Canada Nil Points
 

Just thought I would in a hot potato regarding Canada's dismal performance at the Summer Olympics so far since no one seems to be talking about it on the forums (unless I am blind).


I think this cartoon in the Sun today says it all



http://www.winnipegsun.com/Comment/C...8/15/dewar.jpg

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Perhaps no one is talking about it because it's not very interesting. We're not Canadians (except in law) and don't really know any Canadians so it's not something we'd notice.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Hold your head in shame admitting on the internet you read the Scum:D

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I'm not even interested in how the Brits are doing.

I love most sports, but I've never got excited by athletics events.

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We've had the equestrian channel on continuously but the only other sport mentioned on there is sailing. Canada could have won everything else for all we'd know.

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yeah but wait 'til 2012......wall to wall canadians then ;)

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We get the Winnipeg Scum (not the British comic) for free because of a local business paying for a wrap-around advertising cover, wouldnl't buy it otherwise.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

I've been watching it and reading it where I can.

I vaguely know a couple of the guys on the GB rowing squad, and one of the Canucks' coaches, so I've kept an eye on that. The Canadian men's 8 is tipped for a medal, and the coxless pair is looking reasonable too.

For all the complaining about the first week's Canadian performance, sure, there have been a few disappointments for genuine medal contenders (Shewfelt in the gymnastics, Brent Hayden in the swimming, Alexandre Despatie in the diving). But the performances by most athletes so far have been on a par with expectations, and in many cases they've reached personal bests. The media have been bleating - but not nearly as loudly as they did at the British performance in Sydney 8 years ago.

There's a reasonable shot at medals in the men's 800m, the K1 500m and 1000m flatwater kayak, and a couple of classes in the rowing.

Most of the real criticism I've seen has been of the funding and governing organisations in Canada. The boxers laid into the Canadian Amateur BOxing Association for the hopeless job they've done of promoting, developing and funding their sport. The cycling federation has come in for some of the same criticisms. As ever in these things, there's a success-breeds-success mentality: not just because the youngsters coming up the ranks have a strong and successful role model, but because centrally managed funding regimes tend to reward success with money (but, of course, you need to demonstrate success despite lack of funding before you see any development dollars).

As to the Brits... Somebody made a great quip the other day about the British success in these Games - with the notable exception of the swimming team, most of our medals are predicted to come from sports that you play while sitting down: equestrianism, cycling, rowing and sailing. How very British is that!!

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Oopps Sorry

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Having spent a couple of years working with elite Canadian athletes across 14+ sports (winter and summer), it's interesting to note that the $ per head spent on sport here compared to the UK and Australia, for example, isn't all that far behind.

Where Canadian sport struggles is the sheer cost of travel and distance involved for national level competition (this chews into budgets enormously), and a lack of national training facilities in comparison - many sports are fragmented which the provincial system only exacerbates.

Even at elite level, the Canadian social attitude to sport is still very apparent. The participatory model of involvement is still over-riding in many disciplines -there isn't the single minded hunger that the Aussies show. Few sports have anything more than occasional access to bio-mechanists, and other sports scientists, and many provincial level coaches are still unpaid or need second jobs to make it pay.

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Maybe they just need to employ more homeopaths. Or would fewer be more effective? I always get confused.

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I wasn't aware they employed any. Are you implying that biomechanics and sports science doesn't help improve performance? If so, reference please...

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I was just having a sly dig at RICH because he was advocating some sort of pseudoscience (can't remember if it was homeopathy, chiropractic, or both) in a previous thread. Hopefully he can just call me a rude name and be done with it as I don't think we want to drag all that up again.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

when does the darts start??

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I was assuming it'd be in the 2012 games to give the Brits a shot at winning something. Although aren't the Dutch the dominant force in this sport now?

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

I'm interested in your point about the participatory model. I can see this in team sports - the number of junior hockey and soccer leagues testifies to it - and maybe in some of the winter disciplines. But don't see the same thing in individual endeavour sports such as athletics, kayak/canoeing, boxing, cycling. They're hardly mass-participation sports anyway.

