The eyes of the world are on our country this month as Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics. The build-up to these Games has been like nothing Canadians have ever seen before as this year our Olympic officials and athletes have vowed to 'Own The Podium' and win a record number of medals. That vow has not surprisingly raised expectations among all Canadians that these Games will indeed be our greatest ever.
We do need, though, to keep these expectations in perspective. There is nothing wrong with a silver or bronze medal in the Olympics; it's a rare honour that should be treasured by athlete and fan alike. Yet, to hear some of the reaction to the inability to win a gold on Saturday's opening day of competition one might have thought these Games had already gone down a failure for Canada.Nothing could be further from the truth.Granted, the Games got off to a tragic start with the death of 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili who died after being thrown from his sled and hitting a steel girder in a training run Friday before the Games had even officially opened. His death put an obvious pall on the opening ceremonies later that night in Vancouver's B.C. Place. Combine that with the horrible weather which has delayed a number of events, and some may have been wishing that the eyes of the world were somewhere else.It took the inspirational story of Quebec freestyle moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau to bring all of Canada back to reality, along with, we suppose, heaving a giant sigh of relief, with his gold medal performance Sunday night. Along the way down Cypress Mountain, he also made history. After Canada had been shut out of top spot on the podium in the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics and the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, Bilodeau became the country's first athlete to win an Olympic gold on home soil. His run Sunday has already become one of those seminal moments in Canadian sports history, like Paul Henderson's goal in the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union or Donovan Bailey's sprint win at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games. And whether we go on to indeed Own The Podium or not, Bilodeau and the joy on the face of his brother Frederic, who has cerebral palsy, will go on to be an enduring Canadian sports image.As a country we should proud of all our Winter Olympic athletes, including the eight from Toronto who are in Vancouver, and the sacrifices they and their families have made to even reach the Games.