THE POWER RANGERS
When cross- country skiing beast Alex Harvey sprinted gamely to the finish line to claim fourth place in the men’s 50- kilometre event on the eve of the closing ceremony to Pyeongchang 2018, it was one the most impressive displays by a Canadian athlete here.
Sure, it might not have added one more to the 29 medals the Canadian team will return home with, but it was yet another illustration of the depth we showed across a vast range of sports and disciplines in these Games.
That Harvey came so close had no bearing on the final medal chart, but it did serve as a reminder that rare is the event in the Winter Olympics that Canada has no shot at reaching the podium.
The record medal total from these Games came from venues far and wide ranging from the ice rinks of the coastal cluster to the mountains and the sliding centre where so many of the traditional winter events were held.
No longer do Canadian athletes focus their medal hunting on a few, isolated events and as the last three Olympics have proven, we have become a winter Games power.
There were some mild surprises here — good and bad — over the 17 days of competition and that comes with the territory of the high- end pressure associated with the Olympics. But the beauty of monitoring Canadian results now is that beyond the current disastrous state of alpine skiing, there were few events that you could completely ignore because there wasn’t a shot at a medal.
And any of the disappointing surprises of medal misses were more than made up for with the consistency shown by many and the occasional podium finish that wasn’t expected.
So when Canadian men’s and women’s curlers were blanked in the individual competitions, there was almost always a pleasant result to take its place. So long Kevin Koe and Rachel Homan at the curling venue? Well, hello Alex Gough and Sam Edney on the luge run.
While there was justified angst with the performance of the curlers, the fact that Canadians hit the luge podium for the first time in Olympic history — and not once, but twice — is in a broader pitcher of greater importance.
The rest of the world may be catching up in curling, but our international success won’t come to an end and there will be plenty more podium visits in that sport. But in luge, a wave of young athl etes i nspired by Gough and Edney — many of those roots established in Whistler at the 2010 Games — means that the more medals can be expected going forward.
Looking closer at the final medal table, to illustrate the overall depth that has developed in winter sports, Canada finished third overall with 11 gold, eight silver and 10 bronze medals falling just short of the 30-medal barrier. That haul was compiled over nine different sports led by five in short track speedskating and four each in figure skating, freestyle skiing and snowboard, and three in ski cross.
The final breakdown shows that individual medals were an even 12 each for men and women with five coming in combined events, another important area of balance in the eyes of the COC.
There were a couple of sports that offered excellent examples of both depth and succession plans in full effect. It’s no surprise that Canada captured gold in the big air event, for example, it’s just that it was expected to come from Mark McMorris or Max Parrot. Instead, 25- year- old up and comer Sebastien Toutant took the top spot on the podium.
It was a similar story over in short- track speedskating where stars of the past gave way to stars of the present. Canada’s flag bearer for the closing ceremony, Kim Boutin essentially used the Games as her coming out party as Marianne St- Gelais’s brilliant career comes to an end. Boutin won three medals — a silver and two bronze — in a collective performance that suggested the best is yet to come.
On the men’s side, it was Charles Hamelin passing the torch to a skater who once idolized him, Samuel Girard. As a result of both Boutin and Girard’s emergence, Canada’s most prolific winter Games medal producing sport is in good hands.
There was the occasional surprise among the Canadian medallists though few shockers. Laurie Blouin’s silver in women’s slopestyle was a pleasant addition considering she wasn’t one of the big favourites and the pairs figure skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford moved up a couple of notches to get bronze.
As with any multi- sport games with hundreds of athletes and dozens of events, there are going to be some misses. But thanks to various initiatives in those who run winter sports in Canada — be it funding or grass roots development — more often than not, depth trumps disappointment.