The X-Factor of Canadian Success

[GGG]

Part of the problem is that we waste are genetics on Hockey and to a lesser degree football. Good Athletes are usually good at other things. Bobsled and Skelaton have been essentially built by recruiting athletes and turning them into specialists.

If Canada can better identify middling atheletes that currently play hockey or football and convert them into winter olympians we would be more successful as a country. When you look at Alpine we really only draw from Alberta and BC. The rest of the country does not have the facilites to compete. And even then you are only drawing from people wealthy enough to put their kids in ski clubs at age 6. So alpine in Canada is a very limited pool compared with the European countires who have much more concentrated populations in alpine areas.

Looking at Arials and Moguls we need to develop a second center of excelance outside of Quebec to engage other athletes.

Slopestyle should be easier to maintain dominance as you can actually build the precursor skills by building jumps in your back yard. McMorris is from Regina, you don't need mountains or a manacured pipe so outside of cross country skiing slopestyle is the most accessible olympic sport.

[OffsideSpecialist]

There still manage to some alpine skiers and snowboarders from Ontario. I know Matt Morrison somehow made it to the Olympics after growing up on the same 300 ft vertical hill that I did. He still attended high school in Ontario, so I guess he didn't move out west until he knew he was something special. Of course, guys like him are very few and far between so your point is totally valid. As is the fact that Canadians seem to pigeon hole their children into hockey more than anything else.

[#-3]

I think from one Olympics to the next, it is Team events that Canada is really strong in. So something like this comes up in the middle of every Olympics.

For the more "traditional" events almost every time out we would expect to medal in Hockey, Curling, Pairs Skating, and Some Relay Events. And the majority of those medals are handed out later in every Olympics.

So I think the bigger problem in most sports might be,

Why is Canada often putting out 4 really good athletes, while other countries are putting out 1 Elite athlete?

[Aarongavey]

Speed skating is a sport that nobody really does anyway. 23 countries sent speed skaters to the Olympics, the Netherlands sent more speed skaters than 9 countries who actually sent speedskaters combined (20 for the Netherlands, 18 for those 9 countries).

There are a whole host of traditional sports that nobody does yet are still in the Olympics.

[Fire]

The Netherlands has pro long track speed skating league. They must be hard up for sports if people find that exciting.

[Devils'Advocate]

Really, I'm not that concerned about the medal count. If Canadian kids have absolutely no interest in skating around and around in circles, or skiing and shooting things, or laying in a sled going down a chute.... I can fully understand that.

If they have more fun doing half-pipes on a snowboard, ski ariels or slopestyle, go for it. I don't think we should be forcing kids into the "traditional" sports that they have no interest in just so we can bump up the medal count. Just so long as we are raising our youth to be ACTIVE and to do their best at whatever they have fun doing... medal count be damned.

Quoting from the OP's article:

That worries Gaetan Boucher, who won three Olympic medals including two golden trips to the podium at Sarajevo in 1984, while inspiring a generation of speed skating greatness in Canada.“Now there are so many sports,” Boucher shrugged. “And the X-Games sports are accessible. It’s a lot more fun going down a hill and doing jumps than it is skating in a straight line into the wind when it’s 30 degrees below zero.”

(emphasis mine)

[Kelekin]

Originally Posted by Fire

The Netherlands has pro long track speed skating league. They must be hard up for sports if people find that exciting.

Yeah, because if people don't see sports the way you do, they must not have good taste.

[craigwd]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Speed skating is a sport that nobody really does anyway. 23 countries sent speed skaters to the Olympics, the Netherlands sent more speed skaters than 9 countries who actually sent speedskaters combined (20 for the Netherlands, 18 for those 9 countries).

There are a whole host of traditional sports that nobody does yet are still in the Olympics.

Olympic spots are based upon world qualifications. The Dutch qualify more speedskaters because they are better at speedskating. Attend the World Cups at the Oval and you'll see this.

As for nobody doing these sports, that is utterly false. Most of them are the most participated and followed sports in Europe. I've seen crowds upwards of 30-50,000 watching them.

You just don't see the popularity in North America but that doesn't mean nobody does them. I can name dozens of athletes in these sports, some of them contenders that just don't have the funding for technology to put them over the top. The rest are gaining experience to make the top tier.

Take Gil Junio, now everyone knows his name but I've been following his speed skating for 5+ years.

It's hard for people to make comments on these sports when they don't show up to the events.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Fire

The Netherlands has pro long track speed skating league. They must be hard up for sports if people find that exciting.

They have hockey and no one watches

[Fire]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

They have hockey and no one watches

Probably has to do with the terrible quality.