2012 Olympics

What's the difference between Canadians and Americans?Americans want to win a gold medal. Anything less is failure.Canadians hope for fourth place, realistically expect eighth and are happy with twelfth.

We do have a different attitude toward the Winter Olympics. If we don't win a medal in hockey, it's a national disaster.(Allow me to put in a plug for Clara Hughes the only person on earth to win multiple medals in both Summer and Winter Olymics.)Edited by ringo, : Spylling.

Canada's 1996 Olympic gold-medal 4x100 relay team were all originally from Caribbean countries, including Donovan Bailey, our 100-meter gold medalist. I hope we're as eager to "own" all of our immigrants as we are those who shine bright on the international stage.(And we need to figure out how to attract more Australian immigrants.)

Remember the Jamaican bobsled team (see Cool Runnings) at the 1988 Calgary Olympics? I like the combination of "best in the world" with "everybody gets to participate".

Canadians are so polite that we always let the other guy go first. At the finish line it's, "Oh I'm sorry. After you."

I'm reminded of the 1996 Olympics when American Michael Johnson won gold in the 200 meters. He was touted as the "fastest man in the world" even though he was demonstrably slower than Canadian Donovan Bailey (whom I have mentioned earlier in the thread) who won gold in the 100 meters. In an earlier Olympics, when fellow American Carl Lewis had won gold in the 100 meters, he was called the "fastest man in the world".Americans seem to have a need to be the "best", even if they have to move the goalposts to do it.

As I've mentioned before (and I hope you haven't missed any of my posts), one of the nice things about EvC is that we get to define our own winning conditions. For me, I consider it a win if I learn something or, more rarely, if somebody learns something from me. I also consider a cheer a win. If I wasn't winning something, I probably wouldn't be here.I think the same applies to the Olympics. Different nations and different groups of people have different winning conditions. As I mentioned earlier, Canadians consider it a win if we do "pretty well". For small nations like Slovenia, any medal is a huge win.For my money, "most medals" is a pretty trivial win. It's a bit like saying, "I have more trees in my yard than you do." But if you want to go with that, that's fine.From my viewpoint, considering the events I'm most interested in, Jamaica won the Olympics, hands down.

I tend to see the Paralympics as something like motor racing - a testing ground for new technology. (That isn't just faster wheelchairs but also better ways of using what you've got and taking care of what you've got.) In my opinion, those sports that constantly improve our capabilities are more "worthy" than, say football, which is really just a game.

I would classify hockey as a game, as opposed to speed-skating which is a sport.I saw a game once in which the winning goal was scored in the last few seconds. The losing team protested on the grounds that the puck was pushed into the net. After reviewing the tape, the officials allowed the goal because the scorer had been tripped and only pushed the puck because he was falling at the time. The outcome of the game was decided based on two rather arbitrary rules rather than on anybody's skill.

I sense a trend.