What is wrong with our Canadian male atheletes?

[Rerun]

Now I know winning isn't everything in this world, but when you compare what Canadian women have done so far in in this Olympics (5-1/2 Gold, 5 Silver, 3 Bronze) to what the men have accomplished (2-1/2 Gold, 1 Silver), our women are far outshining our men and they certainly are doing their part to "Own the Podium".

Are we not putting enough $$$ into training our men? Or is it something else? There have been high hopes for a number of our men to medal in these games but on race day, the men seem to fold like a cheap suit. Do we need to hire some top notch sports shrinks? Whats the answer? Better training? Better facilities? Better coaching? Better programs to encourage male kids to get into Olympic sports?

Or, on average, are our females just better atheletes when it comes to competing against the rest of the world (ie competition isn't as tough in women's sports when you are competing against the rest of the world.... or at least the rest of the world that participates in winter sports)?

Anyways.... all I want to say is 3 cheers for our women atheletes! If it wasn't for them our medal performance, at these Olympics, would be pretty dismal.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Two things.

One, our top athletes go to hockey for the most part. Two, other countries may not fund their female athletes to the same extent as they do their male athletes while here funding would be, I suspect, pretty equitable.

[mykalberta]

1 - our women are way to hot, and distract the men from training.
2 - we have the 34th most people of any country in the world and people need to take that into perspective
3 - elite athletes for the most part follow the money and the fame. In canada is any of these sports covered to any extent except durring olympics? Who dreams of winning gold speed skating, cross country skiing etc?

[Bootsy]

Two things.

One, our top athletes go to hockey for the most part. Two, other countries may not fund their female athletes to the same extent as they do their male athletes while here funding would be, I suspect, pretty equitable.
Yeah that's the big one right there, I seen a Canadian female athlete talking about it, I think it was Clara Hughes and she basically said after witnessing all her international events over the years she feels very fortunate to be from Canada seeing the support the women get here compared to many other countries who fund the men much more.

[ClubFlames]

I don't know what's wrong but let's hope we can trade them for a couple of US prospects and a couple of draft choices.



/green text

[JayP]

Is this a growing trend or are we looking at one Olympics here? What was the ratio of men's medals to women's medals in Turin and Salt Lake City?

[North East Goon]

They are busy with creating condom shortages nationwide!

[Pinner]

Beat me to it Goon

[Rerun]

Lets take skiing/snowboarding for example...

We have a lot of male skiers & snowboarders in this country. We used to be a country to be reckoned with (ie Ken Read, Steve Podborski, and the other Crazy Canucks) and now... on average, we win nothing (with one or two notable exceptions)

Surely we have the talent in this country to consistantly win in all or if not most of the skiing and snowboarding disciplines... why don't we? What's gone wrong? Where are our New Crazy Canucks?

[Rerun]

Is this a growing trend or are we looking at one Olympics here? What was the ratio of men's medals to women's medals in Turin and Salt Lake City?
In Turin (2006) the women won 16 medals and the men won 8.

[nieuwy-89]

Huge generalization here, so don't flame me too much...

The Canadian women appear to be more focussed and determined. The female athletes have to work harder to get where they are, and then continue that hard work to stay on top. They have to overcome gender stereotypes and in many cases defy the expectations of family and friends to make sacrifices for their sport. It makes them more disciplined. I'm an engineer and you also see this with females in engineering - they make great engineers because they have to work harder to overcome those obstacles.

The men seem aloof and cocky. I think being an elite male athlete in North America opens a lot of doors for these guys and gives them a sense of entitlement. Of course this doesn't apply in every case. Bilodeau, for example, seemed very focussed coming into his event and really wanted to win that first gold for Canada. But in general, high performing male athletes are pandered to, and don't need as much discipline and dedication as the ladies do.

[troutman]

Nothing's "wrong". The talent pool is just much deeper in men's winter sports.

For example, I imagine there are far more men bobsledders than women, world-wide. Same with hockey, ski-jumping etc.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

It's already been said, but I'd support the two part theory that
1) Hockey is the dominant sport, so the best male athletes go there, leaving a smaller pool of elite athletes for other sports
2) I'd be willing to bet that Canada is well above average for the level of support given to female athletes vs male athletes. In amateur sports like speed skating, I'd be willing to bet that it's at least equal to the money/support the men get, which is probably well ahead of the support female athletes get in other countries.

[habernac]

Lets take skiing/snowboarding for example...

