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August 18, 2008

Oh Canada! :)

At first we were staring at an embarrassing goose egg as countries such as Togo and Uzbekistan were putting medals up on the board while Canadian athletes were coming short of realizing even bronze medals at the Beijing games.

Canadians, including your humble blogger here, were doing a gut-check; what was the cause of our poor showing at this year’s summer Olympics? Was it the cold Canadian climate, a sense of muted confidence, a culture that emphasizes equal outcomes over victory?

Turns out that our sports weren’t scheduled for the first week.

The National Post includes a summary and an interesting political angle,

Under the headline, “Summer Games Leaves Canada Out in the Cold,” a piece in The New York Times — filled with smarmy quotations from Canadian sports writers such as: “We’re being trampled by Mongolians,” or “Fourth is the new bronze” — had a few yucks at our expense.

Then the worst thing of all happened: The Prime Minister promised Canadians that we are a second-week team, and the medals would start coming soon. Great, a politician’s promise. Now the medals would never happen. There was only one problem.

Within an hour, between 4:30 and 5:30 a. m. Eastern time — three Canadian medals had been won. With a gold, silver and bronze, Canada had hit for the cycle on a tough day to be a columnist in Beijing.

That’s how fast it turned around this weekend in China — in about 55 minutes, by our count. Surely, the about-face came too fast for Canadian papers that go to press at about 10 a. m. Beijing time, with a day’s events ahead to make a sports writer’s observations sound even more foolish than usual. By the time the Sunday sun went down in Beijing, there were four more medals.

Let’s hope Harper’s still calling the shots (and doing colour commentary) in 2010.

This entry was authored by Stephen Taylor at 11:00 AM | Tweet this | Comments (7)

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Gore Blymey

The crusty lining to this gold and silver cloud is, the Conservatives for Big Government no longer have a good reason to turn our sports system into a Canuckian version of the DDR. Not that I’m saying that you or most of your readers are that kind of conservative, but trust me, there’s a lot of ‘em.

Lowell Green, the socialist azz, spent a two hour radio show trying to pump up his listeners to demand a new federal Ministry of Sport.

He claimed this would provide a whole piece of the pie to really develop sports and that somehow this new ministry would not be laden with requirements from the rest of the government to fund marginally talented losers, give dough to unpopular but politically-correct sports, build sports facilities in cabinet ministers’ ridings, make everything and everyone bilingual, spend a disproportionate part of their budget in Quebec, transfer a large part of the remaining budget to the Quebec government with no strings attached, etc.

Why he thought it was important to prove that Canadians are “winners”, in the East German or People’s Republic of China sense, is not clear.

When a guy phoned in to chide him for being such a ridiculous commie nitwit (not in so many words, mind you, but respectfully), he got lectured on how “if the federal government didn’t create art galleries and concert halls then they wouldn’t exist”.

Unfortunately, many people who claim to be conservatives are no such thing – they’re deeply attached to the nanny state, and they think that if only the right blend of authoritarianism, common sense and “market discipline” can be brought to bear, it’ll all work tickety-boo. They may not be the majority, but they’re by far the loudest faction, the most electorally successful (let’s face it – everyone loves a good fairy tale) and they wield the most power in any so-called conservative government.

I don’t want Harper “calling the shots” now, or in 2010. I want freedom, not a nanny.
mecheng

SWEET!!!

Is there any better proof that Harper rules than this? Why did I not see this reported anywhere?

(BTW…you looked good on the tube the other night…hope to see more of you)
Beer and Popcorn

Funny I didn't read this in the Toronto Star?!
GaryinWpg

You know, I like to see our athletes win and do get disappointed when they don't. But if one stops and thinks about it, finishing in the top 10, or even better the top 5 and considering the population of this world, that's pretty good.
bill

Isn't the media's manufactured obsession with our “medal count” just a little silly? (Or has it progressed to ridiculously silly?)

Whether Canadian athletes win zero or 100 medals at the summer Olympics, does that have any bearing on our quality of life or our national ethic? The cold war is over; and the era of “We won x number of medals so our political system is superior!” is dead, so who is driving this hysteria over our “standing” in number of medals?
GaryinWpg

You know, I like to see our athletes win and do get disappointed when they don't. But if one stops and thinks about it, finishing in the top 10, or even better the top 5 and considering the population of this world, that's pretty good.
bill

Isn't the media's manufactured obsession with our “medal count” just a little silly? (Or has it progressed to ridiculously silly?)

Whether Canadian athletes win zero or 100 medals at the summer Olympics, does that have any bearing on our quality of life or our national ethic? The cold war is over; and the era of “We won x number of medals so our political system is superior!” is dead, so who is driving this hysteria over our “standing” in number of medals?