How long 'till Own the Podium organizers call it an 'outright success'?

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

I wonder what their performance are like in the Athletes Village? Maybe we can save some face in that aspect

We could possibly find out in nine months.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by tkflames

I am as patriotic as the next Canadian and agree with your point regarding supporting the Olympics the other 3.5 years. However, this like any government spending program should be evaluated by the public (just like Education, Health Care etc.). It is our duty to form opinions and vote based on those opinions, that is part of a democrazy. Living in Vancouver, if these games don't break even, could be burdened with government debt for a long time (much like Montreal). Your "$10...Nice Effort" comment is out of line.

SUMMARY: It is our democratic responsibility not only to evaluate the OTP program, but also the value/cost-benefit of hosting the Olympics.

How is my comment about $10 being out of line? How much do you think each individual person's tax money is going towards our athletes?

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Why? These people chose to pursue a sport/lifestyle funded with my tax dollars - any taxpayer has every right to bitch and moan about their performance. There are two issues here - one is the philosophical question of whether taxpayers should sustain amateur sports, and the other of whether I am interested enough in any of these sports to do anything else. Personally, I am not, but as long as I fund them, I can complain about their performance.

My point is. We should be cheering our athletes not complaining about them.

Anyway, I think I made my point. I sat back and tried to not say anything as so many posters talked down my country's athletes. I am proud of each of them for the effort and the commitment.

Did anybody watch the girl crying because she let down her country because she only won silver? Breaks my heart to see that. She should be proud that she won a silver for her country.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Do you feel better about yourself when you get on the condescending train and just roll? Your entire second paragraph is from the highest perch possible. Better yet, you sound like Stewie from Family guy. CP is getting terrible for this.

As for the rest of your post, agree to disagree. When you fall down during Ski Cross going over a jump with no one around you, that's losing a medal. When you go into the Skeleton finals with the best time and finish out of a medal position on your home track, that's losing a medal. When you have 2 Canadian skaters in the finals for 1000 m short track and place 4th and 5th, well, that's just flat out embarrassingly pathetic.

When it comes to dealing with people like you, yes I do.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

My point is. We should be cheering our athletes not complaining about them.

When they do well we should cheer, but when they don't deliver - why are they above criticism?

[fredr123]

Two things have bothered me about our athletes' performances thus far:

1. I find it hard to believe all of our athletes are leaving it all out there and giving their best performance. I don't have any numbers whatsoever to back this up but I bet the number of athletes whose scores at these Olympics are anywhere near the neighborhood of their personal bests is pretty low. I know a few speed skaters who train at the Oval with many of our Olympic speed skaters. These people look up to our Olympic athletes and aspire to be in their position soon. They shake their head at the poor performances we've seen so far. It's not like the gold medalists are setting world records or anything yet our athletes are not only falling short of that mark but they aren't even approaching the level they've been competing at even in the recent past. Sure, you're allowed to have a bad day once in a while. The number of athletes who seem to have had a bad day on the biggest day of their careers is cause for concern.

2. Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Pierre Lueders and others whom I have come to know from the kind words of Donald Sutherland over the past couple months have been pretty disappointing. I doubt they personally had anything to do with becoming part of the CTV hype machine but it would have been great for at least one of those ads to be more than just an ironic reminder of unrealistic expectations in hindsight.

[worth]

Hey, it could be worse. The Russians projected they were going to win 40 medals at these Olympics. Vitaly Mutko must have hit the vodka a little too hard.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english201...c_13162924.htm

People busting on the government for funding sport in this coutry, I would normally agree with you. I don't support funds for private leagues, such as the NHL or CFL. I don't think any government money from the Federal or Provincial levels of government should go into building new stadiums, including the Flames or Stampeders (I'm ok with civic funding if the people agree to it as it creates jobs and generally makes the lives of those who attend games happier), these are private organizations who make a lot of money, and should be able to raise funds themselves for improvements.

However, in this instance we have amateur athletes competing on the international stage. I don't particularly see the problem with spending $60 million out of $226 billion on these athletes. It allows them to follow their dreams, just like Tucan Sam, and gives us all something to cheer about for a couple of weeks.

