Competing at our best

Much has been written about Canada’s less-than-stellar Olympic performance.

Instead of own the podium, pundits, particularly from south of the border, are saying we’ve blown the podium or flown the podium.

With just 11 medals as of Wednesday morning, the country’s performance will undoubtedly be the talk of the esports pages for the next few weeks at least, as so-called experts over-analyze what went wrong in Vancouver – and just what we got for the $110 million of government money we invested in the Canadian plan to lead the overall medal parade.

Obviously, barring a sports miracle, there’s no way that’s going to happen now. We likely won’t even come close to the 24 medals we won in Turin four years ago.

Our speed skaters have been a bit of a disappointment, our alpine skiers, who got $10 million from the feds, brought home nary a medal. Super Sunday was a national letdown, to say the least.

As one Sports Illustrated columnist opined, we’ve become a fourth to be reckoned with in these Games of near podium misses.

The naysayers are missing the point of the Olympics – the spirit of competition. Win or lose, the country’s 200-plus athletes at the Games have been given a chance to show their best against the best.

Unfortunately expectations were hyped beyond realistic expectations this time.