[Strutz]

What a fantastic Olympic Games for our CANADIAN participants. I am so proud to be Canadian right now.

On a personal note this whole experience has been amazing and SO much better than I ever imagined it would be. I work in the restaurant/hospitality industry and have been living this whole experience these last 2 weeks through work with all the people I work with and all the wonderful visitors. It's been alot of long days (offset by a little too much partying too!) but so worth it. Tomorrow is going to be the icing on the cake. It's going to be one hell of an afternoon and then watching the closing ceremonies. Sad to see this party come to an end though. It's been a good time to be here.

This website name says it all... CANADA KICKS ASS!

[Hyack]

Canada sets Olympic gold record

$1:

Who knew? Canada has rocked the Vancouver Olympics in a way nobody anticipated.

The most medals, not the most gold, was the stated goal of the Own the Podium program. Canada fell well short in the first, but was nailing the second by the penultimate day of the Games on Saturday.

The home team was assured of winning the most gold medals in the 2010 Winter Games with 13, and had a chance at a 14th heading into Sunday's men's hockey final against the U.S. With three medal events remaining, Germany was second Saturday with 10 gold.

Canada's 11th came in speedskating, the 12th in snowboarding and the 13th in men's curling Saturday to establish a record for gold medals by a host country in a Winter Olympics. The previous record was 10 by Norway (1994) and the U.S. (2002).

Call it the law of unintended consequences, says Canadian Olympic Committee chairman Chris Rudge.

"I think once you see our final numbers, the number of golds and silvers is going to be exceptional compared to where we historically have been," he says. "This is something we'll have to understand."

Why did it happen?"

Canada has won more gold medals in Vancouver than in any Winter or Summer Games. Canadians picked up 10 gold at the 1984 Summer Games, which were boycotted by a number of countries. In Winter Games, the previous high was seven, in both 2002 and 2006.

Canada has also added its name to the record for the most gold medals at a Winter Games, set by the Soviet Union in 1976 and tied by Norway in 2002.

Unlikelies come through

Rudge said a year ago the Canadian sport system wasn't mature enough to go for the most gold in Vancouver. Developing an Olympian with medal potential takes one to two decades. Own the Podium had only five years from when it was established in 2005 to ramp up preparation for 2010.

What team officials didn't bank on, however, was the gold-or-bust, all-or-nothing attitude of some of Canada's athletes here.

Ski-cross racer Chris Del Bosco was an example of an Olympian who crashed and burned in his quest for gold instead of settling for bronze.

On the other side of the coin, skeleton racer Jon Montgomery was expected to finish in second or third, and exceeded expectations to get to the top of the podium. Snowboarder Jasey-Jay Anderson, a four-time world champion who didn't win a medal in three previous Olympics, came through with gold Saturday.

"We're going to reflect on these Games and see that the impact of setting ambitious goals has in fact worked well, not in the way we thought it would," Rudge said.

"Maybe one of the shakeouts is we may have lost some medals because athletes like Chris Del Bosco said, 'I didn't come here to be third."'

In the early part of this decade, Canada's sport federations set OTP's sights on winning more medals than any other country in 2010. That goal was considered attainable, with the $117 million OTP spent on improved athlete support and development.

But Canada didn't come close to winning the most medals at its own Games. While the country surpassed its previous high of 24 (7-10-7) set four years ago in Turin, Italy, the hosts will finish third with at least 26.

The overall title goes to the U.S., guaranteed a 37th medal from men's hockey Sunday. Germany again was second with 29.

"Through some kind of transference, I might segue over to gold medals and say Own The Podium met its goal, but that would be unfair and that would be a rationalization," Rudge said. "Our goal was the most medals and we didn't get the most medals.

"There was considerable debate coming into these Games in our world as to whether or not, or when, do we start segueing from total medals into perhaps looking at gold medals. There are a number of countries such as Japan or Brazil who only evaluate the performance based on gold medals and maybe that is a standard we will move to."

Favourites falter

OTP head Roger Jackson won a gold medal in rowing at the 1964 Olympics, so doesn't blame Canada's athletes for making the top step of the podium their priority over team goals set by officials.

But Canada squandered opportunities to pad its medal totals and even add to its gold count. The women's long-track team in the pursuit and World Cup leader Mellisa Hollingsworth in skeleton were favourites to win their events, but didn't reach the podium at all.

