I discovered two articles (via Jeffrey Hermann of Bethlehem Road) by Kostuk and Willoughby about curling using operations research. The first paper addresses the “age old debate in curling about whether it is better to be down one point with last shot, or ahead by one point without.” The answer: it depends. An earlier paper by the authors (using data from the Canadian men’s championship games) concludes the opposite, namely, that “it is better for a team to be ahead by one point without the last shot.”
Are you hooked on curling?
Has OR been used to analyze other Olympic sports?
Related post:
Punk Rock Operations Research 
February 24th, 2010 at 9:31 am
Marginal revolution had this great graphic today on the probabilities of different situations in Curling. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_v7DLSUMqyIE/Syny2SlXUGI/AAAAAAAAABI/OfeKXt2tWKw/s1600-h/women+stats.JPG
February 24th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
It depends who you are up against. One commentary I heard this week watching the olympics is that if you are playing Kevin Martin, you are only safe if you are 9 up coming home.
February 27th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
The New York Times has an article about how all of the quants on Wall Street are taking interest in curling.