We have a lot of male skiers & snowboarders in this country. We used to be a country to be reckoned with (ie Ken Read, Steve Podborski, and the other Crazy Canucks) and now... on average, we win nothing (with one or two notable exceptions)

Surely we have the talent in this country to consistantly win in all or if not most of the skiing and snowboarding disciplines... why don't we? What's gone wrong? Where are our New Crazy Canucks?

Our best male skiiers blew out knees mere months before the Olympics. John Kucera would have had a great shot at the podium. We've had a few great years leading up to the Olys, we just caught the injury bug at a bad time.

[Rerun]

It's already been said, but I'd support the two part theory that
1) Hockey is the dominant sport, so the best male athletes go there, leaving a smaller pool of elite athletes for other sports
2) I'd be willing to bet that Canada is well above average for the level of support given to female athletes vs male athletes. In amateur sports like speed skating, I'd be willing to bet that it's at least equal to the money/support the men get, which is probably well ahead of the support female athletes get in other countries.
So are basically saying that our women perform the way they do because they get more money than women of other countries.

It would follow that once other countries increase their spending, or we decrease our spending towards women, the Canadian women's medal count will go down towards the men's totals?
Somehow I just don't believe that.

We have plenty of men in winter Olympic sports who are ranked in the top of their disciplines (particularly if its a sport they can make $$$ at), but when it comes to performing in the BIG SHOW, our men tend to crash and burn when the chips are down. I think its a psychological problem myself.

Frankly, I think our women are just tougher mentally than our men.

[Bob]

How many Canadian males have finish 4th or 5th in their events? Seems like a bunch are just missing out on medal opportunities ...

[Rerun]

How many Canadian males have finish 4th or 5th in their events? Seems like a bunch are just missing out on medal opportunities ...

Exactly my point. Usually the difference between finishing 4th or 5th as compared to medaling... is in your head. Performing when the pressure is on or cracking and finishing out of the medals

Edit:

Take for example Kyle Nissen of Mens Freestyle aerials...

After the first jump he was in first place with 126.92 points (he had a 6.34 pt lead over the 2nd place guy who went on to win the gold). On his second jump he folded like a cheap suit and scored the second lowest of all the second jumps (112.39 pts) and ended up falling to 5th place. In order to win, all he had to do was score 121.5 points to win the gold, 120.3 pts to win the silver, or 115.62 pts to win the bronze.

[tkflames]

Part of it has to do with the importance of Women's sports in North America. Womens sport is funded here much better than most of the world. It is only recently that countries like China and many European countries have funded their female athletes.

Canadian Women therefore have an advantage until the rest of the world catches up.

Canadian Men are competing in a much greater talent pool, because the funding for men has been in place many more years. Canada tends to excel at newer sports (ski/snowboard cross, skeleton etc.) come to mind. This is the advantage to being a developed multicultural country where many citizens have the opportunity to try a variety of different sports.

In the long term I think we will see Canada win LESS overall medals, but continue our dominance in newer sports and traditional sports such as Curling and Hockey. I think if anyone were to do a study, they would find the funding to success (with a 10-20 year time delay) trend line would show significant correlation.

[Russic]

So are basically saying that our women perform the way they do because they get more money than women of other countries.

It would follow that once other countries increase their spending, or we decrease our spending towards women, the Canadian women's medal count will go down towards the men's totals?
Somehow I just don't believe that.

We have plenty of men in winter Olympic sports who are ranked in the top of their disciplines (particularly if its a sport they can make $$$ at), but when it comes to performing in the BIG SHOW, our men tend to crash and burn when the chips are down. I think its a psychological problem myself.

Frankly, I think our women are just tougher mentally than our men.

I believe it. Every athlete that has won has said that the support from OTP was a big help. I have to imagine without that support many athletes would have the same shot.

As for the men, are our men (that have lost out) really in the top 3 in their fields? I'm not arguing, I'm unaware of the world ranking in most sports.

[Rerun]

We need more of this in our non hockey playing male atheletes....

"I hate them," said Ryan Kesler, U.S. center and a player for the Vancouver Canucks. "It's a big rivalry. I wouldn't say I hate them; you have respect for the other team. Canadians expect to win the gold, and anything less is not good enough. It's going to be fun to try and knock them off."

Too often we seem to be just happy with showing up. Just getting to the Olympics is good enough. Every Olympics Canada sends one of the largest contingents yet ends up with a very poor percentage of medals... particularly in the mens sports.

