Ever wonder what's happening around the world? This weekly column for Storeboard.com will give you a global perspective of interesting, entertaining, and newsworthy happenings around the planet Earth!
The columns focus on what's happening on planet Earth continent by continent during the coming week and also include important events from the previous week. This is the 16th weekly column.
For the first time, the column will focus on one event -- The Winter Olympics. Sochi, a city in southwestern Russia with about 350,000 people, will host the Winter Olympics from Friday, Feb. 7 through Sunday, Feb. 23. By the way, parts of Russia are in Europe and parts are in Asia. I researched which continent Sochi is in and the answer is in dispute. It’s definitely near the European-Asian border.
Eighty-eight nations have at least one athlete in the Winter Olympics. Seven of the 88 have Olympic teams for the first time -- Dominica (an island in North America that is very close to South America), Malta (an island in southern Europe that’s very close to Africa), Paraguay (South America), Timor Leste (an island that’s in Asia or Australia, depending on which source you consult), Togo (Africa), Tonga (numerous islands east of the nation of Australia that’s not part of any continent, according to several sources), and Zimbabwe (Africa). Roughly 6,000 athletes will be in the Olympics.
There are 193 countries in the United Nations. The map that I’m using for this week’s photo shows which nations are entered in the Olympics. They are colored in green. As you can see, most, if not all, of the European nations have Olympic teams. This column will detail how each continent fared in the 2010 Winter Olympics and how each continent is expected to do in this year’s Olympics.
Africa: No African nation won a medal in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and none is projected to win a medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics, according to SportsMyriad. The only African nations in the 2014 Olympics are Morocco, Togo, and Zimbabwe. Algeria and South Africa are green on the map because one athlete from each nation qualified for the Olympics, but the two nations aren’t sending a team. Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, and South Africa had teams in the 2010 Olympics.
Antarctica: The only people who live in Antarctica are roughly 15,000 to 20,000 scientific researchers. None of them are good enough to compete in the Olympics, and Antarctica is not a nation anyway.
Asia: Yuna Kim of South Korea might become the most famous Winter Olympian because she is favored to win the gold medal in women’s figure skating, the most popular sport in past Winter Olympics. Mao Asada of Japan is the projected silver medalist. South Korea is projected to finish seventh in the medal count with 15 medals, while Japan and China are projected to finish 13th and 14th. Kazakhstan is the only other Asian nation projected to win a medal. Iran, Israel, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand and many other nations have teams. Three athletes from India will compete under the Olympic flag because the Indian Olympic Association was suspended. Don’t ask. In 2010, South Korea was fifth in the medal count, China seventh, Japan 20th, and Kazakhstan tied for 25th. Athletes from 26 nations won medals. (Note: Roughly 40 million of Russia’s 144 million citizens live in the Asian part of Russia, which I’ve listed as a European nation for the purposes of this article.)
Australia: The nation of Australia will have 60 athletes in 11 sports in the Olympics. Australia won two gold and one silver medal in Vancouver and is projected to win four medals in Sochi.
Europe: Nineteen of the 26 nations that won medals in Vancouver are European, including Germany, which finished second with 10 gold medals, as well as Norway (nine golds), Switzerland (six), Sweden (five), Austria (four) and the Netherlands (four). The other nations that won medals were, in medal order, Russia, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Belarus, Slovakia, Great Britain, Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia, Finland, and Estonia. Norway is projected by SportsMyriad to win the 2014 medal count with 38. Aksel Lund Svindal is projected to win three men’s skiing golds. Russia, Germany, and Austria are projected to be fourth, fifth, and sixth in the medal count, while the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland are also projected to be in top 10.
North America: Canada won the most gold medals in the 2010 Olympics with 14, while the United States won the most total medals -- 37. The USA and Canada are projected to finish second and third in the 2014 medal count behind Norway. The Associated Press doesn’t project any American to win more than one gold medal. The possible American stars include Ted Ligety (alpine skiing), Mikaela Schifrin (alpine skiing), Steven Holcomb (bobsled), Meryl Davis and Charlie White (ice dancing), Hannah Kearney (moguls), Shaun White (snowboarding), Shani Davis (speedskating), and Heather Richardson (speedskating). The American women’s hockey team is projected to beat Canada in the final, while Canada is the projected men’s hockey winner over Russia. Mexico has one athlete in the Olympics.
South America: No South American team won a medal in the 2010 Olympics and none is projected to win a medal in the 2014 Olympics. Nevertheless, the map shows that several South American nations have teams in the 2014 Olympics, including Argentina (seven athletes), Brazil (12), Chile (six), Paraguay (one), Peru (three), and Venezuela (one). By comparison, the USA has 230 athletes in the competition, Russia 225 and Canada 221. Colombia had a team in 2010, but doesn’t in 2014.
Here are the previous 15 columns in chronological order. The first one covered Oct. 21 through Oct. 27.
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world/222550
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--oct-28-nov-3/233783
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-4-nov-10/236105
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-11-through-nov-17/237804
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-18-through-nov-24/239456
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--nov-25-through-dec-1/242035
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-2-through-dec-8/244013
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-9-through-dec-15/245514
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-16-through-dec-22/247922
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-23-through-dec-29/250019
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--dec-30-through-jan-5/251970
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--jan-6-through-jan-12/253826
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--jan-13-through-jan-19/256157
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--jan-20-through-jan-26/258281
http://newyork.storeboard.com/blogs/news/whats-happening-around-the-world--jan-27-through-feb-2/260646
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