Letter from the NorthFrom angst to glory and paying the piper

By Jaimie Finch

One gold medal for Canada might have been enough. A world record 14 gold medals is certainly enrichment.The smallest fraction of any people strive for real excellence in something. Most do not care.

But a significant group loves to watch and perhaps bask in reflected glory and even hope for their children.

That’s one reason for television’s success in broadcasting the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. And there was entertainment in the striving.

Canada was the host nation. Eventually, she won the most gold medals, the most Winter Olympic gold ever won by any country, even by athletes of the former Soviet Union or by the United States, more populous by far.

All of this was from relatively a small country, which at the outset was waiting for its first ever Olympic gold on home soil.

Yet from the start there was angst and was barely repressed self-doubt amongst civic and corporate leadership, followers and even fans.

Early, the games had produced little of medal satisfaction when on Day Four, a mogul skier did the trick for Canada and won gold.

Andre Bilodeau credited his success to his disabled older brother Frederic, a victim of cerebral palsy. He was waiting, as was most usual, to greet his brother at the bottom of the run.

Years previous the then tiny alpine downhill ski-team, known as the ‘Crazy Canucks’, had invented “Own the Podium” and had nursed notions that Canadian athletes could do anything. So for 2010 promoters re-deployed the catch-phrase and pitched to the nation and helped produce the financing for the team and the event.

Many here criticized the seemingly arrogant tone of this reminder to Canadians that this time the games would be on home turf. To them it sounded much too Madison Avenue. The current alpine skiers did not fare very well, while Bilodeau and others did.

On the day before closing ceremonies, the National Post headlined one piece, “Glory Isn’t Cheap” The thrust of the article was based on size and prosperity, Canada should statistically have had more medals than it did at that point.

We saw more than a tinge of arrogance and self-denigration through events, including the winning in hockey over Russia, the first loss to the United States and the final hockey gold win.

There was equipment failure in the opening ceremonies and failure of Mother Nature to provide snow as well as the accidental death of an athlete which also provided introspection and more doubt.

But it seemed to work. It was a great celebration of life. Now comes the bill. Bloomberg reported that Vancouver, Canada’s third largest city, has to cover US $665 million borrowings.

It took Montreal, hometown of Andre Bilodeau, 30 years to pay back the money borrowed for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games where high-jumper Greg Joy placed third with Bronze for Canada’s only place on the podium.

No doubt this time Canada has had a better result. Pray she does not forget the needs of Frederic Bilodeau, the loyal muse and the “difference-maker” for Andre, the man whose name will be in the record books. {jathumbnail off}