[JayP]

Exactly my point. Usually the difference between finishing 4th or 5th as compared to medaling... is in your head. Performing when the pressure is on or cracking and finishing out of the medals

Or is that just the nature of many of these sports? Even the best in the world don't podium every single race. And someone who is predicted to get a bronze is on the podium less than half the time in most of these sports

At the end of the day, the public makes a huge deal of the Olympics because it's the only time most of these sports get major media coverage. But for the athletes, the race or event is no different than any other race or event they compete in during the year. Winning it is surely a much different feeling, but just because it's the Olympics doesn't change the fact that in most of these sports there's about 10 people who could win on any given day. The typical response to that they have to step it up on the biggest stage, but there's so many other factors at play (weather/track conditions, style of track, etc.) that it's not that simple.

If we want the right to call our athletes chokers for finishing 4th or 5th then we should be celebrating when they win World Cup events too.

[looooob]

Frankly, I think our women are just tougher mentally than our men.
I suppose it could be true, but I'm not sure

if someone wants to argue that women in general are mentally tougher than men or vice versa, I think that's an interesting topic, but I'm not sure that its really true that specifically Canadian women are disproportinately tougher mentally tougher than Canadian men , although I guess it could be?

I think it does reflect well on Canada in the sense that it shows that as a country we probably come closer to other countries to equal access/funding in sports as well as philosophy re: sports participation. My sister was a pretty good (not elite but very good) soccer player here in Canada-she lived in England for a year or so as a young adult and all the guys there thought it was a laugh that she claimed to play soccer/football. she eventually played with them and held her own and I gather they were astonised/impressed

there was also the point made in the paper today that for many sports the field of top males worldwide is currently broader at the top end (they gave the example of alpine skiing and the number of top men within x seconds of the leaders versus in women where the number close to the top was smaller).

anyways its an interesting discussion and I'm certainly proud to be from a country where the female athletes rock. I'm just not sure it necessarily follows that male Canadian athletes are particularly mentally weak

[VladtheImpaler]

Our men our politically corrected and sans testicles, whereas our women are "manly", after being thoroughly processed by Queens University, CBC, and the Human Rights Tribunals...

[Russic]

Gotta feel bad for the athletes. 99% of their lives we couldn't give a single damn about their sport and when they don't take gold in one event we complain about them.

[GGG]

Its clearly hockey that eats up our Talent pool. When our potential Elite male athletes are 16 they are still playing hockey by they give up their hockey Careers 20-21 years old they are far behind the elite athletes of other nations to get their 10,000 hours in.

A good example is Cindy Klassen. She was cut from the women's hockey team in 1998. Instead of staying in hockey she switched to speed skating and became dominant. If there had been a professional women's league that paid well she likely would still be playing hockey but thier really only is one team. Imagine if all but the top 50 canadian hockey players played other sports. With our limited population the NHL and competing to get to the NHL steel the majority of our male talent.

[JayP]

Gotta feel bad for the athletes. 99% of their lives we couldn't give a single damn about their sport and when they don't take gold in one event we complain about them.

And when they don't win gold the only reason is they lost is because they choked.

There's no other reason a Canadian athlete or team loses aside from choking evidently.

[valo403]

We need more of this in our non hockey playing male atheletes....



Too often we seem to be just happy with showing up. Just getting to the Olympics is good enough. Every Olympics Canada sends one of the largest contingents yet ends up with a very poor percentage of medals... particularly in the mens sports.

That's such garbage. I hate this whole 'we're just happy to be there' argument and the general running down of Canadian athletes that is inevitable during every single Olympic games. It's embarassing.

[yads]

I don't buy the hockey argument. Why doesn't football eat up all of the male athletes in the US and soccer everywhere else?

[-TC-]

not mentally strong enough, let the pressure get to them

[valo403]

I don't buy the hockey argument. Why doesn't football eat up all of the male athletes in the US and soccer everywhere else?

Why doesn't football eat up all the male athletes in the US? Maybe because there are 10 times more of them?

And soccer does eat up a lot of athletes elsewhere. You'll notice that the only nation that's really strong in both soccer and winter Olympic events is Germany, who just happen to have a strong tradition in winter sports and grab a ton of medals from a select few sports that they dominante.

[yads]

Why doesn't football eat up all the male athletes in the US? Maybe because there are 10 times more of them?

