Olympic autopsy (part two)

It's customary at the end of an Olympic Games for the IOC President, in his closing speech, to proclaim the Games 'the best ever', much in the way that the judges on American Idol always gush that 'this season is the best season ever,' no matter what the contestants do. Current IOC president Jacques Rogge was damning with faint praise though, commending Vancouver's Games as being 'excellent' and 'friendly' but stopping short of labelling them as the best Games ever.

I too was somewhat underwhelmed after the first week of competition but I was won over during week two, when each day seemed to provide incident, intrigue and interest in seemingly exponential measure, culminating in that closing ceremony. A flood of Canadian gold probably helped too, and it was the Canadian public's reaction to that success that was, for me, the most interesting aspect of the Games.

An increasingly common theme in the media here was Canada's 'rebirth' as a nation that was finally unafraid to wear its patriotism on its sleeve, Olympic success paving the way for a new brand of confident, unashamed tub thumping, the type in which Canadians had always been reticent to indulge. Many of the retrospective montages so beloved by television companies during or after any major sporting event have focused as much on the spectators as they have on the athletes, and one that I saw on CTV this week proclaimed that the greatest legacy of the Games may be that the cultural and political divides that have historically existed between the provinces may now become a thing of the past.

Now, whilst I would agree that the nation did indeed seem to come together during the Olympic period, I think it will take more than fourteen gold medals to wipe out 150 years of provincial differences. Time will tell on this issue, but even having said this, I have always found Canadians to have a great sense of national pride, and I hope that the effect of the Olympics has not been to create a new brand of American-style, in your face breast beating patriotism.

That would be a very high price to pay for ownership of the podium.