Who really cares!?
The Summer Olympics is insignificant for most Canadians.
We consume the games on TV and such, but seriously, why throw money at it like some of the other countries do? We are a nation, for the most part, that is covered in snow or has poor weather year round.
The money is being spent properly on the Winter games where our athletes can truly shine.
Look at the Olympic superstars of years past for the Summer games, most have been trasnplanted Canadians from Africa and the Carribean (Donovan Bailey, Daniel Igali, etc...)
Sure our swimming and diving team used ot be good, but seriously...We cannot compete with the States and China's of the world, at least not in the summer. Their chemists are waaaaaay better than ours at developing good masking agents
Look for a top 3 medal finish here in 2010. the Skiing teams are dominating on the world cup circuit, the Hockey is always great, the resources are being poured into that stuff, and that is where the money will return greater dividends.
That truly is bullshit.
Ask yourself this Johnny...how many kids in Canada are going to take up bobsledding? XC Skiing? Alpine Ski Racing? Luge? Skeleton?
We have a very select few individual sports that actually appeal to the masses. They are:
~Hockey
~Speed skating
~and...erm...what else? Even speed skating is questionable anywhere but essentially Quebec. If you say curling I'll puke. KNVB enjoys figure skating, but that is for other reasons.
Kids play summer sports here, like they do everywhere. Go through that list, and it is long and deep. We absolutely fail at developing further than the purest of grassroots levels. We introduce these kids to all these great activities, and as quickly as we have them, we lose them. When they get to a certain level, high level coaching and funding simply either doesn’t exist, or if it does exist, the athlete is required to make a massive financial sacrifice just to stay on board.
How many parents do you know that have their kids involved in gymnastics? I know several. Swimming? Same thing. Track & field in schools, volleyball, basketball, wrestling…we have the grassroots infrastructure to these sports already. Why are we failing miserably at the highest levels? It’s not just the drugs, it is the whole package. Our best athletes are living in poverty while they compete against well funded, high performance, high result oriented nations. The athletes themselves are already defeated before they get to the starting gate.
Drugs aside, it is hugely important for kids to have sporting role models to look up to, in all aspects. Not all kids fit the cookie cutter model for hockey and soccer. I know fewer parents than ever who can afford to take their kids skiing, much less get them involved in a high performance program. Kids want to be involved, but sometimes they need to be inspired. You can’t argue that it doesn’t work. It does. It creates better citizens overall, and positive moral for the rest of the country.
There is an election coming up, and I’d love it if Harper comes out and says “We are going to invest in our athletes, and here is why…”
Then stand by it. It’ll be exactly what the opposition wants, but if argued properly, I bet he’d win more votes for that platform than he’d lose. Problem is, it is too risky. People want to talk about health care, education, and the economy, but want to ignore a certain element of our society that can definitely help in improving all those areas.
