Jonathan Tremblay: Canada Hosts the Olympic Games – A Curse of Their Own
[Jonathan Tremblay is a Historian and Breaking News Editor for the History News Network]
Vancouver 2010 is almost over with a few weeks of Paralympic games to go that will close this new Canadian adventure. The organizing committee, after a few weeks of holding their breaths, have looked up at the medal standings and let go a great collective sigh of relief. You see, Canada has hosted the Olympics twice before and both endeavours were arguably complete disasters for the host nation. Indeed, before the staggering 26 medals, 14 of which are gold, that Canada has racked up this time around, it was the only nation to host the games and to win 0 gold medals. And they did this twice.
In 1976, the Eastern Canadian metropolis of Montreal welcomed the games after a frantic six years of construction and preparation. The first omens of doom came when the specially built “Olympic Stadium” was ripe with technical problems and wasn’t actually completed in time for the games. A decade of renovations and repairs later, it was finally finished and with many more massive design flaws and breakdowns, the tax money of Canadians in general and smokers in particular (a special tax on tobacco product was introduce to pay for the huge 1976 deficit), the stadium was finally paid for…by 2005. Many unforgettable sporting and political accomplishments accompanied these Games but specifically, Canada did not win a single gold medal, and only won 11 podium places in total. It is with a 27th place finish in the medal standings behind Trinidad and Tobago, a broken stadium and crippling debt that Montreal 1976 closed.
Further along in 1988, the Canadian Olympic Committee was much more confident that we could win a WINTER Olympic gold medal in a country where winter is almost a sport in itself. Calgary in the Western Prairies was chosen and ready in time to welcome the Olympic events (along with the truly astonishing exhibition sport of “Disabled Alpine Skiing”). The weather was perfect and the final audit revealed a profit from the endeavour. Unfortunately, absolutely no one was smiling. Hosting the games and having even created a few of the sports being practiced, Canada finished 13th in the standing with only 5 medals, none of them gold. Compounded by a fourth place finish in Hockey, Canada quickly wanted to forget these games and succeeding federal governments were weary of ever hosting the event again.
When it came time once more to consider the possibility, the provincial and federal governments in Canada had to weigh the benefits (economic fallout, worldwide publicity, tourism visibility and dollars, the prestige of it all) with the ominous possible disadvantages (deficit, security risks, dangers of live presentations, weather problems, disappointing medal count). Quebec City thus failed to convince the International Olympic Committee of its bid for 2002 but Vancouver eventually defeated South Korea and Austria for the 2010 Winter Olympiads. The Canadian Olympic Committee now had experience on how to throw an exciting Olympiad with minimal deficit but something had to be done to assure the nation a gold medal on home soil to end a string of humiliating no shows on the top step of the podium. This is how the federal government got involved as soon as Vancouver was confirmed and the last 6 years saw the Canadian “Own the Podium” programme that injected massive amounts of funds into sports funding, recruitment and training. The result as you can see is quite evident in Canada’s best Winter Olympic standing of all time and the most gold medals ever won by a participating nation in any Winter Olympic Games.
Canada has seemingly broken its unique curse that accompanied the Olympic nomination but it now passes on the torch and the stress of performing to London for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games (A single medal, gold, in Vancouver) and to Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Games (Worst gold medal performance ever for 11th place in Vancouver including an earth shattering 6th place finish in Men’s Hockey). Good luck to the next organisers, Canada finally gets to sleep with its Olympic head held high (that is, until someone else in the country has the brilliant idea to bid for the games once again).
(PS: I dedicate this post to Karine Dion, enthusiastic friend and peer that kept the Facebook community on the edge of its seat for the past two weeks.)
Read entire article at The End is Coming (Blog)
Vancouver 2010 is almost over with a few weeks of Paralympic games to go that will close this new Canadian adventure. The organizing committee, after a few weeks of holding their breaths, have looked up at the medal standings and let go a great collective sigh of relief. You see, Canada has hosted the Olympics twice before and both endeavours were arguably complete disasters for the host nation. Indeed, before the staggering 26 medals, 14 of which are gold, that Canada has racked up this time around, it was the only nation to host the games and to win 0 gold medals. And they did this twice.
In 1976, the Eastern Canadian metropolis of Montreal welcomed the games after a frantic six years of construction and preparation. The first omens of doom came when the specially built “Olympic Stadium” was ripe with technical problems and wasn’t actually completed in time for the games. A decade of renovations and repairs later, it was finally finished and with many more massive design flaws and breakdowns, the tax money of Canadians in general and smokers in particular (a special tax on tobacco product was introduce to pay for the huge 1976 deficit), the stadium was finally paid for…by 2005. Many unforgettable sporting and political accomplishments accompanied these Games but specifically, Canada did not win a single gold medal, and only won 11 podium places in total. It is with a 27th place finish in the medal standings behind Trinidad and Tobago, a broken stadium and crippling debt that Montreal 1976 closed.
Further along in 1988, the Canadian Olympic Committee was much more confident that we could win a WINTER Olympic gold medal in a country where winter is almost a sport in itself. Calgary in the Western Prairies was chosen and ready in time to welcome the Olympic events (along with the truly astonishing exhibition sport of “Disabled Alpine Skiing”). The weather was perfect and the final audit revealed a profit from the endeavour. Unfortunately, absolutely no one was smiling. Hosting the games and having even created a few of the sports being practiced, Canada finished 13th in the standing with only 5 medals, none of them gold. Compounded by a fourth place finish in Hockey, Canada quickly wanted to forget these games and succeeding federal governments were weary of ever hosting the event again.
When it came time once more to consider the possibility, the provincial and federal governments in Canada had to weigh the benefits (economic fallout, worldwide publicity, tourism visibility and dollars, the prestige of it all) with the ominous possible disadvantages (deficit, security risks, dangers of live presentations, weather problems, disappointing medal count). Quebec City thus failed to convince the International Olympic Committee of its bid for 2002 but Vancouver eventually defeated South Korea and Austria for the 2010 Winter Olympiads. The Canadian Olympic Committee now had experience on how to throw an exciting Olympiad with minimal deficit but something had to be done to assure the nation a gold medal on home soil to end a string of humiliating no shows on the top step of the podium. This is how the federal government got involved as soon as Vancouver was confirmed and the last 6 years saw the Canadian “Own the Podium” programme that injected massive amounts of funds into sports funding, recruitment and training. The result as you can see is quite evident in Canada’s best Winter Olympic standing of all time and the most gold medals ever won by a participating nation in any Winter Olympic Games.
Canada has seemingly broken its unique curse that accompanied the Olympic nomination but it now passes on the torch and the stress of performing to London for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games (A single medal, gold, in Vancouver) and to Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Games (Worst gold medal performance ever for 11th place in Vancouver including an earth shattering 6th place finish in Men’s Hockey). Good luck to the next organisers, Canada finally gets to sleep with its Olympic head held high (that is, until someone else in the country has the brilliant idea to bid for the games once again).
(PS: I dedicate this post to Karine Dion, enthusiastic friend and peer that kept the Facebook community on the edge of its seat for the past two weeks.)