GOODBYE GAMES
Pyeongchang is the end for long list of Canadian Olympians who have stood on podiums and who we’ve cheered for every four years
Charles Hamelin is no longer a new kid on the Winter Olympic block, with long hair flowing and that fresh smiling face that forever lit up the short-track speedskating ice.
This is Hamelin’s fourth Olympics and likely his last. He won two gold medals in Vancouver, followed with more medals in Sochi, the definitive podium leader of the first family of short track. Hamelin is now 33 and not necessarily expected to contend significantly in a sport where he was once king. But he has surprised before and this being his Olympic swan song, the goodbye party for himself, his brother Francois and his longtime girlfriend Marianne St-Gelais is very real. Combined medal total for the group: eight.
And almost certainly, this is the end. This is a fascinating time for so many of Canada’s most successful Winter Olympians. These are the Goodbye Games for a long list of those who have stood on podiums and watched us celebrate for sports many of us don’t follow or care about if not for 17 days every four years.
We changed as a country during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Our expectations got higher. Our performances got better. It became OK not only to talk about winning, but to celebrate winning and to anticipate it. We were suddenly there, among the best in the world for games played on snow and ice, and it was new and exhilarating and enticing and rather un-Canadian.
Hamelin is just one of those who will be waving farewell here in South Korea. He has his gold medals.
The team of Kaillie Humphries, 32, and Heather Moyse, 39 — no longer a team — have their gold medals from Vancouver and Sochi. They will compete separately here in South Korea.
Speedskater Denny Morrison is 32 and also in his fourth Olympics, seeking a fifth medal.
There won’t be another Games for them.
In a way, a metaphorical Canadian championship torch has been passed from one generation to the next — from those of multiple Olympics and multiple medals — but not before one final moment to appreciate just what this outgoing group of Canadians has accomplished.
“This Olympic team has a wonderful blend of athletes, those gearing towards 2022 and 2026 — but with a strong team of veterans, some of whom are still strong contenders, some are here to contend after taking some time off and they’re here to act as terrific role models for our young athletes,” said Anne Merklinger, CEO of Own The Podium, the high-performance group that funds select Canadian athletes.
But first, there are some bows to take, some curtain calls.
The list of those — some of whom will march in the opening ceremony, some of whom won’t — is long, productive and representative of the best Olympic performances in Canadian history.
Patrick Chan is here for his third Olympic Games and fighting the good fight that Elvis Stojko, Kurt Browning and Brian Orser couldn’t win. All of them were world champions several times over: none of them ever won at the biggest show of all.
Chan owns two Olympic medals, both of them silver, neither necessarily representative of what he would consider the best of his career. Now he can take one more shot at unlikely victory, one more opportunity to go out on his own terms.
Erik Guay didn’t get that chance. For the better part of a decade, he has been Canada’s most decorated downhill skier. He would win and place on the World Cup circuit and somehow come up short at the Games. This was to be his final shot — Guay is 36 — but a back injury prevented him from competing. These will be the Games of Canadian swan songs, but no such music will be playing for Guay.
There will, however, be some kind of rockin’ song playing loudly for Jasey-Jay Anderson, who is making history here. This will be his sixth and final Olympics. No Canadian has ever reached that number of Winter Games. Anderson, like so many of those Canadians with topheavy resumes, has his Olympic medal. His colour of choice: gold. The same colour flag-bearers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won in the same Vancouver Games of 2010.
Anderson is 42, somehow still able to snowboard, probably unable to win.
It shouldn’t matter for any of these storied Olympians. They have had their day, their time. They have shown Canadians the way.
Soon it will be time for one last race, one last swan song before saying goodbye.