Why does Canada suck so bad at the Olympics?

Or maybe I'm exaggerating the situation. It's just felt pretty hopeless the last couple days any time I tune in.

(Props to Karen Cockburn - Yorkie! - and best wishes to Perdita Felicien.)

Another problem is that Canadians tend to accept mediocre performances. Say what you want about the Yanks, but any of their athletes who come in 6th place in a heat aren't likely to find themselves on TV. Hockey is the only sport in Canada where the attitude is first place at all costs. Maybe a little more of that in other sports wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Also, I don't buy the "Canada accepts mediocrity" argument. We accept mediocrity when we are not expected to do well, and are pleasantly surprised when our athletes exceed expectations. I think this is true of all countries. Nobody would have accepted 6th place from Donovan Bailey or Silken Laumann in their primes.

If the US, China, Russia and all the other Olympic giants expect more from their athletes, it's because they have a lot more favourites in a lot more events compared to Canada.

However, I'm still spending my days glued to the set.

WHOLY SHIT¡¡

I kind of noticed something like this the other day on the coverage of some of the medal winners; there was the Calgary gymanst who won gold, and listening to him talking was refreshing, because he sounded very pleasantly surprised that he actually got the gold--pleased, but not arrogant about it. Compare with a U.S. runner who won a gold who was saying things like "this is my DESTINY" and saying that he was designed to win golds, and I started to understand why Canada doesn't do so well: they're there to do their best, but they won't have to commit suicide afterwards if they don't get the gold.

I think Canada should patent inverted jingoism. It really is a wonderful descriptor of what we do.

I'm on a senate committee that lets students into the university based on d1verse qual1f1cati0ns, and fighting every meeting against a tacit approval process that green-lights any kids with a letter from a university sports coach, no matter how crap their grades or academic interest.

Yeah, true, but it seems far less glaring. But yeah, we've had our knobs too.

And can I claim the "inverted jingoism" thing?

And, following from the Olympics 2004 (US) thread: Have you heard the Canadian national anthem they're piping out in Greece. Makes me cringe.

It's a cash grab to try and make up for the fact there won't be a NHL season this year.

As a sports-only example though, check out the discrepancy btwn women's and men's sports funding. Holy crap.

actually, a question: does/would nunavut-ers compete as canadians or on their own a la england/scotland/wales in the world cup?

could you hum it¿

They were talking about it like it was some inept Portsmouth Sinfonia-style rendition, but it was actually kind of cool.

On CBC this morning they played the play-by-play call of Ben Johnson's 100 meter race in '88, it was pretty amazing. The announcer was freaking out by the end, 'IT WASN'T EVEN A RACE! BEN JOHNSON ALL THE WAY! WORLD RECORD! OMG! OMG!', and knowing what happened the next day made it wholly depressing. We've got a knack for pathos.

I haven't heard this 'atonal' anthem but it sounds fascinating. I kind of like the regular anthem. "God Save the Queen" is just a mental choice (where to begin? - "God" and "the Queen" just in the title!) unless you're talking the Sex Pistols song.

fitting xpost

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_11.09.95/NEWS/nak1109.htm

Point #5 would be the one.

"wasnt that `roider ben johnson a canadian? you guys got that going for you..."

Hey. All eight men who ran in that race were on the juice. Ben Johnson's downfall wasn't due to the fact that he took steroids, but that his medical staff weren't as adept as masking it as the Americans. Carl Lewis actually failed a drug test at the US trials prior to that, but the crooked US officials hushed the whole thing up and let him compete in Seoul anyway. Then, they had the nerve to act all high and mighty when Ben's test came up positive. Just wait, maybe Maurice Greene and Tim Montgomery will suffer "unexplained" heart attacks in their 30s like Flo-Jo did. I don't care what anyone says, Ben won that race and in 16 years they've only managed to shave 0.01 seconds off of it. Best 100m final I ever saw.

(haha you would defend him with an email address like that, Mr Juice Rocks! . . . Sorry I'm totally joking, just the first thing I thought when I saw your addy.)

cuba goes on to play australia in the silver/gold match. fuk that's so not fair - a team we beat 11-0 goes on the play for gold - it's no fair i tells ya¡

Internationaly we always have problems with officals in hockey. It's just the way we play the game. It's the same with comparing football/soccer in Engerland to Brazil.

No Sundar, I jinxed Felicien's race when I was telling some friends last night that "she'd have to fall down to not win".

Also, mookieproof's memory of the 2002 hockey final is correct. The penalties were something like 10-3 in favour of the US.