If Australia can manage to produce the results it does with a low population density, surely Canada ought to be able to? Granted, most of the Aussie population (apart from the WA folks) are clustered in the East and South-East, but by the same token most of Canada is a 100-mile wide strip next to the US border.

I completely agree with you on national training facilities/centres of excellence, however.

Calculations of $ per head, of course, are skewed by the fact that several of Canada's favourite sports require much more (relatively expensive) equipment than Brit or Aus stuff - hockey kit, skis, etc compared to a pair of goalposts or a cricket bat.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Aww, why not? It was such fun...

<ducks>

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****** ;)

Not advocating, just reporting my OH's experience. :)

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

The social dynamic here is one of appreciation for participation and effort, rather than winning being the be-all and end-all approach that our closest neighbour's support. It visibly carries over into the way talented kids are nurtured through the sports system here. It's a very difficult thing to change, as it requires quite a change in the population's attitude as to why sport is important.

Australia implemented an aggressive talent search program several years prior to the Sydney games - identifying kids in schools and whisking them off the the AIS in Canberra for intensive development. Not really dissimilar to the Chinese and Eastern Block countries approach 20yrs earlier, but with a more socially acceptable face. The AIS, and other national centres of excellence mean that Aussie talent doesn't get diluted around their States, whereas here, provinces operate independently and athelete's developmental opportunities can range from world class to non-existent.

The Aussies invested huge $ to create the system and infrastructure, whereas here it's very much a piecemeal effort. BC and Ontario have the best integrated development system, with Alberta a little way behind. The other Provinces and Territories offer very little structure. Canada is basing it's coaching development model on the best of the European and Australian efforts, but that means we're 10yrs late starting, so playing catch up.

The calculations per head have nothing to do with equipment costs, it's with regard to $ going into coaching and facilities. Hockey, BTW is way ahead of all the other Canadian sports with regard to funding. They don't really use to any great extent provincial or national $ to help with development funding. They're able to rely on corporate $ instead.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

fair point... TImmies to the rescue.

Thanks for the interesting explanation. So it seems that in sports as in so much else (foreign inward investment is a case in point from my own daily experience) the provinces are more concerned with competing against each other than with putting Canada forward as a nation. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, eh?

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

I don't understand all the hair-tearing and wailing that goes on in countries like the UK and Canada about the Olympics and their respective crap-ness at it.

We should recognise what our country is (i) interested in, (ii) good at, and (iii) participates in, and just accept that we're less likely to be good at the other stuff.

On any given weekend, the amount of British or Canadian people who participate in or watch athletics is absolutely miniscule compared to the amount of people who participate in or watch football, hockey, rugby, baseball, basketball... probably even horse-racing. So why do we expect to be good at it?

Everything else about sport seems to be 'free market', so I find it somewhat elitist that public money should be thrown at some minority sports - and athletics is a minority sport - and not others.

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Absolutely.

Another interesting thing to note is that here, the best coaches coach the best athletes. Youngsters inevitably get the lowest qualified coaches to nurture their ability. Other countries have turned this on its head, and offer the most experienced coaches to the youngsters, ensuring a better grounding in terms of technique and early development.

The National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) that the CAC (Coaches Assoc. of Canada) are implementing is a step in the right direction for Canadian sports infrastructure, but from what I experienced attending numerous policy and planning meetings with provincial sports organisations, huge amounts of time and money are wasted in beurocracy and duplication of reports/funding justification etc etc.

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Many minority sports simply wouldn't exist in terms of coaching staff, or facilities without some public subsidy. I don't think there's anything wrong with offering the opportunity for participation, even if ultimately gold medals are unlikely.

How you determine what's a fair level of expenditure is tricky. I carried out performance reviews with provincial sports, which contributed to determining their next round of funding. Participation levels, success/results, engagement with various bodies and funding partners were all part of the mix.

