Owning the podium
While this issue has been hashed over a lot, I felt it was necessary to put in my view.
The Own the Podium program has been a huge success, with Canada winning more gold medals than any other country has ever won at the Winter Olympics. While we didn’t win the most total medals (the USA and Germany bested us there), who cares which country that won the most bronze medals?
The Own the Podium program was successful for exactly the reason apologies were being offered a week ago. The push to be the best is what gave us success. I suspect that Canadians and the Canadian Olympic Committee are happier today with this success than anyone predicted.
While it was heartbreaking to see Mellissa Hollingsworth break down after her failed attempt at skeleton, one cannot fault her dedication to succeed. Sometimes you have to put everything on the line to win, and in endeavours where hundredths of a second count it doesn’t always work. Ms. Hollingsworth, Devon Kershaw (50 km x-country) and the alpine team’s failures to win medals wasn’t because they didn’t try. It was because they were unwilling to settle for anything less than a gold. I have great pride in all our athletes at these games (and all the volunteers who made it successful).
I am disappointed in those commentators and officials with the COC who felt it was necessary a week ago to apologize and be critical of our performances to that point. From the beginning, the expectation was that Canada’s best chances for medals were in the final days. Did they have to be so stereotypically Canadian that we had to question our motives and methods before the job was even done? We are the greatest country in the world. We have the potential to be better. We won more gold medals at the Winter Olympics that Germany and the United States, who have 3 and 10 times our population respectively.
We owned the podium. Stop apologizing.