Winter Olympic Trivia and Quiz Questions

Just thought that this would be a fun (and useful) thread to have in the run-up to the Olympics!

So, may I start off with this challenge.


As you may have gathered from some of my comments, I am also a fan of ski jumping.

Ski jumping is like figure skating in that it is considered a “young person’s sport”.

The Women’s World Cup has only been going for a few years, so it is hard to judge what is the normal age to retire. But, what is already noticeable is that there are very few jumpers over the age of 25 – most of the girls are either in their teens, or early twenties.

In the Men’s World Cup, the general trend is that most of the jumpers retire when they are in their early thirties...

...then there’s the Japanese. They just keep carrying on! It’s funny, because most venues use the “national group” slots to give their young jumpers a chance to compete on the big stage. In Japan, they give these slots to the old heroes of the past, such as:

Takanobu Okabe, who is now 43 (1995 Normal Hill World Champion; 1998 Olympic Team Champion)

Kazuyoshi Funaki, who is now 38 (1997/98 Four Hills Champion; 1998 Ski Flying World Champion; 1998 Olympic Large Hill Champion; 1998 Olympic Team Champion; 1999 Normal Hill World Champion).

The oldest of Japan’s regular jumpers is 1992 Ski Flying World Champion Noriaki Kasai, who is now 41. In the commentary the other day, it was pointed out that if he is selected for Sochi (which, given the way he is jumping at the minute, looks very likely!), it will be Noriaki’s SEVENTH Olympics, after:

1992 Albertville
1994 Lillehammer
1998 Nagano
2002 Utah Olympic Park
2006 Pragelato
2010 Whistler

Unsurprisingly, with 6 Games under his belt, Noriaki Kasai holds the record for competing in the most Olympics in ski jumping.

That started me wondering:

1. What is the record for the most Olympics competed at in figure skating, and who holds it?

And, taking this further:

2. What is the record for the most Olympics competed at in each category of figure skating, and who holds it?

And for a “Brucie Bonus”, can you name all the Games that each answer competed at?

It only took me a few clicks to find out the answer for the overall record holder (and hence the category that this answer competed in). But, I have no idea what the answers are for the other categories.

So, the floor is now open to anybody who fancies a go!

CaroLiza_fan


NOTE: For those that are wondering what a “Brucie Bonus” is, it is a well-known phrase in the British Isles for an extra prize. It originated from the game show “Play Your Cards Right”, presented by Bruce Forsyth.

I believe the record for dance would be Margarita Drobiazko & Povilas Vanagas of Lithuania.
They were at the 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006 Olympics.
Their highest placement was fifth at the 2002 Olympics.

The tricky thing is that in a country with a lot of competition, about 3 Olympics is the most that a couple can dominate their sport.
In a country with less competition, the difficulty can be qualifying for the Olympics at all.

However, the concept of a record is not quite fair, due to the fact that any team that competed in 1992 and 1994 has an advantage over teams whose career did not span those years.

dorispulaski said:

I believe the record for dance would be Margarita Drobiazko & Povilas Vanagas of Lithuania.
They were at the 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006 Olympics.
Their highest placement was fifth at the 2002 Olympics.

Click to expand...

Correct! They are the record holders not just for ice dance, but for figure skating as a whole.

And did you know: they won the Lithuanian Championships every year from 1992 to 2002, retired for a couple of years, and then came back and won again in 2005 and 2006!

13 National Championship titles???!!! That is bound to be a record in itself!!!

dorispulaski said:

The tricky thing is that in a country with a lot of competition, about 3 Olympics is the most that a couple can dominate their sport.
In a country with less competition, the difficulty can be qualifying for the Olympics at all.

Click to expand...

And with the way things are going in Russia at the moment, the Ladies will be lucky if they get more than one chance to appear at the Olympics!

dorispulaski said:

However, the concept of a record is not quite fair, due to the fact that any team that competed in 1992 and 1994 has an advantage over teams whose career did not span those years.

Click to expand...

Good point. It isn't fair because there were only 2 years between Albertville and Lillehammer, rather than the usual 4. But that's the way it happened, so I guess we have to flow with it.

I'm too young to remember the time when the Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year, but it must have been a nightmare for the IOC to organise 2 major Games in short succession.

I am really amazed that the IOC never thought of changing the 2 sets of Games to being held on different years at any stage before then. It would have made life a lot easier for them if they did!

There again, now that there are Youth Olympics as well, I suppose that life hasn't got any easier – it's got a lot busier instead!!!

