A Life Reset

Even though there is one day of competition yet for the Beijing Olympic Games, Canada’s involvement has ended on Saturday with one more medal, silver for Adam Van Koeverden in the men’s 500m kayak race. That brings Canada’s medal total to 18 overall, its third best showing ever after the 44 medals won at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and 22 at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

By all measures, Canada as a team, exceeded expectations and predictions. Not everything went right for Canada. There were many disappointments like Marie Premont having to leave the women’s cross country race that she was favoured to win a medal. But these few disappointments were more than offset by the athletes who through skill, determination and in a few instances, a bit of luck, were able to exceed their best hopes for themselves.

I tried to keep up with most of the successes of the Canadian team as they occurred. What I could not see live or on delayed basis I followed up with the video section of the NBC Olympics site. My long nights and Internet surfing for Olympic results will take a spell now for 18 months until the 2010 Vancouver Winter games. Television as they say, will return to its regular braodcasting schedule.

What is for me, the most singular Canadian Olympic moment for these Games. There are several good moments. Seeing Eric Lamaze winning individual equestrian jumping gold after a history of failed chances dued to drug abuse was undoubtedly a feel good moment. So too was seeing his teammate Ian Millar finally winning an Olympic medal, silver in team jumping, after so many appearances in the Games since 1972. Carole Hyunh’s win emotional response in winning her gold in women’s wrestling was also gratifying.

Still, the moment that is indelible for me and one that will linger on after these games are long gone was seeing Simon Whitfield charging on the final stretch of the triathlon run, catching up with the lead group of four which included the world champion and then passing them to take the lead but then found himself overtake by a lanky German thus giving him silver. More than anything else, Whitfield’s drive to excel at these games which started immediately after a subpar Athens Game showing in 2004, showed what it takes to be the best in the world. In his mind, he was not satisified with just a personal best or a decent placing but rather he set out to win gold which he nearly did. With that determination, he showed other Canadian athletes that they should never be satisified with second best but drive always for the top of the podium. More often than not, they will not suceed in doing so but be never accused of giving anything else but their very best.

This has been a good Olympics overall and not just for Canadian athletes. There have been some great performances from athletes like Michael Phelps and Ursain Bolt. Quite a few good moments for viewing along with the ability to catch up with some sports that one sees just every four years like modern pentathlon and volleyball. There are quite a few sports that deserve more time on broadcast television like diving, rowing and some of the team sports. Problem is that American audience are conditioned to just getting the major league sports and college football on television. It is a pity that people do not have time for sport compilation shows like ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

Now, the clock starts anew for London in 2012.

Canada’s medals at 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

Gold (3):

• Carol Huynh - Freestyle Wrestling Women’s 48 kg (105.5 lbs.)
• Canada – Rowing Men’s Eights
  
• Eric Lamaze - Equestrian Individual jumping

So here it is after one week of competition.

So far it has been a pretty good olympics. Many of the compeititions have been exciting to watch to be sure especially on the swimming though from the coverage on NBC, it was more like the Michael Phelps show. Question is what NBC is going to do for coverage now that the swimming meets are over? There are no other individual stars like Phelps on the Olympic team especially for the track and event fields which should dominate coverage for the final week. Do expect, though, a heavy emphasis on the US men’s basketball team and its crew of NBA stars, aka the Redeem Team.

As for the Canadian, it was the typical slow start as many of the events to date are not Canadian specialities like archery and table tennis. That will change with more track & field and boat events as the week progresses. So far, the expected medalists have come through with a surprise or two. Ryan Cochrane bronze in the men’s 1500m swim was the validation that the swim team needed to keep the program going forward. The team posted many personal and national bests and the future looks promising for the future games. The rowing events, as usual, were a Canadian strength with a silver in the men’s pair, bronzes in the women’s pair and men’s lightweight four but topping them all was the gold in the prestige event, the men’s eight.

Still the highlight for the Canadian team was the gold medal won by Carol Huynh in the 48kg women’s wrestling. It is quite an accomplishment for her and the Canadian wrestling team as it also placed two other women in bronze medal matches winning one.

There were disappointments like the Canadian women’s soccer team falling in the quarterfinals, the diving team coming just a bit short but there will a next time for many of them

Still more opportunities in the days ahead for Canada to improve its medal standings. Perhaps, the people who were so despondent about seeing only 0 medals for the first several days of the games can lighten up a bit.