Cheryl Bernard missed her final shot in the women's curling final to give up a steal and the gold to Sweden.

A strong men's aerials team was shut out of the medals for the second straight Olympics. The alpine ski team produced no hardware. Canada headed into Sunday with seven fourth-place finishes and 13 fifth-place results.

"There's a heavy loading on the winning end of the spectrum," Jackson said. "Maybe the characteristic of our Games is that we've gotten a lot of people up to first, and we have a tremendous number of athletes that are fourth and fifth.

"I just wish we would have a couple more of potential medallists who could medal and didn't quite do it. From the overall national goal of Own the Podium, I would have preferred to see performances that were more calculated and more under control than the crash-and-burns."

[N_Fiddledog]

I read the article above, and kind of breezed over the feel-guilty-about-your-accomplishments Canada, bits. What I'm pretty sure I heard though is, if Team Canada wins hockey gold tomorrow, Canada will have won more gold medals than any other country in winter Olympics history.

Apparently the Americans are better at coming in second and third though. Boo freakin hoo.

I remember when CBC used to tell us how great we should feel about coming 10th in this event, or that one. Now me, call me an uppity Canadian if you like, but I prefer this being # 1 gig. The article tells me some Olympics bureaucrat doesn't like it. I already know the media, international, and domestic, doesn't like it. Screw em all.

Oh, and btw...Great Job, CTV family of channels. This was the best Olympics broadcast ever.

[Hyack]

Canada has already won the most gold medals for the host of the Winter Olympics with 13, the previous top gold medal winners were 10 by Norway in 1994 and the U.S. in 2002.

[Public_Domain]

[Public_Domain]

[BeaverFever]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

I read the article above, and kind of breezed over the feel-guilty-about-your-accomplishments Canada, bits. What I'm pretty sure I heard though is, if Team Canada wins hockey gold tomorrow, Canada will have won more gold medals than any other country in winter Olympics history.

Apparently the Americans are better at coming in second and third though. Boo freakin hoo.

I remember when CBC used to tell us how great we should feel about coming 10th in this event, or that one. Now me, call me an uppity Canadian if you like, but I prefer this being # 1 gig. The article tells me some Olympics bureaucrat doesn't like it. I already know the media, international, and domestic, doesn't like it. Screw em all.

Oh, and btw...Great Job, CTV family of channels. This was the best Olympics broadcast ever.

I think maybe you breezed a little too quickly through that article. The "olympics bureacrat" is the guy who came up with the "being #1 gig" as the head of Own The Podium and he is saying we were #3 by the standards we set for ourselves (total medals). His is saying that it would not be honest to now say "uh...did we say most medals? We meant most golds! Uh...mission Accomplished!!"

He is saying "most golds" is an admirable standard, one in which they thought they couldn't yet acheive.

Also, The CBC (and all of Canada) clung to the whole "its just an honour to be here" mantra in the past because we knew we didn't stand a chance of doing well. What changed is the amount of Money being poured into Olympics programs and the fact that we have only had our own Olympic facilities since 1988. Stephen Harper said it on tv today: that the current generation of Canadian Olympians are so excellent because they are the first generation to grow up either during or after the 88 olympics in Calgary and not only have more opportunity, but more inspiration and different attitude towards Canada's role in the Olympics. And as a Conservative, if Stephen Harper said it, it must be true, right ?:P


Here's my take on measuring Olympic Success:

1) Medal Count: The "Any Given Sunday" rule or "there can be only one" rule-
Medal-quality atheletes are usally not just olympians or elites but super-elites, who regurlarly rank at the top in various world competitions that take place. At that level of competition, the theory is that the difference between a bronze medalist and gold medalist is often (but not always) a miniscule measure - such as hundreths of a second. Often, the Bronze medalist this year was the world champion last year, while the Gold medalist this year may have come in third last year. This theory recognizes the fact that many (but not all) of these medalist atheletes are often of equal ability. For this individuals in this group, "on any given sunday, they're either going to win, or they're going to lose" (and by 'lose' I mean 'get a bronze'). But this assumes that super-elites are winning all the medals, and we know that often 'underdogs' and 'dark horses' win, as do some atheletes because a stonger competitor was DQ'd.

