The One That Counts -- Olympic Edition

The Vancouver Olympic Winter Games ends with a crescendo as high as Whistler’s Peak. No novelist could have written it better than this.

It started with a firm statement before the Games began. Canada’s Own The Podium was a program with the goal of collecting the most medals in the 2010 Olympics through funding and restrictions to give Canadian athletes fair advantages to the Games. But it’s unsportsmanlike nature was the centre of controversy after Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died on the Whistler Sliding Centre track. Many felt the 21-year-old might be alive today had the OTP not prevented foreign athletes from training on the Olympic courses during training season. It was meant to help Canadians, but athletes in luge, skeletons and bobsleigh struggled on the fast courses and several admitted to being scared of going down the track. When racers crashed, people winced.

When the events started, a dark cloud loomed emotionally and literally. With Kumaritashvili fresh in people’s memories, warm, wet weather also slowed down early alpine events. Fog and rain continued throughout the Games including yesterday, the second last day.

Canadians began with a steady medal haul – one medal a day – until they hit a rut, a clear low point. During a couple infamous days, Canada placed fourth and fifth several times, often in heart-breaking fashion. It was clear after an emotional apology from Mellisa Hollingsworth that the pressure was too much – not necessarily to handle, but enough for the participants to feel deep remorse. There was some truth in Hollingsworth’s words: “I’ve let my country down.”

It was at that moment when the mentality shifted and the game plan changed.

It was no secret that Canada was disappointed after Hollingsworth’s race, but the more alarming issue was, why? The skeleton racer left Canadians feeling uneasy, as if we had punched her in the stomach by accident, as if her tears were our doing. But they were. We wanted gold – too much – and it made us, well, Un-Canadian. Canadians forgot that these stud athletes were everyday people too. These pillars of strength, speed and skill were also car salesmen and auctioneers, blueberry farmers, students and friends. Their fears were our fears, their faults were our faults.

I think people began to support our athletes first and their accomplishments second. And that’s when Canada flourished. In the last week, Canada earned four medals in one day three different times. Of course, taking pressure off their shoulders isn’t the reason they dominated down the stretch. Our athletes trained for years and their hard work and commitment is the reason Canada sits third in the medal standings. But momentum is a speed demon, and this country had tons of it.

And now we are at the end, with one more medal hanging in the balance. Red and White against Stars and Stripes for the gold medal in men’s ice hockey. If there was pressure on Canadian athletes, this surely is the pinnacle of it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that another gold medal would set an Olympic record for most gold medals ever in one Olympic Winter Games. They can top Norway’s 13 in the 2002 Salt Lake Games and – get this – the Soviet Union’s 13 in the 1976 Innsbruk Olympics.

So while a gold medal in Canada’s favourite sport on home ice would be a story-book ending, it is now more paramount than ever that we put our players, our citizens, our countrymen first, and their accomplishments last.

Win or lose, you can only be proud of our athletes and of these Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.