The television coverage has been pretty good for the most part even if it seems to be inordinately focused on swimming and beach volleyball on the primetime show. The other NBC networks seem to be picking up the load pretty good from what I have seen of it.

What has been a life saver for me was the video feeds of many of the ‘minor’ sports. That allowed me to see Huynh’s gold medal match and some of the rowing events. Given that television broadcast of much the other events happens during work hours, I take what I can despite that the on video has no spoke commentary just text.

I still have issues with the web sites. Still laggards on many of the results and not well organised or intuitive but I manage to make the most of it.

I am a Olympics junkie. For the past twenty years or so, I have been an interested devotee of the games and for most of the events no obscure it may be.

It has been quite a change from how I track the games events and results from 1988 to 2008. Back then, I was reliant upon whatever the CBC/CTV or the American networks carried on their braodcast which usually was just snippets of clips and focus on whatever the stars were for the event. If I was lucky, I could read about other events and see the stats for the events in the paper even if I knew the results well ahead of time.

Over the years, as computers and the Internet became more prevalent in our lives, I found it was easier to catch up with the results. In the late 90’s, the websites associated with the Olympic games or the network sites would have some stories posted along with the results. Not in real-time but usually ahead of what was printed in the paper the next day.

By this time, the games were seen as rating gold especially for NBC, and we start seeing more around the clock coverage allowing the viewers to see more sports even if was just the gold medal final.

By the 2000 Olympics, I had become throughly immersed in the Olympics as the games progressed checking on the results with a relentless spirt. With faster Internet speeds, seeing video whether live or even just highlight clips became a useful tool.

Now, in 2008, what do I have access to?

Not a great day for Canada on Monday’s actions at the Beijing Olympics. Another day without any medals along with some performances that were less than sub par in some cases, others better than expected but still short.

Many sports had medal events which Canada was not expected to do well like the lightweight weightlifting events. After a promising start in the pool, Canada fell a bit short in the qualifying heats for Tuesday’s events. On the other hand, the men’s 4×100, freestyle relay team gave a performance that shattered the Canadian record but still only ended up 6th which is an indication on far the rest of the world has advanced in the sport.

There were hopes on some performances that could have broken through like Anna Rice in women’s singles badminton who fell in the round of 16. Hopes too that Luan Jujie would find her winning form in the women’s foil but she drew the fourth best play in the world and she was out. There was some disappointments like Brent Hayden in the men’s 200m freestyle in swimming. He made a choice to conserve his energy for the later freestyle so he scratched himself from the semifinal. Whether he could have competed well enough for the medal event we will never know.

The biggest disappointment of them all though was the unexpected early departure of Daniel Nestor and his doubles team from men’s tennis. Being one of the highest ranked doubles player in the world, one would have expected him to go further into the competition. Now he going home.

Still it was not all bad. The men’s eight in rowing advanced directly to the finals. David Ford moved onto the finals in slalom kayaking.

Canada was expected to win some medals at these Olympics and as of yet, the events which Canadians were expected to vie for medals have yet to begin so there is no need to panic just yet but still it is difficult seeing countries like India getting medals while Canada is down at the bottom of the standings with countries like Cameroon and Fiji.

I wonder, though, that through my profiles if I am jinxing the team a bit. So just to appease fate a bit. I think I will hold off for a day or two on further profiles to see if Canada’s luck can change.

Sport: Fencing
Age: 50
Hometown: Edmonton Alberta

Medal Potential: Unlikely- Women’s Foil

Luan Jujie is a renown fencer though not so in Canada. In 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympic Games, she won Gold for China, its first fencing medal ever. For that feat, she is considered to be one of the top 50 athlete of the past 50 years in China.

She never duplicated that great success and in time she emigrated to Canada and started a fencing school in Edmonton Alberta. Becoming a Canadian citizen, she represented Canada at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney though she never got past the first round.

So she now returns to the land of her birth with a higher profile in China than any other of her fellow Canadians and accordingly be given much respect and honor there. Yet, it is not expected that she win a medal in her event. Rather, it is more of a recognition in Canada of what she has done for the sport of fencing in Canada. As a sport in Canada, fencing has never received much support or visibility but in recent years, there has been a determined effort by devotees of the sport to provide the training resources for up and coming fencers. Jujie school in Edmonton helps support that effort.