2)Gold Count: There are super-super elites who gold in every event consistently, year over year. Gold count can help measure the presence of these people, for example Michael Phelps, who rack up gold after gold after gold in ONE olympic game. But these superelites are rare and can not alone carry a nation to #1 in the standing. Also, fails to give value to the number of non-gold medals. If Country A and Country B each send 5 atheletes to the olympics. Country A wins only 10 gold but is shut out of the podium otherwise. Country B wins 30 bronze. Which country has a better athletic program and more super elite athletes?

3) Weighted Medal Count: Assigns a " point value" to each type of medal i.e. Gold = 3 points, Silver 2, Bronze 1. This way it gaves weight to both quantity and quality of medals won. In the Country A, B example above,the countries would be tied. But should they be? Its a matter of opinion.

4)Conversion rate: The number of reigning "superelite" athletes entering the game who go on to win olympic medals. Currently, this seems to be measured as top 5 or better ranked in recent world competitions. Canada entered the 2010 games with 26 super-elites compared to US's 32, a difference that is not considered to be very significant. The US conversion rate, the last time I saw it reported, is in the 75% range while we were in the 35% range (that was before the gold rush of the past week, however so the #s have likely changed). OTP reportedly had a goal in the 60s range for these games. The goal here is to measure how many of our "medal threats" actually make it to the podium. But at the end of the day, does anybody care about "conversion rates?" Also fails to take into consideration the dark horses and underdogs who win medals.

I think there can be no question that Own The Podium produced our best olympics ever...but could it be better? At least one athlete who was favoured to win a medal and didn't claimed that she deliberately took a corner on the sliding track faster than she normally would have because she wanted gold, and crashed as a result. Some have suggested that Own The Podium brainwashes or otherwise pressures athletes into taking those risks. Another Canadian medal favourite who finished 9th and 13th in events earlier in the games claimed that Own The Podium forced him to quit training alongside US skater Shani Davis (who won Silver and Gold in those same events ) as part of a more competitive attitude towards the US team. The Canadian skater stated his training and performance declined afterwards as the two were highly competitive rivals (The Canadian won gold as part of the team pursuit just today though). OTP may have produced a side-effect of causing some medal-quality athletes to take excessive risks for gold that robbed them of any medal so its possible we could have had an even higher medal count if OTP was a little less intense on the "win gold" message, though fewer golds may be a result and its not certain that's ideal. I guess we'll just have to see what fine-tuning comes out in the end after the post-mortem analysis.

At any rate, it was a great games and will be even greater tomorrow when Team Canada takes another hockey gold. I'm not complaining in the least.

[Public_Domain]

[Alta_redneck]

Wow, back the Brinks truck up to the door. We got us a load of Gold to move.

[Bodah]

Kevin Martin's rink gives Canada its third gold of the day




I didn't know they were handing out bushells of BC bud with the medals, it would explain why the medals look like melted cd's left on the dash of my buick.

[Public_Domain]

[Alta_redneck]

I have a friend that has just arrived for a business trip in Paris, we've been trying to find a place for him to go and watch the hockey game. I noticed on the web site of France's Olympic broadcaster they have Canada in first place because of all the Gold Medals.

http://jo-vancouver-2010.francetv.fr/

[Robair]

The US has already won more total medals than anybody has ever won at these games already. If Canada wins today, Canada will have won more gold than any country has ever won.

How's that for a game climax?

I guess what gave both countries the ability to make a run at these records was how bad those cowardly Russians sucked this time around. They usually claim a lot more bling...

[QBC]

Yeah, that is true, the Russians have been off the map for the most part. It also shows what Canadians can do when they get the same support that other nations have been giving their athletes for years. I hope we keep it up, it's nice to be on a level playing field now. All of our athletes have done us proud.

(Sure seems to be a change of tune this week over last week. Lots of the naysayers are either very quiet, or decided it's good to be Canadian.)

[Hyack]

Robair Robair:

The US has already won more total medals than anybody has ever won at these games already. If Canada wins today, Canada will have won more gold than any country has ever won.

How's that for a game climax?

I guess what gave both countries the ability to make a run at these records was how bad those cowardly Russians sucked this time around. They usually claim a lot more bling...

Once again, Canada has already won the most gold medals as the host nation. The previous total gold medals won by the host country was 10, even without the Hockey gold we have still set the record for most gold at the Winter Olympics.