Canada: An Olympic host that’s in it to win it

“Our long national nightmare is over,” said Cam Cole in The Vancouver Sun. Canada is no longer in the humiliating position of being the only Olympic host country that never won a gold medal on its own soil. We failed in 1976 in Montreal, and we failed again in 1988 in Calgary. That sorry record “has been a source of much merriment over the years: Oh, yes, we could laugh at ourselves—but deep down, we were a little embarrassed.” Finally, this week in Vancouver skier Alex Bilodeau took first place in the men’s moguls. The gold drought has ended.

But the pressure is still on, said Don Martin in Quebec’s Sherbrooke Record. The Canadian Olympic Committee has openly set a goal of winning more medals than any other country. Canada, in fact, is favored to win at least 10 golds, and if all our athletes come through, we could “Own the Podium,” as our team motto exhorts. Already, though, we’re hearing from some critics that Canada is taking winning “a bit too seriously.” Foreigners are criticizing our “secret performance-enhancing technologies,” though nothing illegal has been alleged, as well as our strategy of allowing the home team “special access to the venues” ahead of time.

Well, that’s just too bad, said Rod Lamb in the Kenora, Ontario, Daily Miner and News. The Olympics is a sporting competition, after all, and “going for the gold” is the whole point. Canada has invested years of work and billions of dollars in these games, and we expect results. We want to hear “O Canada” playing over that podium again and again. “We don’t want personal best. We want winners.” This new, competitive spirit marks a big change for typically modest Canadians, said Larry Cornies in the London, Ontario, Free Press. “We’re no longer content merely to be the soft-spoken and unassuming lumberjack cousin.” Under the “Own the Podium” program, we’ve beefed up funding for training and increased subsidies to athletes with the specific goal of raking in the most medals of any country. This is “a nation rediscovering its own confidence.”

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Yet in the process, are we becoming “un-Canadian”? asked Ian Brown in the Toronto Globe and Mail. Recently, our speed-skating team refused to allow an American skater to practice even once in the new Olympic rink. When another American labeled that behavior as “kind of a dick move,” plenty of Canadians had to agree. Indeed, some of our own former Olympic greats are embarrassed by all the grubbing for medals. Bruce Kidd, a former distance runner, says the “Own the Podium” slogan is positively insulting, like saying, “‘World, come to Canada so we can beat the s--- out of you.’” Of course it would be wonderful if we won lots of medals this year. “But not everyone agrees that Canada’s success on the podium—I win, therefore I am Canadian!—is a decent measure of who we are and who we ought to be.”