Watching tonight, I began to root for Dutch and Swedish athletes. Not that they were doing much better either...

(Mind you, Canada's showing appears amusing rather than embarrassing right now.)

watching cbc as an american i can't help but root for you canada at least a little. esp that swimming guy an hour ago, .09 away from bronze. damn

Although I still HATE the fact that Beijing won these games over Toronto, maybe it was for the best. It would have been horrible for the home team to have zero medals six days into competition. Although I wonder if being awarded these games might have compelled the government to better support our athletes over the past seven years? I hope that things go much better in Vancouver. Although hockey (men's and women's) are the only two golds that we must win there, it would be nice to put on a decent show overall.

apparently we're breaking some of our own cdn records at least!
winter olympics is really where it's at anyway

i have seen a total of 10 min of this year's games on screens in cafes/bars and 4 min recap w/o sound while waiting for the metro on sunday night haa
:/

and i like the olympics!

my favorite athelete this year is Canadian swimmer Keith Beavers. Keith Beavers seems to me, an American, an extremely Canadian name. They haven't actually showed him on tv yet, so I am picturing a cartoon beaver with swim cap and goggles.

Imagine if Toronto HAD won the Olympics and that big propane explosion had happened! The scandal!

imagine toronto won the olympics and another foot washed up on the shores of bc and it was an olympian's foot

hahaha is there a thread about the feet? there should be.

"apparently we're breaking some of our own cdn records at least!"

I'm not taking a shot, but that's a very Canadian thing to say. In other places, it might sound a bit more like "Man, we suck". Anyone remember having to do Canada fitness in gym class growing up? At the end of it all, the awards they gave out were classified into "excellence", "gold", "silver", and "bronze". If I remember correctly though, wasn't there also a "participant" category for the kids who didn't make the grade? Inclusiveness, and a general unwillingness to hurt peoples' feelings are part of what makes this a great country, but from a young age, a lot of Canadians are taught that it's enough just to show up and give it your best. As a country, we rarely ever go for the jugular. The knock against (kayaker)Adam Van Koeverden is that he's cocky. But you know what? Good. He's the man, and he knows it, and so does his competition. That guy isn't in Beijing on holiday. He's there to destroy the field, and anything less than a gold will be a failure. Canada needs a lot more of that.

The COC needs to come up with a new strategy. Perhaps designate certain sports as high priority, and put some real institutional muscle, not to mention money, behind them. We can't keep fielding athletes in every sport only to finish 4th, or worse, in everything. Any Canadian athlete who is does succeed, does so in spite of the current system, not because of it.

A selection of countries who currently have more medals than Canada:

Azerbaijan - 4
Armenia - 4
Turkey - 2
Tajikistan - 1
Togo - 1
Kazakhstan - 4
Cuba - 6
Uzbekistan - 1

None of these countries should be beating us. That's not taking anything away from what they've managed to accomplish so far, but given the vast disparities in wealth and technology which exist between them and us, it's mind boggling. I'm pretty sure I said it 4 years ago, but Canada and Australia should be bringing home around the same number of medals, and that hasn't happened for quite a while now.

Don't the Canadians rool the Winter Olympics, usually? And you got yr next one in Canada to boot!

NO WHININ

i think the argument as to why canada isn't 'kicking ass' at the olympics goes far beyond wealth and technology - this is an extremely culturally complex country when one really looks at it, and it's only getting more difficult to fully understand and 'manage'/govern in any traditional way - our federal government barely touches on 'what's best for all canadians' in the long term (e.g., see latest cuts to arts funding re: international stage, see diminishing # of health care practitioners, even see migration of hockey to US) and we don't have a solid, organized private patronage as the states does. our ongoing national/regional/individual nebulous multiple identity issues, as wimpy as such an issue may seem, are much more at the heart of this matter than access to wealth and technology.

see, now the only thing we do know is WINTER. solid.
xpost

(tho lol i'm like 4th gen cdn and i didn't know WINTER until 6 yrs ago)

maybe canadians are just smart and realize that being able to do twisty dives in a pool while making less splash than your fellow citizens of the world means fuck all really.

No, we were pretty upset when our divers didn't come through.

"maybe canadians are just smart and realize that being able to do twisty dives in a pool while making less splash than your fellow citizens of the world means fuck all really."

Could have fooled me. Seemed like it meant a lot to the guys that won, and the Chinese fans in the arena.

yes and I'm sure all those people affected by the quake don't give a flying fig that they have no home, cause YAY LOOK AT THE LIL GIRL DO THE FLIPPITY DO!

