Seems the obvious confounder for that correlation is that countries who win olympic medals actually care about curling. Whereas, those countries where there is

Seems the obvious confounder for that correlation is that countries who win olympic medals actually care about curling. Whereas, those countries where there is not enthusiasm for curling, why would a researcher be inspired/motivated to study these phenomena? I doubt the researchers are directly affecting the play of any curler, since the researchers themselves can not understand the curling of the stones anyway.