Olympics Recap

There were many memorable moments for me from these games:

• Joanie Rochette’s return to the ice after experiencing such tragedy in her life
• Jon Montromery’s run down the sliding track in the men’s skeleton race and his pure Canadian post medal reaction in winning
• Clara Hughes ending her Olympian career in style with a bronze medal in the women’s 5000m speedskating race. She is one of Canada’s most foremost Olympians with medals in Summer and Winter Games over 14 years and includes a gold medal in her specialty race.
• Jasey Jay Anderson finally winning his medal, gold at that too, after so many Olympics of not being able to succeed in reaching podium
• The Korean wipeout in the men’s 1500m short track race. The Koreans were poised to sweep but a bad turn knocked two of them out of the medals.
• Cross-country skiing having such a great venue for some thrilling races.
• and finally the men’s hockey gold medal final.

CANADA WINS!

And the games end with a bang.

Or rather an overtime goal by Sidney Crosby.

The much hyped game of the United States and Canada for ice hockey goal was everything everyone expected to be though probably a bit too nerve racking for most Canadians as it went into overtime.

Overall, this was been a most satisfying Olympics for Canadians. No, Canada did not own the podium but it won more medals than ever before in a Winter Games and won more gold medals than any games to date. In the medal standings, 26 medals ranked the country third behind the United States and Germany. So the efforts of the past six years to nurture an elite class of athletes to bring home as medals as possible should be deemed a success.

Of course, it did not looked like that at the end of the second weekend of the games when the country had just won 10 medals and saw many potential medalists come up short. But in the final week, Canada turned it on and started to rack up medals with a gold medal nearly every night to the final day of the Games.

So ends too my intense obsession with all things Olympian and the performance of the Canadian athletes. Most of my time was following the results of every competition, seeing how the Canadians did, read articles and posts on all aspects of the Games. Now, things will have to go back to the ways things were which is such a less than exciting life.

Closing Ceremonies

I watched part of the closing ceremonies this past Sunday. As always, it was a pretty wonderful spectacle. In a very explicit way it was marketing tool for the entire country of Canada. All the dancing and song had something to do with how great Canada is. It was a showcase of the beautiful parts of the country. This may sound like a negative post but I truly enjoyed it. I don't want to know what the country is actually like, but I will absolutely watch the romanticized version of it. Thank you Canada for doing another great closing ceremony.

Here's a link to a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PMoeOC3HVM&feature=PlayList&p=3856BCCCA838BEA6&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6