A REASON FOR US TO CELEBRATE
Never mind the setbacks, this has been a record-breaking Olympics for Canada
On the day after the great punch to the gut — losing to the Americans in both men’s curling and women’s hockey — the record for most Canadian medals was established at the Winter Olympic Games.
One Olympic day, there was glaring disappointment. The next, a reason for both celebration and pride. Nothing defines the back and forth of the Olympics better than that. But the record resonates and the record matters.
After Sebastien Toutant’s gold in men’s big air, the number now is 28 medals, the largest number ever won by the Canadian Olympic team at any Winter Games, one more than Vancouver 2010, two more than Sochi four years ago, 22 more medals than Canadians won at their own Olympics in Calgary 30 years ago.
No matter how you break it down, considering the dreadful curling failures here, considering the defeat of the women’s hockey team, considering some regular Canadian staples gone awry, this Olympic performance overall shows a Canadian team of athletes, deeper, stronger, more successful, more varied than any team we’ve seen before.
“Our No. 1 objective was to improve from Sochi. We’ve accomplished that,” said Anne Merklinger, the CEO of Own the Podium, the organization that targets and funds high performance athletes. “Our second objective was to have our best ever performance in the Winter Olympics. We’ve accomplished that. Our third objective was to have the best prepared team ever, less focused on the numbers and more focused on sustaining Canada’s performance from Games to Games. And we’ve accomplished that, too.
“I think what’s happened here is a testament to the tremendous work athletes, coaches and staff have put in and I’m really pleased for Canada and especially for the athletes and coaches, who do so much of the work.”
The 28 medals come from nine different disciplines, although freestyle skiing, which brought home seven medals, is really a group of diverse sports. After that, the Canadian medal standings read like this: Shorttrack speedskating (five), figure skating (four), snowboarding (four), luge (two), bobsled (two), speedskating (two), hockey (one) and curling (one).
And the medals matter to Merklinger, no matter what the sport, no matter what colour of the medal happens to be, no matter how they were attained, no matter whether the circumstances meant excitement or in some cases disappointments.
“Every medal matters,” said Merklinger. “There’s nothing harder to do in high performance sport than win a medal in a high performance event on this kind of stage. We celebrate every medal, believe me. That’s the focus of the government of Canada and our other funding partners. Every one of these athletes who goes home with a medal inspires a new generation of future athletes, a willingness to get more involved with sport, be more physically fit.”
Mikael Kingsbury and Samuel Girard both won gold medals here. Sam Edney won a medal in luge. All three tell similar stories of how they wound up as Olympic athletes. They watched the Vancouver Games. They got inspired. They decided they wanted to be Olympians themselves.
They just didn’t know which sport would mark their futures.
“Vancouver was really a gamechanger for Canada,” said Merklinger. “And the culture that was established from that continues to grow and strengthen and that’s really been a difference maker for us. Our focus is always on helping athletes and coaches win medals and the more we win and compete, the more it inspires others and pushes the programs to success.”
Considering what’s happened already here at Pyeongchang, Canada should have surpassed 30 medals by now. The notion of not winning a medal in men’s or women’s curling is rather baffling, almost unexplainable. That’s two medals accounted for, lost in circumstance.
But assuming there is a medal coming in men’s hockey, and probably more from snowboarding ’s big air event, earning 30 medals is not out of the question.
When the Canadian Olympic Committee holds its closing news conference, it will crow a whole lot about success here and exceeding goals and really, for the most part, that’s what’s happened at these Games.
There is a lot to not like about the COC in general but its athletes are not part of that veneer. With new sports and old sports, as a group they’ve done the job here. This is a record-setting Olympics for Canada. A reason to celebrate. ssimmons@postmedia.com Twitter.com/simmonssteve