SPEED SKATING

Some countries are naturally good at certain sports; Norway at cross-country skiing, for instance, Britain at rowing, Denmark at handball. But the title for absolute world domination must surely be the Netherlands at speed skating, as the just-finished Winter Olympics in Sochi clearly demonstrate.

In speed skating, there are six disciplines for each of the men and women, so 12 events in all. The Dutch won 8 of the 12, and 23 of the 36 medals on offer; the next best country was Poland, with 3. In four of them, they won all three medals, and in three others they won two; indeed, there wasn't an event in which they didn't win a medal. They also set five of the six Olympic records during the week.

In reality, it was 23 out of 32 medals, since two of the events were team pursuit competitions, where each nation fielded only one team (the Dutch won both). They would probably have won all three medals if they had been allowed to have B and C teams, such is their strength in depth.

I suppose it helps if you live in a cold northern climate, where half the land area is below sea level. Even so, it was a crushing performance, which is unlikely to be repeated in any sport, ever.

Walter Blotscher