Sporting event matters to participants, attending crowd: Film at 11.

"yes and I'm sure all those people affected by the quake don't give a flying fig that they have no home, cause YAY LOOK AT THE LIL GIRL DO THE FLIPPITY DO!"

Okay, in the grand scheme of things maybe you're right. A country's medal count at the Olympics does pale in comparison to people who have been rendered homeless by an earthquake. But that's really not what we're talking about, and I suspect that you know that. Furthermore, I think that the sting Canadians feel every 4 years when we tank at the Olympics is very real. National pride is a funny thing.

"Sporting event matters to participants, attending crowd: Film at 11."

We'll make sure to check with you before we enjoy any sporting events in the future, ok? Plus I'll make sure to check in with you to see what I should consider important. Glad that's settled.

yes and I'm sure all those people affected by the quake don't give a flying fig that they have no home, cause YAY LOOK AT THE LIL GIRL DO THE FLIPPITY DO!

-- Granny Dainger, Thursday, August 14, 2008 3:12 PM (Thursday, August 14, 2008 3:12 PM) Bookmark Link

i'm sure they don't give a flying fuck about the current state of the american economy but that doesn't mean it's not important.

Water is wet, too, you guys.

Although I still HATE the fact that Beijing won these games over Toronto, maybe it was for the best

I wish Toronto had gotten the Olympics for the simple reason that Vancouver wouldn't have it in 2010. I've only lived in the lower mainland for three months and I'm already sick of all the Olympic blahblah out here.

Ugh, and listening to the CBC whine, whine, whine at every opportunity about the lack of medals. SHUDDUP. Canadian pride is is a funny thing, indeed. And not just every 4 years at the Olympics.

how can any of you people even enjoy music and art, let alone sports, when there's earthquakes everywhere.

just trying to raise your unathletic Canuckian spirits

slocki you're to blame for spending so much time filling your piehole rather than doing handstands

i'm sure they don't give a flying fuck about the current state of the american economy but that doesn't mean it's not important.

can't argue with that logic!

can't argue with that logic!

that doesn't surprise me.

ok guys what i'm saying is over here... and you're over on Planet Zing.

all my fault for positing the radical notion that perhaps Olympic success is overvalued in most if not all cultures. thanks for setting me straight, ILX.

and thank you sir, for setting us straight on earthquakes

i for one welcome our planet zing overlords

Planet Zing, locked in perpetual intergalactic combat with Planet Butthurt

Mr Que you need to step up your game. Maybe get your country to increase its support of zinging?

ok, enough of that.

i really liked what robyn said :
i think the argument as to why canada isn't 'kicking ass' at the olympics goes far beyond wealth and technology - this is an extremely culturally complex country when one really looks at it, and it's only getting more difficult to fully understand and 'manage'/govern in any traditional way - our federal government barely touches on 'what's best for all canadians' in the long term (e.g., see latest cuts to arts funding re: international stage, see diminishing # of health care practitioners, even see migration of hockey to US) and we don't have a solid, organized private patronage as the states does. our ongoing national/regional/individual nebulous multiple identity issues, as wimpy as such an issue may seem, are much more at the heart of this matter than access to wealth and technology.

we have no myth! there is no 'blood' myth for canada, e.g. france or germany, and no 'independence' myth either, i.e. american revolution. it doesn't really matter if canada is better or triumphant or anything, because we're not really sure what we're defending.

the thing with the 'sting' is that we all forget about it after the games are over. this thread exactly parallels what actually happened in canada. in 2004, we talked about how badly we did at the games. then we talked about a lot of other things, and now it's 2008. oh, surprise, we're in the same place. it is what it is - the lack of attention on yr average non-olympic newsday (i.e. almost every day ever) is indicative of how much it actually matters that we aren't winning.

oh, vancouver. i'm in a debate right now about whether to leave town for 2010 or not. my home is 5 min walking distance from the figure skating practice rink, and apparently we could get a huge amount of money by renting our place out. like, $10,000+ dollars for the 2 weeks. we go to the island and hide out, come back and pay off our student loans, while some rich dude gets to stay at our place and watch the games. win-win.

at the same time, how could i leave my city when we're about to go through the biggest gong show of our short history? it's like having the farm next to woodstock and leaving for the weekend to avoid the noise. i kinda want to see what happens on a day-by-day basis. can i still get a cup of coffee like every other day? i want to find out!

oh, kate78 you should have been here for our little vote in 2003. and back in 2002, when the hip thing to do was to have a "salzburg 2010!" sticker on yr bag.