And soccer does eat up a lot of athletes elsewhere. You'll notice that the only nation that's really strong in both soccer and winter Olympic events is Germany, who just happen to have a strong tradition in winter sports and grab a ton of medals from a select few sports that they dominante.
Russia, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy all have had lots of success in the olympics and other sports (soccer/hockey.) Not even mentioning the US with multiple sports pursuits (football/basketball/baseball/hockey)

[valo403]

Russia, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy all have had lots of success in the olympics and other sports (soccer/hockey.) Not even mentioning the US with multiple sports pursuits (football/basketball/baseball/hockey)

Russia has an on again off again history of soccer success, Great Britian is abysmal in the winter Olympics generally, France is typically a second tier winter Olympic nation, same goes for Italy.

The US has the perfect combination of mass population, state of the art facilities, and heavy funding. For them to not be the leader would be a shock, especially with the benefits they are now realizing from the Salt Lake legacy. We have two of three in that list (with funding varying from year to year), the population difference is a huge deciding factor.

BTW, all those sports you listed as pursuits in the US are also pursuits in Canada, it doesn't really add to your argument.

[Resolute 14]

Our short track team would officially like to tell Rerun to suck it.

;)

[nieuwy-89]

The men's short track team must have read this thread!

Good on them...redeeming the men's record somewhat.

[Kybosh]

Our short track team would officially like to tell Rerun to suck it.

;)

I think you might mean "sucez-le Rerun".

[GreenTeaFrapp]

And was there a bigger Canadian choke job at these games then the female curlers?

[MrMastodonFarm]

Nothing wrong with our male Olympians.

As is life, the male just hit their stride a little later.

[Resolute 14]

And was there a bigger Canadian choke job at these games then the female curlers?

What's her name in women's skeleton?

[octothorp]

China is the exact same way: 8 medals by women, 2 by pairs and just a single medal won by a male athlete or male team.

[Smell My Finger]

They answered the call today. 2 golds and the Mens longtarack pursuit paved the way USA 1 on 1 showdown for a Gold Medal race tomorrow.:D

[Hemi-Cuda]

What's her name in women's skeleton?

it has to be the curlers. with any ice track event even the slightest twitch or miscue will cost someone a medal, skeleton is about luck as much as it is skill. but Bernard had not one, but 2 chances to make not even that hard of a shot to win gold. Sweden didn't win the gold from that match as much as it was given to them by Cheryl Bernard

[JayP]

What's her name in women's skeleton?

Hardly a choke. She was far back in 2nd place going into the final run. Basically it came down to two options:

1) Reckless, risky run that gave her some shot at gold.
2) Safer, solid run that guaranteed her silver or bronze, but almost assured her no gold.

She choose option 1 and we all know the results. Chris Delbosco made the exact same choice going into the final turns of ski cross.

[Daradon]

I was talking about this earlier today (and I think it's already been covered) but I don't think there is anything wrong with our male athletes so to speak.

Not to take anything away from the women, cause they are kicking ass and I love that they are doing so well and kicking the guys in the butts in the process.

However, with the way women's lib is in other countries, and then women's sport, I would suspect that there is simply less serious competition in many women's events as compared to men.

Not a huge difference. But in any Olympic sport, where gold-4th is often measured in the smallest of increments, any difference could end up changing things in our favor.

To put it more simply, women athletes in countries like Canada and the US, simply have huge advantages over 2nd and 3rd world female athletes. More so than their male counterparts.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of the medals of the US are female won.

[vicphoenix13]

According to the athlete attendance numbers at the Vancouver Olympics, there are 500 more male athletes. That means there is much more competition for medals in mens events. You add in the fact that most European nations spend alot more money on their male athletes and that makes it much tougher for Canadian male athletes. While I want Canadian female athletes to continue having funding equality, it might be the time for the COC to realize that male athletes need even more money to reach the podium.

[JayP]

Don't look now, but Canadian men won have 2 golds yesterday, 2 today, at least a silver in curling, very likely a bobsleigh medal, and at least a silver in hockey.

[Hack&Lube]

For example, I imagine there are far more men bobsledders than women, world-wide. Same with hockey, ski-jumping etc.

It's much easier for men to get into those other sports also. For instance, the US Bobsledding team is made up largely of failed college football players and track athletes and they entice them to get into these other sports as a way to keep up their natural competitive drive because they don't want to quit sports.

For women, it's not quite the same. The pool is much smaller from the start and they have to be much more dedicated and so we are fortunate as a country to put so much focus and funding on them.