If the government didn't spend any money on arts, or sport or anything "fun", this place might be even more boring. At least we can get excited on an international level for a couple weeks and be proud to be Canadian. If the government didn't spend the money, there would be no amateur program, and we wouldn't have the Olympics or anything to cheer about. This is something that actually does affect us. Sure, we all forget about the medal count after it's all over, but for those two weeks, we get to experience something special. And it's something every single Canadian can feel! And that's fantastic! With the amount of apathy that is around these days, it's exciting to see so many Canadians embracing these games.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by fredr123

...2. Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Pierre Lueders and others whom I have come to know from the kind words of Donald Sutherland over the past couple months have been pretty disappointing. I doubt they personally had anything to do with becoming part of the CTV hype machine but it would have been great for at least one of those ads to be more than just an ironic reminder of unrealistic expectations in hindsight.

I get what you're alluding to, but Pierre Lueders? One of the most successful bobsleigh drivers in the history of the sport? I hardly think that he fits the image of "unrealistic expectations".

[fredr123]

Forgiveness if this has been covered elsewhere, but does anyone know the rules with respect to private sponsorships of Olympic athletes? We hear all about Shaun White's awesome private half-pipe built for him by Red Bull. Are there no similar opportunities for private companies to support Canadian athletes?

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I get what you're alluding to, but Pierre Lueders? One of the most successful bobsleigh drivers in the history of the sport? I hardly think that he fits the image of "unrealistic expectations".

I realistically expected a medal from one of the most successful bobsleigh drivers in the history of the sport. The four man bobsleigh is still to come so I suppose there's a chance for the podium there.

Agree it's not a flame out on the same scale as Osborne-Paradis.

Edit: Found this from last week on the so-called "CTV Jinx": http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/...urn=oly,220052

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by fredr123

Two things have bothered me about our athletes' performances thus far:

1. I find it hard to believe all of our athletes are leaving it all out there and giving their best performance. I don't have any numbers whatsoever to back this up but I bet the number of athletes whose scores at these Olympics are anywhere near the neighborhood of their personal bests is pretty low. I know a few speed skaters who train at the Oval with many of our Olympic speed skaters. These people look up to our Olympic athletes and aspire to be in their position soon. They shake their head at the poor performances we've seen so far. It's not like the gold medalists are setting world records or anything yet our athletes are not only falling short of that mark but they aren't even approaching the level they've been competing at even in the recent past. Sure, you're allowed to have a bad day once in a while. The number of athletes who seem to have had a bad day on the biggest day of their careers is cause for concern.

2. Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Pierre Lueders and others whom I have come to know from the kind words of Donald Sutherland over the past couple months have been pretty disappointing. I doubt they personally had anything to do with becoming part of the CTV hype machine but it would have been great for at least one of those ads to be more than just an ironic reminder of unrealistic expectations in hindsight.

As I said before, it's possible to explode yourself by trying too hard as well.

You get off your game plan and away from the things that put you in the top tier, concentrating too much on the medals and not enough on the processes that got you there in the first place.

The alpine team, as an example, seems to be really gunning for the medals and are overly aggressive, hence the epic crashes.

Hollingsworth appeared to be in the same boat. Fastest out of the gate and then mistakes she wouldn't make any other day of the week with the gold in sight.

Our man in the ski cross yesterday had a medal wrapped up and wiped out trying for one level higher, getting nothing in the process.

The men's short-track speed skating team, a very experienced pair of brothers, might have been overly aggressive in setting a pace they couldn't sustain the other night.

I won't do the work but it would be interesting to know how many sea level countries have won Olympic medals in Vancouver versus teams that train at altitude like Canada. The slogginess of the ice at sea level versus altitude seems to be a factor in how certain athletes are able to close out a race. It looks - at a glance - that sea level trained athletes are pulling unexpected results out of the hat. You would think altitude-trained athletes would have an advantage but that doesn't seem to be the case in this particular sport.

I've got no complaints about the level of "try" in Canadian athletes. I think that's silly. There does seem to be room to debate whether or not wanting to win too badly has interfered with the processes that got them there in the first place. That looks very real in where Canada is right now.

I'll say it again. If we're spending $117 million now we should double it going forward.

