Oh! Canada, when the going gets tough, we just get going. The official Canadian sport of hand wringing is in full swing as the results pour in from Athens. Unfortunately, the results pouring in show pretty well every country in the world winning medals (Belarus, Zimbabwe take your places), countries other than the True North Strong but Gold Medal Free! We were still there doing a personal best, happy to be there; yes our uniforms are the best, just don’t book us any times in the press theatre afterwards.
So far as we post our little synopsis of stronger, faster, just cross the line please, we have two medals in our possession, laying claim to a bronze in synchronized diving and silver in the trampoline. Blink and we’d miss the highlights but there we are up on the podium receiving our medals and flowers.
A nation of never high expectations (our commentators frequently proclaim “we’re hoping for a bronze or at least a personal best)”, none the less, we are kind of hoping for a tad more movement in the medal count in Athens. Some of our supposed surer bets have certainly disappointed, our rowers have gone astray, cyclists have tumbled from their mounts and our performance in the pool has deteriorated from just plain unfortunate to full fledged backbiting. Anonymous athletes urge Canada to fire the swimming coaches, rebuild and re-float goes the cry. In Olympic excuse making, we’re going for the gold in finger pointing.
The outrage over the choice of Nicholas Gill as flag bearer is no longer of concern, since he never managed to make it past his first fight. Of course much will be made of the flag bearer jinx. The traditional Canadian phobia about carrying the flag into the Olympic arena only to exit the competition unfulfilled. If nothing else we are consistent!
The cheerleaders, oops, broadcasters at CBC are having a hard time working up the necessary feeling of joy, what with our less than spectacular results thus far. However, our lack of success has been a ratings help to the CBC, Americans within range of the Canadian border are tuning in to get a fuller Olympic experience. So in place of medal presentations with the strains of Oh Canada lifting to the skies, we get “personality features” vignettes about the struggle, sacrifice and sense of accomplishment our Olympians have developed between game years. They make for a nice feel good diversion, but when the story fades to black that medal count total comes back up, and ahem, somebody check the computer we seem stuck at two!
Things are so desperate on the televised broadcasts that the Dairy Foundations little Blue Cow campaign is getting our blood pumping more than the actual competition. The commercials feature the aforementioned cow, taking on all comers and coming out on top of the Bovine pile. Yeah Canada, get rid of the red and white, colour us blue, little blue cow blue! You may have seen the commercials, better yet listen to them from a distance; you’ll be rushing to the TV in anticipation of that Canadian breakthrough. Moooove over world here comes Canada. We also can take pride in our burger flipping talents, our Canadian McDonald’s reps are doing us proud as part of the McDonald’s contribution to the Olympics. Super size our effort, when it comes to flipping quarter pounders, shaking the salt on those fries and whipping up a McFlurry we have no equals!
As for the actual events, the success of Australia seems to be causing us the most distress, a nation similar to ours but with less population has to this point put on a pretty impressive show for the folks back home. Mostly from the success of the swim team the Aussies at last count were holding down fourth place quiet nicely, though the Russians are closing in fast. Australia has found success by a comprehensive dedication to funding their Olympic team part of the legacy of the Sydney Olympics where the home side wanted to put its best foot forward. It’s a model that many in Canada wish to pattern our program after but at what cost? Do we thus relegate our health care system to even worse standards than those that currently exist, do we abandon the homeless, curtail many of the programs that we presently have in place in order to look a little better on the world stage?
Surely there must be a less onerous way for Canada to improve, without taking away from many of the social programs that are just hanging on as it is! Better yet, perhaps a funding review is in order, maybe have Sheila Fraser take her Auditor General’s pencil to the Canadian Olympic Association and make sure that the current funding is being properly allocated, more for athletes less for junkets might make for a nice credo.
Perhaps the corporate community should more fully embrace the Olympic movement, not quite to the same point that the USA has, but there may be ways for Canadian industry and services to get involved. A special tax break for those companies that help out may be the key to increased corporate support. If a Canadian company gets fully involved in the Olympic program give them tax breaks for their corporate advertising or any other adjustment to reward their participation. If they hire Olympians allowing them to train to a high standard, allow them to claim those employees as a tax credit. It’s time to get creative, anything to help out the cause without taxing the average Canadian too much.
All is not totally lost in Athens, there are still more events to come, our Baseball team while struggling earlier Friday is still in a strong position for a Gold medal, our Women’s softball team is gamely fighting back to make a last stand for medal potential. The beach volleyball gals seem to be hitting a stride, the rowers are back in the water and the track team has yet to take to the stadium.
No doubt there will be a few more surprises for Canadians; we’ll probably win some medals in sports that few know much about. But it seems hard to believe that come the end of the competition next week we’ll still be stuck at two.
Should we not improve our count by next Friday there will be much said about our performance and how to improve it. Already we're a tad grumpy as our journalists pile on about everything from poor results to poor television.
China will host the next summer games spectacular in 2008. Judging by the success of their team so far, they fully expect to dominate those games whatever the cost. Canada will have to decide just how serious we wish to tackle these challenges; in any case we should have a plan B.
Somebody find out where those little blue cows did their training! They’re pulling their weight in Athens perhaps the time has come to turn the team over to the Cows, better than letting things go to the dogs!
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