Jungle Jim Hunter blasting Canadian Olympic team on 960

[Flabbibulin]

Did anyone else just hear this? I am not saying I disagree 100% with his assessment, but I do suspect fan960 is going to have some pissed off listeners email in.

Hunter estimates that we are only at 34% of the number of the medals expected at this point. Called some performances embarrassing and called out the work ethic of several Canadian athletes. Blames the Canadian attitude of "participating is good enough" on our "lackluster" success so far in Vancouver.

Yikes! You would think a discussion like this would be better after the olympics once we digest things and see how we do overall.

This wasn't some off one-off remark either, it was a fairly heated rant that went on for 2 segments- Hunter admitting that he is very P O'd at Canada's performance so far.

[mykalberta]

Who is jungle jim hunter?

I do think the reason we dont have more success is the "let everyone play" model.

[Flashpoint]

He's just making noise to try and stir up notice. That's what the radio guys have to do these days to generate ratings. Inflammatory statements get people worked up and they pay attention. And start threads!

The discussion pretty much ends at this point with 2 gold on home field. That's awesome. Everything else at this point is cake. Looking foward all we really need now is hockey gold and this will be considered a great showing for Canada.

The Canadian team has 1/10th the population of the US, and what? 1/3rd the medal count? In terms of raw demographics, that's pretty good too IMO.

[transplant99]

All that coming from a guy that never won a World Cup race or Olympic race in his entire career.

Nice.

[troutman]

He blasted Getzlaf the other day too - saying he was the laziest guy in the gym when he was a Hitman - that 50 year old men were working harder.

[jeremywilhelm]

Well he is not wrong. It is typical Canadian effort in sports that aren't hockey. Just being there is good enough.

This stems from the fact that there is no real world motivation for these athletes to win or lose. If they win, they get a pat on the back and a small amount of money and then are told to do it all again in 4 years, all the while having to fund themselves with little to no support. If they lose, no big deal, the public and the government just assume they will try harder next time. It's a societal loser attitude, something Canada has been promoting (although probably without knowing it) for a long time. Canada is a rich country that makes no real effort to produce great athletes.

I speak from experience by the way, not just an outsider observation. I've seen and talked to athletes from stronger countries in the athlete villages at large competitions like the World University games, and it is astounding how well they (the non-canadians from the other competitive countries) are supported financially.

Example: I went to the World University Championships for Taekwondo (which is an Olympic sport) in 2004. It was in Patras Greece. I had to pay for pretty much everything except a Taekwondo uniform, a track jacket and one meal. Our team doctor was a hollistic healer... thats right, a hollistic healer who was telling us that these crystals she would press into our flesh would heal our injuries (like my tweaked ACL). This is the type of support that sport Canada supplies athletes in international competitions in Olympic sports.

Chinese Taipei's and Korea's governments on the other hand had put up over 100,000 dollars to send the teams to the Games. They had olympic coaches, real doctors and funded equipment.

This is not an abnormal thing, this is just the way sport Canada works.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by transplant99

All that coming from a guy that never won a World Cup race or Olympic race in his entire career.

Nice.

He won a bronze medal.

http://junglejim.ca/

[Prototype]

Do I have my numbers wrong, or have we already matched the total of medals Canada won in Calgary '88? Are we not in the top 4-5 for number of medals? Seems like each day we're grabbing more, and realistically, our stronger sports are still to come (bobsledding and hockey come to mind).

Every Olympics, people become impatient with Canada, and every year IIRC there's a late surge of medals, and it's mainly due to scheduling. Not against Canada, just where the events line up. There's still a whole week of games still to come.

[Boblobla]

We should have had gold in Mens boarder cross imo.

[Smell My Finger]

I would say Jungle Jim has more insite from an athletes prospective and sports psychologist to make these statements. He is right some of the Canadians have not grinded out their best efforts. Most of them have.

One particular Canadian half pipe boarded comes to mind. Saying after he blew both his runs that he was just there to have fun, take it all in and have a blast. Wtf this the Olympics party any other time.

When they asked him was there anything he was dissappointed about his run. He made some stupid comment that its all about having lots of fans cheering for you.

Now I realize that these guys beat to their own drum, but this clown clearly did not take competing serious.

[Two Fivenagame]

I hate the whole "woa is me I don't get paid enough to compete" bs. Canadian athletes need to overcome that crap.

[VladtheImpaler]

He is exactly right, and he has been saying the same thing for years - it's not like he is trying to stir stuff up for its own sake. I have noticed it over many Olympics, but why is it that Americans, for example, "show up" when they are supposed to, but so many high-profile Canadians pick a "bad time to have an off-day", to quote Morisonn, the speed-skater?

[Flabbibulin]

I've always enjoyed Jungle Jim, and he certainly has more knowledge in this than I do. I only question the timing- let's see how things play out first.

Canada is obviously strong in men/women's curling and hockey, and should be able to pick up 4 more there.

I am sure they were hoping for more medals in speed skating at this point. The downhill as well perhaps? We didn't stand a chance in the halfpipe.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by troutman

He won a bronze medal.

http://junglejim.ca/

yeah but he didnt win a race...which is what i was saying.

he was good, but not "that" guy that should be harping on the current athletes for lack of success.

[sa226]

If you compare the actual medal wins to the "medal hopefuls" as predicted by the CTV broadcast team Canada is failing miserably.

I don't follow it that closely, but it seems that if all of our "medal hopefuls" had won medals we would have 20 medals by now.

Realistically, I think we are on track, with maybe 1 or 2 legitimate disappointments and a couple surprises.

It would be great however if we had someone who had a very outside chance, complete a the competition of their lives and win Gold....that would be awesome.

[Ducay]

The only sport I see this applying to is long track speed-skating. You can tell some of the other countries are "trying" a whole lot harder.
Canadians are skating half-arsed and don't really seem to have any sort of fire to give 110%.
Watching the Koreans and Japanese in these events is amazing, you can tell they're giving it their all while the Canadians seem to give up on the last lap or so.

[jeremywilhelm]

Originally Posted by Two Fivenagame

I hate the whole "woa is me I don't get paid enough to compete" bs. Canadian athletes need to overcome that crap.

And this just shows you have never been to any sort of competition outside of Canada, if at all.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Flabbibulin

Hunter estimates that we are only at 34% of the number of the medals expected at this point.

Where did he get that number from? Right now, Canada has 6 medals. I'd like to know where he believes the other 12 medals should have come from?

From everything I've read, Canada has been pretty consistent with where most experts expected them to be.

This person has compiled estimates from a variety of sources to come up with projected medal counts, and Canada is only slightly behind its projected pace (projected at 7, actually at 6): http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/...ons-day-6.html

He still has Canada projecting to finish in second, only 1 medal behind the USA. One unexpected result, and Canada can still "own the podium".

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Watching the Koreans and Japanese in these events is amazing, you can tell they're giving it their all while the Canadians seem to give up on the last lap or so.

The magic of blood doping?

[simmer2]

Originally Posted by Two Fivenagame

I hate the whole "woa is me I don't get paid enough to compete" bs. Canadian athletes need to overcome that crap.

It's not the whole getting paid to compete, it's the support around the facilities, the coaches, travelling expenses, etc. There's a reason why Australia, a country about the same size as ours is unreal at the Summer Games. There is no reason Canada shouldn't be in the same boat in the Winter Games IMO.