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Jon Montgomery
This report is a few days late, but congratulations to Jon Montgomery for winning the first Canadian medal of the games in Whistler. To put the icing on the cake, it was GOLD!!!!
Whistler Sliding Center Pole
I was lucky enough to be there, and had a fantastic night. The atmosphere was electric, with the sliding center being an exciting venue to be a spectator. As the final competitor (Martins Dukurs from Latvia) was coming down, his time at the splits was always just faster than Jon’s, but you could see the gap was closing. It wasn’t until Martins actually crossed the finish line that Jon’s time became the best, and Jon became the Olympic Champion!
Jon not only has a gold medal, but is probably the favorite to win ‘The best way to accept your medal’ award. At both the flower and medal ceremonies, he inspired even more cheering by jumping onto the podium in a way that clearly showed how excited and proud he was.
Skeleton
Unfortunately, Mellissa Hollingsworth, the current World Champion for Womens Skeleton (I think), made one small mistake on her final run which cost her a lot of time. She was having a very fast run, and was threatening to take the Gold, but she lost too much time and dropped back to 5th. It was a heart-wrenching moment, as Mellisa was a crowd favorite. Afterwards, she was very emotional, and seemed upset about letting Canada down. If by any chance she was to read this, all I can say is that she is far from letting the country down – Canada is very proud of her, and is thankful for all the hard work and effort on her part (and her coaches and support) – She gave us a reason to cheer!
Mellisa Hollingsworth
Here is a pic showing the final turn, and my friends holding up their ‘More Cowbell’ sign – it is becoming the most well known sign at the Whistler venues and they constantly get swamped with photo requests.
More Cowbell
I hate to spoil such a special post, but I have a bit of a rant ….
I want to say how sick I am of the mainstream media. All they seem to focus on is the bad (guess that is what drives the ratings for them). The weather has not been perfect, fair enough, but the games have gone on, and I don’t hear too many of the athletes or the spectators complaining about the lovely, warm, sunny days. It was unfortunate about some spectators at Cypress events having their tickets canceled, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Next, the media is starting to give Canadian athletes a hard time about not ‘Owning the Podium’. ‘Own the Podium‘ is a funding program for Canadian athletes set up to help them do well at these games. Before the games, the media was hyping it up claiming Canada would top the medal tally, and since they haven’t met those (extremely high) expectations, the media is focusing on this as a ‘fail’. Let’s be fair to these athletes – while not claiming medals, many Canadians are putting in ‘personal bests’ and ‘best ever results’ for Canadians in their event. If the media can’t be happy with that, than are they really Canadian?
Programs like ‘Own the Podium’ take time to see real results. You just can’t expect to win Gold by throwing money at the event. It takes time and training, and a lot of hard work from the athlete and support staff. If Canada stick to its guns, and continues to fund these sports as they have for the last few years, Canada will grow into a very strong Winter Olympic country.
/end rant
Update: Current medal count as of midday Friday 26th February -
Gold 8 – Silver 6 – Bronze 3 = Total 17
Canada is tied for the most amount of Gold medals with USA and Germany at 8!!! Hopefully a few more to come in Mens Hockey and Curling. We also have some other medal chances still to come.
Overall, I think Canada is doing VERY well.
Also, Australia is having its best ever Winter Olympic Games, with 2 Gold and a Silver (previous best was 2 medals)
Solid post there Greg – I agree!
It sucks that the Candian Olympic dude came out and said that we just arent’ going to “own the podium” though. To me it meant something differnet than flat out winning.
Oh well – still fun to watch these athletes compete! Wish I was there!
Hey Greg, I feel your rant.
I think “Own the Podium” means building passion and excitement for healthy active lifestyles for all Canadians. Get out there and do something and have fun!!!
We have a 2020 vision here in Whistler, and part of that means continuing to support our young athletes long after the games are done and the medals are counted. We may not have the most in the end but we should all be proud of our hosting the world. I hope the world comes back again soon.
mike.
Well said Greg. It’s not just the media though – a look at my facebook newsfeed the other day showed lots of people jumping off the bandwagon…though miraculously they all seem to be back on board after tonight’s hockey game and all the medals today…
I agree with Mike on the following
“I think “Own the Podium” means building passion and excitement for healthy active lifestyles for all Canadians. Get out there and do something and have fun!!!”
However i think the Canadian stance of not letting other Nations not have the same level of practice on certain Olympic Courses was very unsporting!!!
‘stance’
Please let me know more details. I am under the impression, that using the Sliding Center as an example, other nations were given the time slots to use a facility, but it would come at a cost. That’s fair imo, as we can’t fund the costs of operating these facilities for the last 3-4 years 24/7 all by ourselves.
Hypothetical – If a amateur Canadian athlete finds it easier to spend more time on the Callaghan Valley cross country tracks than say a Polish one (say because of personal travel costs) – is that unsporting?
I may be wrong here, but I don’t think there was some kind of conspiracy to restrict athletes from other countries training at the future Olympic venues.
Or is there something else?
Isn’t there a difference from an Athlete using the actual course / slope etc etc that they will be competing on in the Olympics than training on any old slope/course. wouldn’t you rather 300 practices than 30!!!
How many times do you think Canadian athletes will get to practice at the venues for the 2014 Games in Sochi? Compare that with the number of times athletes from Russia and other European countries get to use them.
I am not saying it is a ‘stance’ – simply logistics.
The cost to send our athletes and support staff to Russia for training will be a LOT higher than an equivalent camp held here in Canada.
The same applies for the other countries training here over the last few (global crisis) years.
I was led to believe that any host nation can restrict access to practicing on the facilities that they own, and this happens every single olympics.
Why shouldn’t Canada have a ‘home field advantage’? Everyone else does it.