The start of the women’s 12,5 km biathlon mass race in Whistler, British Columbia, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) Vancouver 2010, part 2 of 2 - The Big Picture While Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Nastia Liukin made the 2008 Beijing Olympics the most exciting summer or winter games I’ve experienced, I generally prefer the winter games. While I wish it hadn’t been made so obvious before these games started, the winter games are more nerve-racking and interesting to me because they’re more dangerous. The athletes are often battling against gravity and minimal friction creating more tension than when they are competing only against each other or the clock. Despite NBC’s best efforts, I really enjoyed watching this year.
The start of the women’s 12,5 km biathlon mass race in Whistler, British Columbia, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Vancouver 2010, part 2 of 2 - The Big Picture

While Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Nastia Liukin made the 2008 Beijing Olympics the most exciting summer or winter games I’ve experienced, I generally prefer the winter games. While I wish it hadn’t been made so obvious before these games started, the winter games are more nerve-racking and interesting to me because they’re more dangerous. The athletes are often battling against gravity and minimal friction creating more tension than when they are competing only against each other or the clock. Despite NBC’s best efforts, I really enjoyed watching this year.

“Norway has won more Winter Games medals than any other nation. Last week it became the first country to win 100 Olympic gold medals, and Tuesday it hit the 300-medal milestone (the U.S. is second on the all-time list with dozens fewer.)

What makes its performance hard to fathom, however, is that Norway has only 4.7 million people to choose from. It’s as if the American team finished third in Vancouver after limiting the athlete pool to people living in metropolitan Detroit.”
Norway’s Olympic Medal Haul Earns It Little Respect
“There is clearly a Chicago/Rio coalition here, where a group of IOC members favored these two cities over the other two cities. In the first round, Madrid had the most votes; but once Chicago was eliminated, Rio took a commanding lead. The rise in 20 votes corresponds to receiving all the 18 Chicago votes, plus the addition of the two US delegates who were eligible to vote once Chicago was out. This coalition is a natural fit because both Chicago and Rio would both serve prime-time television markets in the US to maximize sponsorship revenue. From this perspective, it’s obvious that the Madrid and Tokyo never had a shot, and that it only took a few members of the tightly split coalition to be swayed one way or the other. If five members had changes their votes, it’s Rio who’s ousted in the first round, not Chicago.”
Did Prediction Markets Get Chicago Wrong? via felixsalmon.

It didn’t occur to me how much of a win Rio is for NBC or whoever has the Olympics coverage for 2016.