I am surprised by our medal standings thus far in the olympics, i do not criticize our athletes as they try just as hard as their international counterparts. They deserve all the respect in the world because the field is tight these days a few seconds make all the difference. Nothing to go about ranting about.
Noticing how you have posted a couple anti-Canadian threads i would like to ask why you are singling us out?...we have world class athletes, we may not have top 3 in any particular sport YET...but champions they are.
If you are going to criticize something, notice that there were 1558 americans sent to the games, 555 canadians. So while we may have 550 "losers", you have 1500 "losers", go bash your own olympic team. Last time i checked there were a lot of medals the US has NOT been winning.
If you want an explaination as to why the results in the olympics are as they are, here it is:
Canada:
We don't have the climate to encourage the types of sports offered in the olympics currently. This is why we do well in the winter sports, not so much the summer. Unlike the US we do not give scholarships to athletes coming out of highschool, we value academic performace over sports. Getting sponsors here is much more difficult because our companies are smaller and cannot afford to support a nation of athletes to train. Most olympians from canada cannot afford to live for this reason, they must hold down jobs on the side and cannot train as much as the average american athlete. Also the US has ten times our population.
Australia:
Australia's country recently had an olympics, including preparation time, this is almost a decade of the nation creating celebrities out of athletes, this encourages more kids ot get into competition. Also Australia's climate is very forgiving with regards to climate...stick them on skates and skiis and see what happens. Interesting side note: Australia's head swimming coach is the fired Canadian coach and he is willing to come back and serve his country under certain conditions. (we all saw how the aussies did in swimming)
Europe:
A much more left wing approach to politics, this allows for greater funding relative to canada and the US (sponsors compensate for this). Athletes are exposed again to the great coaches that the rest of the first world enjoys.
Third World:
Cheap cost of living allows the poorer countries to let their citizens train without working. Also sheer numbers helps this group. It all comes down to coaching, which is usually contracted out from countries like canada, large countries at least.
So yeah, that is how i see the olympics standings. I hope Canada wins more medals, but what is the difference anyways? We are still ranked higher than the most countries in terms of UN's standard of living survey. This applies to over 30 million people not a select few athletes.
:thumbsdown: :brokenheart:
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