Quote:
Originally Posted by HotHotHeat
And he kicked out that traitor ###### bag 'from' down under in the process. Eat it you spyware engineer. GOLD!
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I'm happy to see everyone here stoked about Bilodeau's run and I too share the pride in being associated with this fine person as a Canadian. But I'm a bit bummed to see people going off on Dale Begg-Smith. I don't want to take the thread in a different direction so this will be my only post on this.
Dale Begg-Smith is not a traitor. At 15 years old, the Canadian Freestyle Skiing Association gave him an ultimatum - quit your side ventures or you don't ski for Canada. Problem for Dale was, these side ventures were the probably the only way for him to fund his ski seasons. We are talking about 30-40 grand a season to fund a C-team athlete at that age properly. To Freestyle Canada's credit they have become more flexible since Dale left but it sucks for everyone that it took this kind of thing to change their attitude. To Dale's credit he holds no grudges and really is friends with all involved.
It is a safe bet the 20 skiers in tonight's final mostly had their parents backing them all the way up until they made it big. A lot of parents don't have that kind of money. It is not the best skiers that keep going all the way, it is the best skiers with a pretty decent level of funding behind them in the early years. The only exception I know to this in the last 20 years of Freestyle in Canada is Jean-Luc Brassard. This guy was one month crammed into the back of a vw rabbit with no money for a plane ticket and barely enough to pay his share in gas going cross continent to get to the next contest and a month later Canadian champion not having to look back.
Back to Dale: With no viable options left to ski for Canada, at 15 years old Dale leaves his family, friends, city and country and moves to Australia with his older brother to keep doing the sport he loves. He takes his admittedly shady business (what other prospects would a 15 year old have to make the money needed?) to the moon, hires the best coach in the world, Steve Desovich and two years later wins gold in Italy.
Dale Begg-Smith, multi millionaire, in a relatively obscure discipline, no need for sponsors, no desire for fame, already an olympic champion, coming off a brutal knee injury, with not really even a country to compete for. For him it is only sport for the sake of sport. He skied in the rain all week with everyone else and tonight he won silver to become the most decorated men's olympic mogul skier of all time.
Not everyone can have the class that Bilodeau at a young age of 22 years old has displayed. I do not know him personally and I can`t say I even understand Dale Begg-Smith, but he certainly has my respect. It is a damn shame we are not celebrating two Canadian mogul medals tonight.