EDIT: Gary Mason with an unusually mature - for him - response to Canada's performance:

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/news-centr...3.html?cid=rss

Cowperson

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

I wonder what their performance are like in the Athletes Village? Maybe we can save some face in that aspect

I went on one date with a girl who was on the speedskating team and that was years ago, so, sadly, too small a sample size...

[Ducay]

Alpine = pure chokefest.
Shorttrack = pure chokefest
Longtrack = pure chokefest (compared to what we were expecting)

There are 102 medals in total available in these events, we cant afford to be garbage in them.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

When they do well we should cheer, but when they don't deliver - why are they above criticism?

Maybe I am not saying it properly. Some criticism is valid. I am talking about the comments about choking and having no heart etc.

[return to the red]

nm

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by fredr123

Forgiveness if this has been covered elsewhere, but does anyone know the rules with respect to private sponsorships of Olympic athletes? We hear all about Shaun White's awesome private half-pipe built for him by Red Bull. Are there no similar opportunities for private companies to support Canadian athletes?

In the world of marketing Canada is small fish. We have roughly the same population as California state. Add to it added expense marketing in two languages, or one (but then you lose a province of 8 million due to language laws). Also add that our dollar traditionally does not have much buying power, and our taxes are higher generally than the US.

As you can see the cost becomes not worth it quickly. The US has 10 times the market base, with all the above benefits Canada does not. When you talk about sports like snowboarding, where some but not all people follow, you are really looking at very little money here.

The only exception is hockey to some extent. Almost all Canadians would mortgage their life to see and play hockey. Even then it is probably marginal budget compared to US Football, or Baseball.

Sorry, I am with you, I want a level play field with the Americans and Euros, but it is not going to happen at that level ever.

EDIT: Sorry if you are talking about private Canadian companies only. However, like I said above, I think the market buy back is small, compared to the cost ($100s of millions).

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherGuy

Maybe I am not saying it properly. Some criticism is valid. I am talking about the comments about choking and having no heart etc.

I agree about having no heart - it's one of the most over-used cliches out there. Are they choking? Perhaps but I tend to agree with Cowperson's assessment that they are pushing TOO hard.

[GirlySports]

ok, it felt like MINUTES to me

[JayP]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

I agree about having no heart - it's one of the most over-used cliches out there. Are they choking? Perhaps but I tend to agree with Cowperson's assessment that they are pushing TOO hard.

In some cases it's pretty clear they were pushing too hard simply because 2nd place wasn't good enough.

Delbosco (ski cross) is a perfect example of this. He could have easily gone in the second last jump, played it safe, and took his bronze. Instead he took an incredibly tight corner and gave himself his only shot at gold or silver.

Hollingsworth said she did the exact same thing. She was far back from the leader (0.5 seconds going into Heat 4) and her only chance at a gold was having a record breaking type of race. It was a risk and, obviously, it didn't pay off. She could have easily accepted bronze or silver and had a safer run, but it was gold or bust.

Obviously not all of Canada's disappointments are in this class (alpine ski team, short track team, etc.), but there's an important distinction between them.

Everyone loves to parade on about how Canadians accept 2nd place and don't have the fire to win, but they still treat every disappointment exactly the same. I can accept Hollingsworth and Delboso saying silver/bronze isn't good enough and going for broke. I don't accept the alpine team or the men's long track having season's worst showings in the biggest event of their season.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by fredr123

I realistically expected a medal from one of the most successful bobsleigh drivers in the history of the sport. The four man bobsleigh is still to come so I suppose there's a chance for the podium there.

Agree it's not a flame out on the same scale as Osborne-Paradis.

Edit: Found this from last week on the so-called "CTV Jinx": http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/...urn=oly,220052

Your expectations of Leuders are way off from the reality of his season. He hasn't finished better than 4th in a WC event all year, with most finishes in the 8-9 range, and his overall rank is 10th. Rush has been grabbing good results, but he fell victim to a difficult track and crashed, that's the nature of the sport. He'll have a chance to redeem himself in the 4-man where he's perfromed well this season. It's difficult to look at past results in the sliding sports though as this track is quite different than any other.