now we have "no olympics on stolen native land!" stickers. uh, it's a little late for that now :(

some blogger type i just read, sports frog maybe, says it's all ben johnson's fault

lol yahoo.ca headlines:

'Don't give up on us'
Canada's struggle to win Olympic medals highlights an old problem with a 'bleak' future.» What?

it's the What? as link/punchline

LOOK AT THE LIL GIRL DO THE FLIPPITY DO!

pretty sure this is illegal

The real reason why Canada sucks at Olympics is that it's impossible to assemble that many Canadians without at least half of them failing the drug test. Every time.

congratulations canada on the gold. ms hunyh is very cute and funny

All this is, is the common fallacy of projection and confused identification that sports fans all seem to share.

A Canadian athlete is just a person with athletic skills who has the accidental attribute of Canadian citizenship. "Canada" does not suck at the Olympics. But the Olympics encourage these mass delusions of national idenity. Sorry.

But isn't accepting this reality better than continuing to feel bad that you somehow participate in some mythical Canadian suckitude?

The Olympics are, more often than not*, a reflection of the facilities and systems of support provided by their countries to encourage athletes to pursue their chosen sports professionally.

*except there are athletes who overcome lack of support by their determination/passion/genius organizing and 'revolutionary' training methods...

It's not just at the Olympics that Canadians think they suck. I think the whole country suffers from an unnecessary inferiority complex that manifests on a national level every four years at the summer games when nobody wins a medal for a week.

i don't think canada sucks

I agree that the suckitude is mythical.

our current fed government is totally fucked up however and there is a huge amount of complacency in the general population but seems things've gotta get worse before they get better in this case, e.g. wake up wake up wake up

listening to the CBC whine, whine, whine at every opportunity about the lack of medals

This is why I finally clicked on this. WTF people get some priorities. Also hosting the Olympics is for cities with something to prove (Atlanta, Athens, and especially Beijing!), doesn't Toronto have self-confidence? Well maybe not.

Ugh, the CBC. Today they'll be prattling on about women's wrestling. Somebody please start the "CBC: Classic or Dud?" thread. Really wish I could pick up NPR here...

Since 4 yrs ago, I think I've pretty much come around to just thinking the govt should spend less on sports and not bother sending such a big team. (I think it was the discrepancy between the size of the contingent and their actual success that seemed jarring?)

CBC = classic though.

Surely there are NPR podcasts.

Oh, there are. I usually download the weekly programs I want to hear, but I don't think you can download the complete daily news programs (Morning Edition and All Things Considered).

Also, the CBC's French news podcasts don't seem to want to work. Not that I could really understand them well anyways. Still it could be funsies.

Judging by your French Scrabble playing, I wouldn't have imagined that they would be hard for you to understand.;)

The Scrabble board, she does not talk.

rowin n wrasslin, dudes

I felt kinda sorry for the Canadian bloke who got lapped in the 10,000 metres final. He was really trying hard.

If he made it to the final, he's obv among the best in the world. Just not in the top 3.

not top 3 = dead 2 me

wow - seven now - look out Kazakhstan!

There's no heats for the 10,000!

"Since 4 yrs ago, I think I've pretty much come around to just thinking the govt should spend less on sports and not bother sending such a big team. (I think it was the discrepancy between the size of the contingent and their actual success that seemed jarring?)"

Got some numbers Sundar? Britain has sent about 300 athletes compared to China and US who have sent 600 each.

I think govt should spend more on sports at the activity kids level (I reckon the UK is appalling at it and the only downside about the success at this level is that it covers this up) than what we have now which is that spend quite a lot at the higher end so that anyone that shows ability has a better chance of developing into a medal contender. A more bottom up approach.

So it looks like we don't suck THAT badly... 13 medals now, which is more than in 2004 (12) more than we got in '76 when it was held in Montreal (11), or in any Olympics prior to that. And the countries that have more are for the most part bigger than us in population, GDP, etc - the usual suspects for mega medals.

I haven't seen any medal count lists that take into consideration a country's relative size/wealth/# of athletes sent/etc, but this is a pretty cool tool.

xyzzzz: 332, according to this article.

we never sucked in the first place!
i love that canada excels in trampolining and rowing
and yaaay Alexandre Despatie! and Priscilla Lopes-Schliep!

I read somewhere that Canada in '76 is the only host country not to take a gold medal.

(The UK has something like 1.9* Canada's population for the sake of comparison.)

Yes, but the UK suck too (but not this year)