Somebody recently noted Canada has been doing well at the Olympics, getting top 10 finishes in events in which we’ve never come close to the top 10 before, such as men’s biathlon.
However, most of those finishes have been outside of the medals, contributing to the national hand-wringing about our medal totals and leading to Canadian officials admitting we won’t “own the podium.”
As of Wednesday morning, Canada had a total of 11 medals — six gold, four silver and one bronze. That’s a far cry from the U.S. total of 26 and Germany’s 23. And it’s behind Norway’s 17 medals and Russia’s 13.
As much as we want our athletes to win as many medals as possible — medals are the accepted standard of success at Olympic Games — we should take a deeper look at things.
While we’re fifth in the medal standings, a comparison of top 10 finishes in these Olympics shows that only the United States is having a better Olympics.
As of Wednesday morning, Canada had 55 top 10 finishes — six behind the U.S., two ahead of Germany, eight ahead of Norway and 16 ahead of Russia.
And these finishes are in a variety of sports. Canada’s been in the top 10 in bobsled, biathlon, skeleton, cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, snowboarding and figure skating. The only sports Canada hasn’t had top 10 finishes in are nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing together) and ski jumping.
This doesn’t count hockey and curling, which were not complete as of press time.
There should be something like the flag points that were tallied at the Saskatchewan Winter Games. For this, every top 10 finish should be counted with 10 points for first, nine points for second and so on to one point for 10th. Then the top three nations could win the overall flag awards, which would reward countries for success beyond medals.
As it is, Canada would be second in the points race with 309 as of Wednesday morning, behind only the U.S., which has 368 points. The Germans are third at 305, Norway is next at 276 and Austria is fifth at 239.
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As these Olympics wrap up, I must note the Canadian athletes, young and not-so-young (I’m looking at you, Kevin Martin), who have worked their butts off and have done well, even if they haven’t reached the podium. For most of us, we’re just proud of the athletes for doing their best.
Unfortunately, some people have denigrated that sentiment, saying Canadians aren’t as driven to win as our neighbours to the south (ahh, here’s our national inferiority complex kicking in). However, after witnessing the national fretting over the fact we haven’t won as many medals as hoped, it’s obvious we really do like to win after all — maybe a little too much.
I know I’ve been just as guilty of this as anybody else, worrying over potential medals and being disappointed when Canadians didn’t win when they were a favourite. But ultimately, these people are Olympians and that’s something only a few can ever call themselves. Whether they’re first or 56th, they’ve already reached a major pinnacle most of us can’t even realistically hope of achieving. In a country of more than 30 million, there’s just little more than 200 of them who are Olympians this year.
We shouldn’t have athletes like skeleton racer Mellisa Hollingsworth, in tears thinking they’ve let down the country after a fifth place finish. Sure, it’s disappointing when any athlete, especially a favourite such as Hollingsworth comes up short but they didn’t let anybody down, especially a nation to which they do not owe a medal. So all of us, myself included, need to just back off a bit and recognize what they’ve already achieved.
Jason Small can be reached at 691-1255.
