Sports Perspectives

By Alex

To say it’s been an emotional roller coaster ride these past two weeks is an understatement. From the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili and Therese Rochette, to opening day ceremonial glitches to track, arena, transportation and weather problems – to name a few. Most of it has already been well reported elsewhere and won’t be rehashed here.

It very much reflected life in general. Unless you control things Chinese style, you’re bound to encounter a lot of “unforeseen” issues. Things don’t always go according to plan. Ask great military generals in history.

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It was a coming of age for Canadian sports. This nation challenged itself – something many of us were demanding – and while they did not achieve the goal of winning the overall medal count (although it did eclipse the 24 medals won in Torino for a new standard), they did win the gold medal count by hauling in 14 medals. Not only was this a record for a host country, but now stands as an Winter Olympics record previously held by Norway and Russia who each had 13.

Betcha you didn’t see that coming. It’s definitely nice to see Canada on top of something for a change. I know ‘Own the Podium’ has been criticized and dismissed as “arrogant” by some people and reporters. Personally, I never had a problem with it. Canada designed itself a goal and set out to achieve it. They tied Germany for overall medals during this past World Cup season and finished third overall at Vancouver with 26 medals.

Now it’s time to assess what we did right and where we went wrong. Off the top of my head, alpine skiing faltered again despite a solid world cup season. On the other hand, Canada did well in cross-country skiing even though we didn’t medal – although it did earn 4th and 5th place in two disciplines; a remarkable accomplishment given we generally came in 39th and 53th or DNF in the past. Devon Kershaw hold your head up high buddy. 5th in the 50k cross-country marathon sprint? Amazing. Especially when you consider it was the best ever for a Canadian.

Regardless of the findings, I hope we keep this commitment to excellence going. The pressure has to be kept up. I don’t expect funding as high as it was for these games but it would be a shame if we revert back to mediocrity.

They say medals don’t matter. In many ways, they don’t especially if they become a means to an end. There’s something to be said for participating and representing your country, however, results are important too. Sports are about results and if you’re not at least aiming to win, then you’re no better than the “win at all cost” mentality. In Canada, the “oh well, I did my best” routine was wearing itself thin. It was time to take our appetite for success to a higher level.

And we did.

I think we more than made up for Montreal and Calgary. If we are to tally up all medals from all Olympics on Canadian soil it would look like this: 14 gold, 14 silver, 14 bronze for 42 medals.

Congratulations Canada.

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What also struck me about Canada’s good showing is the gold to medal ratio it had. Here’s a look at Gold medals to overall medals ratio for selected countries:

Switzerland – six gold; nine medals: 67% of the their medals were gold.

Canada - 14 gold; 26 medals: 54%

Netherlands – four gold; eight medals: 50%

Sweden, China – five gold; 11 medals: 45%

Korea  – six gold; 14 medals: 43%

Norway – nine gold; 23 medals: 39%

Germany – 10 gold; 30 medals – 30%

Austria – four gold; 16 medals – 25%

United States – nine gold; 37 medals: 24%

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Last but not least, the Olympics may be over but the Paralympics are set to begin March 12.