They said a lot of things, about how they definitely could have done it, even though it would have been difficult to do.
EMAIL
| PRINT
| REPORT TYPO
| SEND YOUR FEEDBACK
|
Like it or not, Canada choked
- February 19, 2010 9:05 PM |
- By Joe O'Connor
Story provided by
They said a lot of things, about how they definitely could have done it, even though it would have been difficult to do. How all the hype and high expectations were warranted, and how they had come to Whistler full of maple leaf pride and looking to own, as the slogan goes, the podium.
But what Canada's men's alpine team stopped short of saying was the truth: They choked. And the Americans did not. Add it up and the score is getting pretty ugly in these here mountains: U.S. 3 Canada 0.
Whistler has not simply been welcoming to its American guests. It has been like a 51st state. Toss in the women skiers and the American alpine rout grows as the wide as the Mississippi River. The present, and presumably running medal count for the country in the red, white and blue suits is one gold, three silver and two bronze medals.
For the team dressed in yellow -- yellow? -- there is only bitterness, unfulfilled promise, no medals, and some nagging questions about what might have been.
"There was definitely very big expectations coming in here, and I think those expectations were legit," Robbie Dixon, the North Vancouverite, says. "They weren't far-fetched. We had the tools and we had the coaching staff. Everything that we needed we had, and the fact that we came away empty-handed, it is hard to swallow.
"It sucks. We are really disappointed right now. It's racing. Sh-- happens, it can go either way, look at the Americans: They have just been killing it."
Dixon grew up skiing in Whistler, and entered the Games as the consensus wildcard pick to medal. But wild was the only thing he managed to be. Dixon crashed in the men's downhill earlier this week. On Friday, in the super-giant slalom, he missed a gate. Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway won the gold, followed by two Americans.
"I am pretty pissed," Dixon said. "But I can only learn from this. I got a few more Olympics in me, I think. I can only go up from here."
He is not the only one. Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Canada's pre-Olympic poster boy and podium hope faded badly in the downhill and fell in the super-G on Friday. Good ol' reliable old Erik Guay, from Mont Tremblant, Que. -- with 22 top tens and no wins on the World Cup circuit in the last three years -- followed up his fifth in the downhill with another fifth.
"I am tired of it," Guay said. "I keep saying it, there is something that needs to unblock for me and get those victories and those podium finishes. I don't know what it is. But I am over it. I am over getting those fourths and fifths."
The Americans might just be getting started. Twelve alpine medals have been awarded at the Games. Six have gone to our neighbours to the south, and there are still six events left to go. With Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso tearing up the women's draw, the final medal count for the Americans is headed for double digits.
So, what is going on here? What makes these Americans so greedy, so good, and Canada and the rest of the also-rans so second rate?
"Aside from the fact that we are just much better than everybody else," cracked Bode Miller, who captured a silver yesterday to go along with the downhill bronze he won to kick off the week. "As soon as you watch your teammates experience that joy, that excitement, it makes it much more real and much more accessible to the other athletes.
"They see it. They see someone they know well, and that they feel a direct connection with, and they see that, and I think it makes them reach for it a little bit more authentically. And I think that is what you are seeing. Once that momentum starts, everyone starts to want that more."
It is America's Manifest Medal Destiny, come to life on a Canadian mountainside. And every U.S. skier wants in on the action. Andrew Weibrecht's best finish -- ever -- before taking the bronze in the super-G yesterday was a 10th at a World Cup in 2007.
"It seems like Americans, traditionally, have been big event skiers," Weibrecht said.
And Canadians? Ponder this: Edi Podivinsky was the last Crazy Canuck to win an Olympic medal, a bronze ... in 1994.
The drought was supposed to end in Whistler. That is what they all said. Even when his team was decimated by injuries to François Bourque, John Kucera and Kelly VanderBeek, Alpine Canada chief Max Gartner kept banging away on the drum that the race team had been banging for years. It was three medals in 2010 or bust.
So now it is officially a bust, and the only question left to answer is just how bad the blowout at the hands of the Americans will be.
"We came here to deliver medals and we wanted to deliver medals," Guay said. "It just didn't happen."
About the Author
- Joe O'Connor Joe O'Connor is a roving sports feature writer with an open-ended beat. He joined the National Post in 2002, and has spent the past seven years bouncing from sport to sport, offering fresh perspectives and delivering unique stories wherever he goes. Whether it has been getting Don Cherry to open up about his love life; George Chuvalo to talk about heartbreaking loss; or racing down the side of a mountain with former Crazy Canuck, Dave Irwin, the veteran Postie chases a story wherever it leads. Before joining the newspaper he was a two-time silver medalist at the National Magazine Awards. Vancouver will be his first Olympics.
Recent Entries
- Lessons from the hilltop
- At the Olympics, the taboos get tossed out the window. People never save the last sugary treat. And journalists clap. Sometimes they come precariously close to hooting and hollering for their team. National pride is at stake at the Olympics,... Continue reading this post
- Brian McKeever's Olympic dream over
- It was a story that everyone gravitated to, a story that was impossible to resist. The final chapter was supposed to be written on Sunday morning when Brian McKeever, a legally blind and impossibly brave Canadian cross country skier, would... Continue reading this post
- The Show must go Vonn
- It happens before every Olympics, and it happens with every nation. We all pick out poster boys and girls to carry the medal hopes, pump up the home crowd and generate some buzz for a quadrennial Winter carnival that blends... Continue reading this post
