Martins Dukurs (left) of Latvia receives the silver medal, Jon Montgomery of Canada receives the gold medal and Alexander Tretyakov of Russia receives the bronze medal during the medal ceremony for the men's skeleton at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

Not that we want to boast, but for Latvia the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games were a double success no matter how you look at it.

First of all, we won two silver medals. Given that the United States won 37, Germany won 30 and Canada won 26 that may not seem like a lot. But if you calculate the number of medals per population of participating countries and rank them accordingly, Latvia comes in 7th among the 26 countries that won medals in Vancouver. Granted, it took Latvians to figure this out and tell others about it, but if you are into statistics, it could mean something.

Norway is the highest achiever, with 23 medals out of a population of 4,9 million, followed by Austria, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and Finland. After the first “medals per capita” chart appeared on the web last week, another enterprising Latvian figured out that if you give point scores of 3, 2 and 1 for gold, silver and bronze and total them up, Latvia ranks even higher as 6th best in the world.

Second, our most successful athletes in Vancouver were brothers. First, the team of Juris and Andris Šics became Olympic silver siblings when they sped to second place in the luge doubles competition. A few days later, Martins Dukurs won the Olympic silver medal in the skeleton, with his brother Tomass Dukurs breathing down his neck in 4th place. (To keep it all in the family, the Dukurs brothers were coached by their father Dainis Dukurs, a former bobsleigh brakeman.)

While it may seem like a singular achievement for Latvia, with a population of 2,2 million, to produce two silver Olympic medal winners, it takes on a very different dimension when you realize that both medals (and all four athletes) were produced by the town of Sigulda. Sigulda has a population of around 11,000, which clearly gives this picturesque town on the cliffs overlooking the Gauja River some kind of Olympic-size bragging rights.

Of course, it is worth mentioning that Sigulda happens to be the site of one of the world’s top bobsleigh and luge tracks, which also gave us Mārtiņš Rubenis’ Olympic bronze in the men’s singles luge in Torino four years ago. The track was built in 1986 and has been turning young Latvians into world class sliders for nearly 25 years. Only these days, the Latvian sliders have to compete for Sigulda track time with the droves of international athletes that come each year to train there.

Actually, Sigulda is not a bad place to train, whether your ambitions are Olympian or not. It’s located just 35 km from Riga, the capital of Latvia, and with two castles, lovely parks, a stunning setting in Latvia’s graceful Gauja Valley and endless other sport and leisure recreational possibilities, it is one of Latvia’s top tourist attractions (in addition to being a world class center for sliding sports). So if you’re thinking about learning how to luge, skeleton or bobsleigh down “the track of champions,” strap on your helmet and head on over to Sigulda. And bring your brother if you’ve got one.

Ojārs Kalniņš is the director of the Latvian Institute. The Latvian Institute (Latvijas institūts) was established by the Latvian state to provide a wide range of information about Latvia, its society, culture and history. For more information visit www.li.lv.

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