February 28th 2010
Your reference to most golds ever is irrelevant as there are now more events than ever before. Norway won 10 golds in 1972 when there were half as many events. Canada's gold medal haul at this Olympics includes more than half their golds coming from events that didn't even exist back then (short track, snowboarding, moguls, curling). Any comparisons between this Olympics and those of yester years are silly.
The only two markers that matter for this Olympics are:
1 - The Canadian Olympic Committee publicly professed that the goal of 'Own the Podium' was to finish the 2010 Games with the most total medals. They themselves acknowledged that this was the goal of the program as recently as DURING THE OLYMPICS. Canada ended up not in first, not in second, but rather in third. And out of first by a fair margin. As clear as ice, Canada did not achieve its goal.
2 - In the last Olympics in 2006, Canada finished with 24 medals - only two less than they won this year after the millions of the 'Own the Podium' program!! And the two extra medals come from the new snowboarding event that wasn't part of the last Olympics! In other words, the 'Own the Podium' program resulted in NO NET MEDAL GAINS FOR CANADA!
It is indisputable that athletically Canada did not meet expectations at these Games. And when you add that to the botched lighting of the cauldron (supposed to be the signature moment of any Olympics) and the unprecedented horror of one of the facilities being directly responsible for an athlete's death, you have a failed Games. In fact, with the uncharacteristic blow-hard US-style TV coverage, these Games have made me ashamed to be Canadian.
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So what makes this guy come off like an asshole^ is less adverse than when Ben Johnson became a model for steroids . When everyone comes out a winner; we forget that. Therefore, Ben Johnson was a winner. Vancouver was a failure. No one remembers that. No sap, just joy. What a blast.
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