CaroLiza_fan

Yes, I'm amazed too.

Three Olympics is not unusual in dance, despite the fact that it only became an Olympic sport in 1976. Here are some teams that accomplished the feat:

(there may be more)

Bestemianova & Bukin (1980, 1984, 1988)
Torvil & Dean (1980, 1984, 1994)
Klimova & Ponomarenko (1984, 1988, 1992) ( and medalled in all of them )
Engi & Toth, Hungary (1984, 1988, 1992)
Grishuk & Platov (1992, 1994, 1998)
Fusar-Poli & Margaglio (1998, 2002, 2006)
Delobel & Schoenfelder (2002, 2006, 2010)
Denkova & Staviyski (1998, 2002, 2006)
Bourne & Kraatz (1994, 1998, 2002)
Grushina & Goncharov (1998, 2002, 2006)
Chait & Sakhonovski (1998, 2002, 2006)
Martin Šimeček & Kateřina Mrázová CZE (1992, 1994, 1998)
Moniotte & Lavanchy FRA (1992, 1994, 1998)
Faiella & Scali (2002, 2006, 2010)

2014 will be Pechalat & Bourzat's third Olympics

Up to now, it's possible that ice dancers have had greater longevity than skaters in other disciplines because they can peak at a later age, because there's more precision involved, and the bone-wearing jumps are absent. But now with the more athletic lifts, I wonder whether that ability to sustain a long athletic career will continue. I hope so. I love the continuity of watching a duo's style mature and deepen.

Before I start talking about something else, can I just add something?

Having seen Margarita Drobiazko / Povilas Vanagas perform at the Oberstdorf end of year Eisgala a month or so ago, they could easily come back to do a sixth Olympics AND be competitive!!!

They were absolutely brilliant!!!


Anyway, back to what I was going to talk about.

After finding out that Matthew Parr was Scottish, it suddenly dawned on me that all four nations of the UK were going to be represented in figure skating at the Sochi Olympics.

And it started me wondering – has this ever happened before…



Notes:

1. Lloyd Jones’s partner, Pernelle Carron, is French, and they skate representing France.
2. Although she is proudly Welsh, Marika Humphreys was actually born in England. The simple reason for this is that her hometown is just next to the Welsh-English border, and the nearest hospital was just across the border in Chester.
3. Marika Humphreys’ partner, her husband Vitaliy Baranov, is Ukrainian.
4. I was not able to find out find out where Glyn Jones is from. But his name is about as Welsh as you can get! “Glyn” is the Welsh word for “valley”, while Jones is the most common surname in Wales.
5. Colin Taylforth’s partner, his then-wife Erika (née Susman), is from California.
6. Patricia Dodds also competed for Great Britain in the Ladies Singles at Grenoble in 1968. She was born in Toronto, Ontario, and I have not been able to find out if she had family connections to any particular part of the UK.
7. Diane Peach competed in 1956 using her maiden name, and in 1964 using her married name.
8. Carolyn Patricia Krau competed in 1956 in Pairs using her middle name, and in 1960 in Ladies singles using her first name.
9. I was not able to find out where Patricia Pauley is from.
10. I was not able to find out where Robin Jones is from. He died back in 1986, so there are not many articles about him on the internet. But his wife, fellow skater Heather Green, is English.
11. Jeannette Altwegg was born in Bombay, India, but was brought up in Lancashire.
12. Geoffrey and Ernest Yates were brothers.
13. Leslie Cliff was born in Co. Kildare, which is in the Republic of Ireland. But, at the time he was born (1908), all of Ireland was still in the UK. Incidentally, he died in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands.
14. Jack Page competed in both Singles and Pairs in St. Moritz in 1928.

I should add – Ireland only competed at the Winter Olympics for the first time in 1992. Although Leslie Cliff was Irish, nobody has ever represented Ireland in figure skating. Which is why it is even more heartbreaking that Clara Peters missed out this time...

This table was compiled by going through the “Great Britain at the Winter Olympics” pages on Wikipedia. So, if there were any British skaters competing for other countries (as Lloyd Jones is doing this year), I will have missed them.

Where there were not Wikipedia pages about the skaters, I used www.sports-reference.com to find out where they were from. In one case, I used their Facebook profile.


So, to answer my question:

Yes, this is the first time that all four nations of the UK are going to be represented in figure skating at the Olympics.

Amazing!

CaroLiza_fan

EDIT: I just wanted to add - the table was a lot easier to look at when I originally made it out in Word. But, unfortunately, the forum software does not support merged cells, so I had to split them all again.