The schools, the games article

We know which countries produce the most Winter Olympic medals. But what colleges produce the most Olympians?

John Quackenbos Patrick Biggs competition for Dartmouth in 2003.

Vancouver is lousy with the Wisconsin Badgers, Minnesota Golden Gophers, and other big in the - at least 34. Wisconsin has at least a dozen current and former athletes at the games and Minnesota six, due to their strong ice hockey programs. Michigan has six thanks to first-class figure skating coaching in the vicinity.

Dartmouth, their centuries-old skiing Programm that is believed the first of its kind, is pretty much always represented. The big green has at least nine Olympians including cross-country skier Tucker Murphy, Bermuda's flag bearer. But more than frigid schools are represented.

Bobsled Chuck Berkeley ran track in California. Rachael Flatt, the 17-year-old American figure skater was accepted at Stanford. Some of theses athletes played a sport at school but lasted until your Olympic sport later. Curt Tomasevicz was a linebacker at Nebraska, before he the US bobsled team.

Here's an estimate by the colleges and universities around the world most winter Olympians this year produced. The numbers based on information from schools and coaches and athlete profiles on Vancouver 2010 Web site published.

1. University of Calgary (Canada): 232. University of Minnesota Duluth: 153. Matej Bel University (Slovakia): 144. Westminster College (Utah): 145. University of Wisconsin-Madison: 126. Academy of physical education (Poland): 117. Dartmouth College: 97. IUT Annecy (France): 97. University of Utah: 910. Lviv State University of physical culture (Ukraine): 810. National Sports Academy (Bulgaria): 810. Ural State University of physical culture (Russia): 813. National University of physical education and Sport (Ukraine): 714. University of Minnesota: 614. Comenius University (Slovakia): 614. University of Michigan: 617. Colorado Mountain College: 517. Harvard University: 517. Latvian Academy of sport education (Latvia): 517. Ohio State University: 5

Westminster College, a private school by approximately 2,000 students in Salt Lake City (website of the Games 2002), has 14 students Olympic, including Moguls bronze medalist Bryon Wilson. The University of Minnesota Duluth has somehow with Swedish women's ice hockey despite 4,000 miles together are interwoven. UMD is one of six players on Sweden's team.

When it comes to foreign universities, the University of Calgary is the gold medal. Western Canadian school - oval attain a world-class speed skating facility which close to the Olympic, - has at least 20 current and former athletes in this year's games. Austria University of Innsbruck, world-class runs ski slopes and bobsleigh track in the vicinity, at least six Olympians has this year – a typical haul for the school, the athletes helps by adjusting the classroom requirements and examination dates to fit their schedules. The school has so many Olympians not keep count. "We keep track only the athletes, which cannot be", says Uwe Steger, a University spokesman.

Many prominent winter Olympians had colleges, listed on their resumes. Figure skater Peggy Fleming, 1968 won gold, attended Colorado College. Georgia football half back Herschel Walker pushed a bobsleigh track in 1992.

It is impossible to know how many Olympians College have links - or went to find out exactly how many any specific school. There are some 2,600 athletes in this Olympics has and nobody a comprehensive study of all their biographies. The primary source of our estimates was the biographies that provided to the Organizing Committee of Vancouver, which can be seen on its Web site. If possible, we have talked in schools to examine themselves and some coach our totals. Some schools numbers were different from those we calculated from the Vancouver site. The site proposes, Minnesota Duluth has 12 Olympians, but school women's ice hockey coach says has 14 current and former players participating.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Charlie White and Meryl Davis of the University of Michigan, compete for the United States in the ice dance free program this week.

The numbers make it wider points. On one hand is a college participation is not necessary for the winter. Most events - such as Luge and ice dancing - national collegiate, do not exist, so that schools development often little to athletes.

Some athletes feel College because of the time to participate requires your education. "I really people praise, that can do both,", says former U.S. figure skater Tim Goebel won bronze at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. During training, he went to school full-time at case Western Reserve University in Cleveland - an arrangement that all one term lasted.

"It was not possible," he says.

College Hockey is flush with Olympians in Minnesota Duluth, a branch of the University of Minnesota system. UMD that emphasizes foreign recruitment has six and three Finnish team 14 current and former women's hockey player in the Vancouver games including of Sweden.

NCAA photos/associated press Erika Holst while at the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2001.

"Stones first were thrown," UMD says coach Shannon Miller of response on your recruiting foreign students that Bulldogs helped, the four to win national titles between 2001 and 2008. "Then stopped people threw stones and got on the plane and begun."

As a Team Canada's coach at the Olympics 1998 Nagano had you a few notes on players from other countries compiled. If UMD you 1998 set trust, that awareness of foreigners at the school in the emerging program to recruit.

Although other countries have nearly as many good players as the United States and Canada not (and not), there was some value access. Maria Rooth was UMD's first Sweden; Erika Holst followed. When you got home, others noticed their development - and started looking at UMD.

Michigan is one of four ice dancers in Vancouver, including silver Medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White. "You don't get bullied too often before you went," says Michigan senior Emily Hammond, a member of the Michigan Figure Skating Club, "but you are when you get back."

-David Crawford and Ben Cohen contributed to this article.

Write toDarren Everson darren.everson@wsj.com and David Biderman at the David.Biderman@wsj.com

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