Hans Brinker, the Dutch Olympic Skating Success & Misconceptions in the Media



Hans Brinker, The Silver Skates

The Dutch Olympic team is on its way to achieving one of its best Winter Olympics. Sofar, the Dutch have won seventeen medailles: five gold, five silver and seven bronze. What  is going on? The international media have started to notice.

The Wall Street Journal states in its article "In Sochi, the Dutch Are Dominating the Overall Olympic Medal Count":

" The Netherlands winning  the overall medal race.This is absurd. The Netherlands has about 15 million people. They are competitive in a single Winter Olympic sport. Sunday brought more domination, as the Dutch swept the podium in speedskating's women's 1,500 meters. The Netherlands had 17 medals at day's end on Sunday, one more than the U.S. and Russia; 16 of those 17 have come in long-track speedskating. (The other? Short-track speedskating.)...........

 The Dutch have chosen one of the few sports that a country of the Netherlands' size could dominate, since only about five nations are even competitive in speedskating. The U.S.—which was very competitive in speedskating until this year, when it became obsessed with its wardrobe—only has a couple thousand competitive skaters of any age. If the Winter Games are about being opportunistic, then the Dutch deserve the gold medal for opportunism. The Netherlands should enjoy this moment of Olympic supremacy, even if it doesn't last another 24 hours."

The International Business Times tries to explain the Dutch success in its article "Winter Olympics 2014: Speed Skating Continues To Be Dominated By The Netherlands, But Why?":