Gagh
Χριστόφορος
According to my least favourite sports writer, professional smarm-bucket & dipshit Simon Barnes!
It is hard to say whether Canada’s Own The Podium programme has been a bigger disaster in terms of sport or public relations. Gold medal in both categories, I think.
The idea was for Canada to emerge as gracious hosts of the Winter Olympics and glorious winners as well. Alas, the Canadians have come across as a bunch of mean-spirited, chippy, unsporting losers.
Things have come to a pretty pass when you find yourself rooting for the United States. But I really have been cheering for stars and stripes rather than maple leaves. The Canadian shenanigans in Vancouver have alienated the entire world.
But before I get stuck in, I would like to say that I don’t have a single anti-Canadian molecule in my body. I just hate their Own The Podium campaign. I went to British Columbia 18 months back. I saw sensational countryside, had close-up encounters with two species of bear and one species of whale and met great people. Can’t wait to go back.
But that Own The Podium stuff has been a calamity. For a start, it hasn’t delivered. The stated aim was to put Canada on top of the table in terms of total medals won. As I write, they have just struggled into third. The secondary aim, not stated, was to show those arrogant bastards the other side of the border how much they don’t know. The United States are way ahead, disputing the lead with Germany.
The pressure of expectation on home athletes at any Olympic Games is colossal: ask Cathy Freeman, ask Konstantinos Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, ask Liu Xiang. Canada’s campaign simply added to the pressure. Hardly surprising that so many of them choked.
Mellisa Hollingsworth had a shocker in the skeleton, Charles Hamelin struggled in short-track, Manuel Osborne-Paradis blew his chances in the alpine skiing, Chris Del Bosco failed in ski cross. There have been successes, but not enough to put Canada on top. Ashleigh McIvor was stunning in the women’s ski cross and the ice-dance pair, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, put together a skate of real beauty. The women bobbers were brilliant. No one with sporting blood could resent these gold medals: just reward for sumptuous performances.
But Own The Podium, a campaign put together with C$117 million (about £72 million) from federal, provincial, territorial and corporate money, has been a failure in terms of medals. In short, it got what it deserved. It deserved to fail because it was conceived in bad sportsmanship and simple envy.
The title has always been the biggest problem, for the athletes it funded and for the message it gave to the world. It told us: we are holding the world’s biggest party. Please come. But we intend to eat all the jelly.
The campaign has been strident, derisive and insulting. Normally, the world takes joy in the success of the home athletes. Freeman’s run in Sydney was as lovely a bit of sport as I’ve seen, and Guo Jingjing, the diver diva, was wonderful in Beijing. But the world has found it hard to enjoy Canada’s successes.
That phrase. Own it. It’s not a Canadianism. It’s an Americanism. It’s a reasonably modern bit of jargon and expresses a highly American mixture of positive thinking and borderline arrogance. By using this phrase, Canada was unambiguously taking on the big neighbour.
America is not a subject Canadians are wholly rational about. Just as you can have a splendid and thoughtful conversation with a certain type of Scot until you mention England, the same is true with certain Canadians and the US. In such events, it’s the chippy one who ends up looking silly in every eye save his own.
That is one of the fundamental flaws with Own The Podium: it makes the would-be podium owners look small-minded. In Melbourne the other week, where I was watching the Andy Murray-Roger Federer final, I overhead two Scots talking about an Englishwoman who had the gall to cheer for Federer: “She is everything I’ve been brought up to hate.” I’m happy to say that I was not brought up to hate the Scots. Or the Canadians, or anyone else. The idea of being brought up in resentment is foreign to English nature. No doubt we have faults in the opposite direction, but we have a very low tolerance of chippiness.
If the campaign had been called, say, Canadian Excellence, it would have been better for all concerned. But as things are, it might just as well have been called Up Yours America.
And then we come to the question of sportsmanship. Own The Podium didn’t stop at helping Canadians. It also tried to hinder everyone else. Access to practice sites was strictly limited. These Games are for Canadians, not the world.
In some cases this has been counter-productive. Non-Canadian training partners were forbidden to train with Canadians. This didn’t harm Aksel Lund Svindal, of Norway, who usually trains in Canada but couldn’t. He won the super giant slalom anyway; his Canadian training partners might have benefited from his presence and advice.
But really, what a way to run a global event. A host shouldn’t treat his guests as gate-crashers. This grudging and inhospitable spirit has been an ugly aspect of Vancouver. The ultimate aim of these Games, any Games, is global excellence and global joy, not provincial victory and local bragging rights.
The Canadians have taken an aggressive line towards any criticism. This kneejerk reaction is both small-minded and small-nation. It is not hostile to point out an error, particularly when the error is rudely thrust in your face.
It is customary at the Olympics to say that the nation holding them has “come of age”. China “came of age” in 2008; Australia “came of age” with the Sydney Games of 2000. In fact, Australia also “came of age” with the Melbourne Games of 1956; that’s because this observation has become an Olympic custom.
But Canada has not come of age in Vancouver 2010. Canada has regressed into a sneering but ultimately impotent adolescence. It’s been — well, rather unattractive on the whole.
There’s a lesson for everyone in sport here. Particularly, it’s a lesson for the next country to hold the Olympics. This happens to be Britain. As you may have heard, they take place in London in 2012. Like every host country, Britain wants to win lots of lovely medals and millions of pounds are being invested in their pursuit.
So here, in summary, are the lessons Britain and London must learn from the Winter Games of 2010.
Seek victory, yes, but do so with graciousness, sportsmanship and, if possible, a little self-deprecating humour. Be hospitable. Know that excellence is what counts in sport. Remember that this is the world’s party that happens to take place in London, not London’s party that the world has the privilege of attending.
The lessons must be learnt, in great humility, by everyone involved, from now until the last athlete and the last spectator have caught the plane home.
And here’s another lesson: at all costs, avoid cheap American catchphrases. Own The Podium? Own bloody goal, more like.
