Sidney Crosby Seals Gold Victory For Men's Hockey: Who Cares? Photo: The Star-Ledger

Canadians can now stop the hand-wringing, and finally we can hoist the red and white high towards the clouds, but how large was our Vancouver Olympic victory really? We did win more gold medals than any other country in Winter Olympic history. In terms of sporting success and country size, our victory was actually much larger than most people think. With a population nine times larger than ours (which means a much larger young population base from which to select top athletes) and with significantly larger financial resources, the U.S. won only 11 more medals, and they actually won significantly fewer gold medals than Canada. Put another way, Canada won 0.466666′ gold medals per million people (the medal some people consider the only one worth winning), while the United States won only 0.033333′ gold medals per million people. Yes, the Americans won the most medals, but they did not win 9 times more medals which their population would suggest they should. Furthermore, most of these medals were not the more prestigious gold medal category. When factoring in population and financial considerations, some small countries actually do extremely well in Olympic events, even if the medals won are few in number. So given Canada’s small stature and her gold medal record, even when considering the home-field advantage, we accomplished truly Olympian athletic feats: we actually did more than own the podium.

But just how important is it that we can produce athletes who can slide down a snowy hill faster than the athletes of other countries or can glide across the ice more gracefully? It might mean our athletes practiced more or had better coaches and superior equipment. It might mean, as some cynical people would believe, that we had better doctors who were more competent at masking illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Like fellow blogger Travis Martin, I am a party pooper. But again who really cares about the Olympic results; are they really important? I am one who believes that the special Olympics do matter: they improve the morale and self-esteem of a vulnerable population. But these Olympics don’t do too much. They will contribute to Canada’s deficit. They won’t produce literature that endures . And they won’t conquer poverty.

The excitement and euphoria will last a few more weeks; then it will gradually melt away. A handful of athletes will make money through commercial endorsements and business enterprises. Most of the athletes and most of the victories however will soon be forgotten. Only a few superstars will be remembered: the Nancy Greens and the Mark Spitzs of Olympic history.

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Tags: Gold Medal, Sidney Crosby, vancouver 2010 winter olympics

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Olympics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.