Go Canada Go!
As someone who was never an avid fan of winter sports, I didn’t think that watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics would be all that fun – but I find myself biting my nails watching the game of Curling. Boy was I wrong. It has been a blast. Whether it is Curling, Snowboarding, Ski-cross, Ice Dance, or Hockey, the drama of competition is just as thrilling as any movie. There has been talk that Canada has failed because they couldn’t “own the podium”. There was a prediction to be the Vancouver Olympic leader in medals but it doesn’t seem to be going that way. We were fifth in Turin, Italy and the jump to number one seemed top be such a tall order. But is winning the most medals the only measure of success.
Already, there have been more viewers of these Olympics than there were of the Beijing games. Reports indicate that the Hudson Bay Company had predicted one million commemorative gloves sold throughout the games. They have already sold 3 million. Canada’s first gold medalist in a winter game took place right here on Canada’s soil and also for the first time, a woman of colour from Canada earned a medal in an Olympic winter event. In light of these new benchmarks, to measure the success of these games for Canada only by the number of medals seems a little short sighted.
What are we to tell our athletes anyways. Aim for fourth. I think not. I can’t imagine an uber athlete like Joe Frazier entering a match without anything less than their best to win. Regardless of placement aiming to be the best only brings out the best. Canada brought out an attitude to deliver their “EH” game and not every match worked out that way – and you know what, that’s okay. I would rather we fail at coming first place rather than succeed in a quest of coming last. Losing is not so bad when you aim high.
Like much of our nation, I’ll be watching our athletes tonight in support of their efforts. We are all joined in one quest, the battle for the podium and digging for gold.
Go Canada Go!
