar, but different. Information goes on Olympedia first and gets picked up by sports-reference later, after some editing.

Other sites you should know about:

www.olympic.org – the main IOC site

http://www.teamusa.org – the main US Olympic Committee site

www.sochi2014.com – the main site for the Sochi Organizing Committee – all athlete bios and results eventually will be on here

http://www.insidethegames.biz – lots of good stuff, updated daily, follow at @insidethegames

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/globetrotting – Phil Hersh, US best known Olympic-beat writer, keeps tabs on everything in international sport, follow at @olyphil

http://www.3wiresports.com/author/alan-abrahamson – Alan Abrahamson, former LA Times Olympic-beat writer, follows the Olympic Movement closely, follow at @alanabrahamson

http://olympictalk.nbcsports.com/author/nzaccardi86/ – NBC’s main web guy Nick Zaccardi adds new stuff daily, follow at @nzaccardi

http://frontierbeaver.com/sports – a blog by Ollie Williams, a bit British oriented but covers all Olympic sports and nations, follow at @OllieW

http://espn.go.com/olympics – Bonnie Ford keeps us up-to-date even if ESPN doesn’t usually know about any sports other than the NFL – but Bonnie does, follow at @Bonnie_D_Ford

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics – although Sports Illustrated suffers from the same ESPN-virus of NFL only at times, look for anything by Tim Layden, who knows his stuff, follow at @SITimLayden

http://www.aroundtherings.com – Around the Rings, led by Ed Hula, focuses on the Olympic Movement – this is a pay-site – follow at @EHula_ATR

www.gamesbids.com – information about the bidding process and host cities – can be of some interest

In the women’s downhill this morning, Slovenian Tina Maze and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland tied for the gold medal with a time of 1:41.57. Couldn’t the timing equipment have broken that tie by carrying it out to 1/1000^th of a second?

Yes, it could have, but Alpine skiing chooses not to do so. In fact, the timing is so precise it could probably measure to the 1/1,000,000^th but this belies the fact that course measurement cannot be that accurate.

At Alpine skiing downhill speeds 1/100^th of a second is about 10 inches or 25 cm, and 1/1000^th would be about 1 inch or 2.5 cm. How accurate is the finish line? If Maze finished on the left side of the finish, and Gisin on the right side, is that accurate enough to measure to 1/1000^th, especially when the start line is 3,000 metres away. So if you measure to 1/1000^th would you be penalizing one skiier for finishing on one side of the course and not the other, without them really knowing which side is shorter? You could be.

Other Olympic sports have realized this as well and lessened the precision with which they measure finishes. Swimming used to break ties by measuring to the 1/1000^th second, but in 1972 at München Gunnar Larsson of Sweden and American Tim McKee seemingly tied in the men’s 400 individual medley in swimming. They were both timed in 4:31.98 but the precision timer broke the tie and gave the gold medal to Larsson, with a time of 4:31.981 to McKee’s 4:31.983 – 2/1000^ths of a second. However, swimming officials later reconsidered this, when they were informed that if Larsson’s lane had one extra coat of paint on it, it would have made the difference by shortening the distance he swam over 8 laps and to his touch. So swimming now calls a tie to the 1/100^th a tie for that position – however, the 1972 400IM result was not changed.

This famously occurred again in the women’s 100 freestyle in 1984 at Los Angeles when Carrie Steinseifer and Nancy Hogshead tied in 55.92. The stadium scoreboard listed that time for both but had Steinseifer 1^st and Hogshead 2^nd initially, so presumably Steinseifer was slightly faster to the 1/1000^th, but that mistake was corrected and they were both correctly given gold medals.

At the 1980 Winter Olympics Swede Thomas Wassberg won the gold medal in the men’s cross-country 15 km, defeating Finland’s Juha Mieto. Wassberg was timed in 41:57.63 to Mieto’s 41:57.64. The skiing federation (FIS) realized that this was a ridiculous precision to use for a race lasting over 40 minutes. Cross-country ski time trials have since been timed only to the 1/10^th of a second, although in mass start events, photo finishes will be used to break ties.

A similar finish occurred at the 2012 London Olympics in the women’s triathlon in one of the most stirring finishes one could ever see, as Switzerland’s Nicola Spirig and Sweden’s Lisa Nordén raced side-by-side down the last kilometre of the race, neither runner able to shake the other. Spirig was given the win, and the gold medal, with both runners officialy timed in 1-59:48. To observers there, it seemed impossible to choose between them at the finish line, but Spirig was adjudged to have won by 0.009 seconds per the official timing system. That is a ludicrous margin to use in a race lasting 2 hours, and hopefully the triathlon federation will correct this in the future. Ideally they should correct it retroactively and award Spirig and Nordén co-gold medals.

Some sports do time to the 1/1000^th of a second – notably at the Winter Olympics, luge. The races are so close that this precision is necessary to separate the sliders occasionally. The track is narrow enough that there should be little difference in where the sliders finish. Speed skating also breaks ties in the 500 metres to the 1/1000^th although official times are given in 1/100^ths. At the Summer Olympics, cycling uses 1/1000^ths in some of the shorter track races.

So Maze and Gisin tied in the women’s downhill – that’s a good and just decision.