This year’s Olympics will see one of the largest group of fencers Canada will ever send to the Olympics. No member of the team is expected to win a medal but it is a base from which future teams will be built all because of devoted teachers like Luan Jujie.

Sport: Tennis
Age: 36
Hometown: Toronto Ontario

Medal Potential: Good- Men’s Doubles

Daniel Nestor is a rarity among the Canadian contingent at the Beijing Olympics. He has actually won an Olympic medal, Gold at the 2000 Sydney Games where he was doubled with Sebastien Lebrun. For several years, he has been among the top doubles player in the world. He won the 2008 Wimbledon doubles with Serbian Nenad Zimonjic giving him a career Grand Slam of all of the major tennis tournaments. His double pairing this year is currently ranked as number one.

Of course, the problem is that he needs a Canadian partner to actually play with and for this go around, he is paired with Frederic Niemeyer who is a decent singles player in his own right and has played with Nestor in several Davis Cup matches.

Nestor has the potential to win a medal in the event but that depends heavily on the seeding and draws. There are two potential road blocks in the Bryan brothers of the United States and the Serbian pair of Zimonjic and Novak Djokovic. Yet, it is such his skill and experience that he should be able to reach the semi-finals and possibly win his second Olympic medal.

Well, I watched the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Games. I think that the artistic half of the ceremony is the finest I have ever seen and I have seen several over the decades. Beautiful, graceful, dignified , this celebration of a country’s history and aspirations goes well to introduce the new China to the world. The use of the massive LCD screen on the field to paint scenes was an inspired touch. The flying of the acrobats through the air, the steady drumbeat, the quiet moments made this immensely enjoyable.

The same can not be said for the March of Nations. We have too many countries in the world. Two hundred plus nations, thousands of athletes take time to fill a stadium. Well over two hours but I personally checked out around the half way mark to keep up with the events that were occurring live in China. I saw the Canadians entered in along with other minor countries. I popped in then and again to see if it was done. Around 11:30, China finally entered the stadium so I watched the oath ceremony and then the torch lighting. Then it was back to the computer to get the latest updates.

As with every Olympics now, Sports Illustrated has come out with its selections for the medal winners for all of the Olympic Sports. As usual, many people take exception on why someone was not selected to win their event or even place or show. It is not that SI is considered to be the best predictor of the results. I think they may be hitting .600 or so but as fas I know, their picks carry a cachet that no other sporting media does.

So what does SI pick for Canada at the Beijing Olympics:

Gold:

• Adam van Koeverden – Kayak singles 500 meters
• Canada -Men’s Eights

Silver:

• Thomas Hall – Canoe singles 1,000 meters
• Adam van Koeverden – Kayak singles 1,000 meters
• Marie-Helene Premont- Mountain bike
• Karine Sergerie -Taekwondo Women’s 67 kg (147.5 lbs.)

Bronze:

• Eric Lamaze – Individual jumping
• Canada – Team jumping
• Karen Cockburn – Trampoline
• Calder & Frandsen – Rowing Pairs without cox
• Canada -Rowing Women’s Eights
• Sébastien Michaud -Taekwondo Men’s 80 kg (176 lbs.)
• Ivett Gonda - Taekwondo Women’s 49 kg (108 lbs.)
• Carol Huynh – Women’s Freestyle Wrestling 48 kg (105.5 lbs.)
• Tonya Verbeek Women’s Freestyle Wrestling 55 kg (121 lbs.)

Fifteen medals: 2 Gold, 4 Silver, 9 Bronze. The distribution of medals looks a bit strange. Who knew that Canada is a powerhouse in Taekwondo and Women’s wrestling. Noticeable by their absence are medals in the swimming and diving events. While the Americans are expected to dominate the swimming events as is the Chinese for diving, I believe that Canada will sneak out of the pool with at least 2 medals perhaps as many as 4.

Canada may surprise in the women’s soccer event and I have a good feeling that Gary Reed will come through in the 800m race. But if history is any indication, what surprise medals Canada gets outside of these predicted results will be offset by those who fail to live up to their expectations. So with that in mind, I think the overall total and distribution of the medals will come close to the predicted results. Who receives what is still to be determined.