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Canwest News Service
Of the many philosophical objections to the Olympic movement that I’ve come across over the years, my favourite came from my National Post colleague Terence Corcoran, when Toronto was in the final throes of its ill-fated bid for the 2008 Games: “The modern Olympics have no foundation in market economics.”
I cannot argue with that. The Olympics are a big, bloated, money-sucking spectacle — one of few humankind bothers to mount these days. That’s part of what I love about them. Sadly, many of my friends and acquaintances — particularly journalists, for some reason — are entirely devoid of Olympic spirit. And I must admit, many of their arguments are rather compelling. To wit:
-The Olympics bring out many of the worst aspects of the Canadian psyche. When someone anointed as a great Canadian hope falls flat on his or her face — hurdler Perdita Felicien in Athens, speed-skater Jeremy Wotherspoon in Salt Lake City, the men’s hockey team in 1998 — a segment of the population lapses into a sort of adolescent funk. “What’s wrong with us?” the cries go out, as if no other nation’s athletes ever finish worse than expected. Columnists speculate: Are Canadians too weak and pampered to perform when it counts? Is it because we have socialized health care? Newspaper editorial boards call for massive influxes of cash for amateur sport, then forget all about it for two years, and then the whole maddeningly predictable cycle starts over again. Canadians are right to be jealous of more self-confident countries, where a woman tripping on a hurdle is just a woman tripping on a hurdle.
-The Olympics cost a fortune — not just to the city that wins, but to all the other cities that cobble together bids to be judged by a process that’s as corrupt as it is inscrutable. If International Olympic Committee members had already decided the 2016 games would go to Rio de Janeiro for some airy-fairy, it’s-South-America’s-turn reason — and clearly they had– then why did they let Chicago spend US$76-million trying to sell them its empirically superior bid?
-Olympic television coverage attempts to please every kind of viewer — those only interested in marquee events, those dying to know more about track cycling and team handball, those who only want to see Canadian athletes, and those who are more interested in a biathlete’s dead grandfather and cleft palate than in how fast she can ski or how straight she can shoot — and succeeds only in annoying all of them equally. (I personally can’t stand Brian Williams, and watch most Games coverage with my thumb on the mute button.)
-The IOC makes bizarre decisions. Whilst female ski jumpers have had to go to court in a thus-far futile effort to compete, the IOC started handing out synchronized diving medals in 2000 to athletes who admitted they hadn’t even practised that much. The first time the term “ski cross” — roller derby on snow, basically — ever appeared in the National Post was in 2004; the second time was in 2006, to announce its inclusion in the 2010 Games.
But these complaints, I submit, are not really about the Olympics. They’re about all the crapola that’s come to surround the Olympics — and indeed, sports in general. (As a football-hater, I’m particularly unimpressed when NFL fans complain about having bobsleigh rammed down their throats once every four years.) For me, the spectacle of thousands of elite athletes from all over the world gathering in the spirit of (mostly) honest competition easily redeems the Games. Honest competition is, after all, the whole idea.
And you know what? It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see hard-earned Canadian dreams fulfilled on the world stage; it tears me up to see them dashed; and it fills me with pride to see athletes rebound with dignity from crushing defeat. I jumped up and down when Donovan Bailey anchored the 4 x 100 metre relay team to gold over those jumped-up Yanks in Atlanta. I shed big, manly tears when Canada won the 2002 men’s hockey final — one of the best hockey games ever played. And I felt like I might vomit when Brian Stemmle, on track for a wildly improbable gold medal in the men’s downhill at Nagano, caught an edge, missed the third-last gate and got nothing. I get all misty and patriotic when Canadian NHL players — “farm-born millionaires,” as comedian Bruce McCullough calls them — stay at the athlete’s village with penniless cross-country skiers and short-track speed skaters and cheer on their countrymen as equals. I thought it was enormously classy and heartwarming when the humiliated 1998 hockey team stuck around to march in the closing ceremonies.
Maybe I’m just a softy, but I’m clearly not alone. Canada is not a country that indulges its tribalist urges very often — but if nothing else, the Olympics prove definitively that those urges exist. We’re not just cool-blooded, dispassionate citizens of the world. We want Canada to win, damn it, and we hate it when Canada loses, and I can’t see how that’s a bad thing. As unpleasant as it is to see a nation offload all its insecurities on hardworking, cash-strapped athletes whose work goes completely unheralded 47 months out of every 48, and as sclerotic as the IOC is, I refuse to view the sporting competition at the Olympics as anything but a positive influence in a cynical world. Especially in the winter. Not even Jacques Rogge can ruin three weeks of men and women hurtling down mountains at 125 km/h, a microscopic bad decision away from a medivac helicopter. I can hardly wait until February.
cselley@nationalpost.com
