The other thing that people (and Canadians are just as guilty) ignore about Canada is that probably 1 in 2 of our best athletes concentrates solely on hockey (on the men's side at least). In Australia, they concentrate on swimming to a similar degree, i.e. swimmers are their athletic heros. One medal for hockey, about 80 for swimming. Another example - Norway. Their best athletes end up in cross country skiing, biathlon, etc. and they clean up at the Olympics. My thesis statement is that any country that concentrates its national energy on sports that aren't big Olympic sports will underperform relative to a country that concentrates on the Olympics. This also explains why the US underperforms relative to a lot of countries, including Canada, on a per capita basis. Football, baseball and basketball eat up a lot of amazing athletes, but produce 4 medals maximum.
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