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Dutch dominate speed skating due, in part, to lack of snow and lack of big-spending rivals

The Dutch speed skaters wear orange, own the gold and their cheeks are tinged with pink because all this winning is slightly discomfiting.

Long story short, the Netherlands' dominance at the speed skating oval, where its team has won 19 of the 27 medals, is "unprecdented" to the point that it's spurring questions about whether it's hurting the sport.

The Netherlands has always punched above its weight, strictly on a population basis, in speed skating. The nation of 16.8 million won eight medals at the oval in Vancouver. Nineteen is a byproduct of a lot of characters that the Dutch team has made work for it, but it might also speak to how the Olympics are becoming fragmented, where countries "assign much of their Olympic funds to the sports in which they do well and are well appreciated by their people." It's micro-targeting and it's not necessarily bad, although it might create a more predictable Olympics.

First, the positives. What makes Netherlands athletes so twigged to owning the oval?

Short answer: access to speed skating facilities, a lack of hills and snow, and a tall populace who get funneled into the country's one winter Olympic passion.

— The first should be the most obvious: the Netherlands, because success feeds success, has 17 ovals in a country of 17 million. Imagine if Canada had one speed-skating oval for every million people and the sport was popular enough that everyone was interested in doing it, instead of being a niche. The cluster effect would produce an Olympic juggernaut.

Canada, by point of comparison, has three speed skating ovals and the U.S. has two. By no means is that a not-so-subtle suggestion either country should start slapping up a speed skating training facility in every good-sized city. Competing and training in the sport is very expensive.

— Secondly, while the international media likes to paint a picture of a country where it's not unusual to skate to work, in reality, snow is rare in the Netherlands. That makes it tougher to pursue another winter sport, hence "no competition from any sport like Alpine skiing [and] snow is so rare that Nordic events are non-existent."

The Netherlands began to taste success internationally in the 1960s and '70s. Since then, it's only mushroomed. All things Winter Olympics practically go into one sport.

— Take the combo of access to one winter sport and barriers to almost all other and marry with something that should be evident. Taller people with long legs that can cover more ice per stride and long arms that can generate more force make for better long-track skaters. More compactly built athletes tend to get sorted into short track. The Netherlands has one of the world's tallest populations (6-foot-½ for adult men, 5-7 for women, compared to Canada's averages for 5-foot-9½ and 5-foot-4½).

Essentially, the Dutch have the raw goods and are ridiculously good at refining it and reinforcing it with rewards. A Netherlands gold medallist in speed skating gets the equivalent of $41,000 Cdn in prize money, more than what Canada gives for a gold medal.

That probably doesn't explain it in full. Nineteen medals? A harder to support theory is that is part byproduct of how microtargeting has started to take over the Olympics. The analytics wonks, not that there is anything wrong with that, decide how a country's Olympic committee should allocate its ever-finite resources. Countries are probably putting eggs into fewer and fewer baskets when it comes to how to support their medal hopefuls. So others might shy away from going all in on long-track speed skating.

It's definitely a concern for the dominant Dutch, with one observer musing it's "not good for skating" when one country wins 70 per cent of the medals. It somewhat makes sense when you look at what the Dutch are blessed with and what they do with it. It's also notable that their main competition for long-track medals in 2010 was host Canada and South Korea, which is hosting in 2018. Countries tend to ebb in their performance after hosting and they tend to focus on long-term goals before beginning the quadrennial where they host, so there is that as well. If the Dutch win another 20 long-track medals in Pyeongchang, then the sport definitely has a problem.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.