Last night was an exciting night with our Canadian ice dancers winning another gold for us — congratulations to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
I was speaking to a former Olympic athlete recently and the “Own the Podium” campaign came up. He competed in Salt Lake City during the first games that Canada was making a push for medals, and we discussed whether the campaign does more to inspire athletes to do their best or scare them with too much pressure. If anything, it’s clear that “Own the Podium” changes the dialogue of the sport to some degree.
Medals are always the ultimate showpiece for this competition but now personal bests, community building and accute physical conditioning as goals are overshadowed. Is this just the way that sport is going because athletes plus technology are taking them to new heights, or are we, as observers forgetting why people do this in the first place?
The buzz will be going on for a few more days and the conversations and debates about the positive and negative aspects of the Olympics will(hopefully) go on for a long time after. In the meantime, Canada’s men’s team is taking to the ice against Germany today — let’s hope that Luongo in net will boost their confidence after the intense and ultimately disappointing game on Sunday.
