So Canadian media has suggested we should be happy with our Olympic results, but I have to say I’m disappointed.  I heard a number of times on the CTV coverage that “our goal” was 12 medals.  Canada only seems to care about total number of medals.  Whereas the rest of the world cares more about which metal and who comes first.

Almost all the world ranking systems including the official International Olympic Committee (IOC) rank a countries’ performance based on total number of first place finishes (gold medals).  In the event of a tie it falls to number of silvers, then bronze etc.  Not Canada all the medals are equal.  Despite the fact that in some events 2 or even 3 bronze medals are awarded (3 bronze medals where awarded in high jump – we got one).  Despite that why were we hoping for a mere 12 medals?  A quick perusal of our summer Olympic record reveals we’ve had over 11 medals in every Olympics since 1976.  Way to shoot high!

Looking at the same summer Olympic record I will suggest this is Canada’s worst performance since our terrible showing at our own Olympics in Montreal in ‘76.  By international standards (where first place counts) this is the first year we’ve had less then 3 gold medals.  In fact in Barcelona in ‘92 (our best summer Olympics) we obtained 7 gold medals.  We actually came 11^th that year by IOC standards.   It’s essentially been down hill since.  The next year our total medal count was 22 (remember our goal this year was to get at least 12) with 3 gold and 11 silvers (we got a whopping 5 silvers this year).

I know these sports are of the highest level and the pressure is tremendous but on the other hand isn’t this what most of our athletes train for day after day for years?  Yet we can step out of bounds and get disqualified (loosing another bronze) or somehow careen off the road on our bike into the crowd.

I always seem to hear other countries athletes saying (bragging even) that they are going to bring home a medal or even gold.  Canadians seem to say all too frequently “I’m just happy to be here”.  Lets face it people, the Olympics is an international competition the objective is to win.  Showing up and participating is what a dinner party is about.

Canadians are going around trying to convince the rest of the world we’re number 13 (see CTV’s Olympic ranking) when in reality the IOC ranked us #36.  Don’t compare us to the United States you say they have ten times our population.  OK I won’t, how about I compare us to New Zealand they got less medals then us but came first 5 times as frequently.  New Zealand is a country with a population less then British Columbia (about 12% of Canada’s).  Or how about Kazakhstan? That’s the country Sacha Baron Cohen makes fun of for being backwards in the movie Borat.  It has less then ½ our population and a much lower GDP but Kazakhstan placed 12^th with 7 gold medals.

Perhaps in Rio in 2016 instead of hoping for 10,12 or even 14 medals (lets not get to excited) we aim for at least 5 gold medals – shoot high, it is the Olympics after all…