The Olympic payoff

Last thing we want to do is jinx anyone. But heading into the home-stretch of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, let’s just come out and say it: Canada’s athletes are seriously good.

The capper, of course, was the golden performance of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir in ice dancing, a perfect ending to their perfect Olympic story.

But that’s not the half of it. These Games are showing the world that Canada has matured into a winter powerhouse. We’re proving that Vancouver eight years ago, when we topped the world, was no fluke. Our men and women have depth across a whole range of sports.

Gold in women’s ski halfpipe (Cassie Sharpe), two-man bobsleigh (Justin Kripps and Alex Kopacz), figure skating (the Canadian team), mogul skiing (Mikaël Kingsbury), and mix-doubles curling (John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes). More gold in speedskating (TedJan Bloemen), and short-track skating (Samuel Girard).

Adouble handful of silver and bronze, and we’re sitting pretty (as of Tuesday) with 19 medals, behind only the amazing Norwegians and the ever-formidable Germans.

If the universe unfolds as it should through Sunday, Canada stands to end up with a record medal haul, beating the total of 26 we collected in Vancouver.

This is as it should be: a country that has to endure the kind of winter we’ve been slogging through in 2018 deserves at least a taste of the upside. Snow and ice, c’est nous.

All this is the result of hundreds of individual efforts, not just from the medal winners but from teammates, coaches and officials who work tirelessly towards these two weeks.

More than that, it’s the fruit of a serious, long-term investment in winning, backed by many millions of dollars. And lately it’s involved investing even further out in the future, in athletes whose promise lies two Olympic cycles in the future.

If those bets pay off we’ll be celebrating similar successes in 2026 and beyond. Judging by how good it feels now, it’ll be well worth the effort.