Some sports actively chose not to engage and be part of the process, knowing full well it would limit their funding. They traded off a lot of paperwork for independence, and will sink or swim depending on their ability to manage their sports growth and development on their own.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Actually I'm just hazarding a guess that this will be the GB's most sucessful Olympics ever. C'mon the cyclists, rowers, sailors and swimmers. Lets be honest, par capita the Brits do pretty well compared to most. I don't know why they get so much bad press.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Well, no, not really. GB's distinctly average.

Data for last Olympics:
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]?OpenDocument

Some up to date data that's tracking the current games:
http://www.billmitchell.org/sport/medal_tally_2008

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

I'm finding this more & more interesting (not unconnected with my 5-year-old's enrolment in a Sportball program, which he's really enjoying...). I've just read a book which was actually all about other stuff, but in the course of making a point the author mentioned the trade-off between developing athletes and building sportspeople. Specialising too young can be immensely harmful, yet a number of development squads won't even consider taking on 12-year-olds who haven't been single-sport specialists for three years.

And that's not to mention the challenges raised by the lowest grade of coaches (parents, often as not, helping out their kids' sports clubs) being expected to talent-spot and develop the promising youngsters when really their main interest is in getting a good win-record in that year's league.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

How does one explain India? A billion people, and the only got their first ever gold medal this year.

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First individual gold medal - they won the hockey many years ago. There is absolutely no culture of competitive sport in India except towards cricket - and that isn't an Olympic event - and hockey, though since the standard playing surface for internationals switched to astroturf and almost all pitches in India are grass, they're at a bit of a disadvantage there.

Their medalist is an air-rifle marksman from a wealthy family, whose dad built him an indoor shooting range in the backyard so that he had somewhere to practice, as there wasn't another facility nearby.

The vast majority of my (Indian) colleagues were barely aware that the Olympics were happening.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

You'll probably enjoy reading the Long Term Athlete Development Model (http://www.ltad.ca/content/home.asp), which Canadian sport follows.

Specialization is very much dependent on the sport, eg female gymnasts specialize perhaps as much as a decade before a shot-putter might. To have a broad cut-off point of 12yrs old is meaningless, and harmful. Many kids haven't fully developed motor skills, balance and coordination at that point, and there are always examples of early/late developers anyway.

Parental coaching is fine up to a point, as long as the parent knows their limitations and doesn't consider themselves the next Frank Dick.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

And Kabbadi which is a realy strange sport similar to tag but you have to hold your breath a lot - no seriously cos you have to say kabaddi all the time its your turn! But I still think the Brits will do really well. 2 golds in the sailing tomorrow! At least one more in the pool and a couple more in the cycling. We will probabllly win the triple jump too. Cmon Philips Idowu! A good old British name if ever there was one!

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Click on the 'Latest Programme' audio link (top right on the page, next to Andy Murray pic) for an interesting analysis regarding British sport success (or lack of it).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...is/7560358.stm

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Eureka! - You've knocked it on the head and just explained to me why the Canucks in my Volleyball team are a bunch of lackadaisical twats! It's in their mindset to lose every single point; clap mindlessly at a piss-poor attempt; and have the audacity to shake each others hands after losing 25-2 and say "Good game." WTF???

Mind you, it's in my mindset to curse at every one of them loudly and mime a deadly serious decapitation motion which they smile inanely at. ;)

Ain't cultural differences fun. :huh:

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I think you've missed the point. Volleyball is just a sanctioned form of ogling. Come on, how can you take seriously any sport where the official women's uniform is a bikini?

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

I don't know if you've attended many large sporting events here (like an NHL game, for instance), but my observation is that crowds lack passion and it's more about meeting a buddy, having a beer and a hot dog rather than being vociferous in support of your team. It always seems strangely subdued and a little bit genteel.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

The Canadians I've discussed the Olympics with think it is more important to have a healthy general population by encouraging participation in sport for everybody than for a few superstars to win a few medals. I can see their point. Vancouver is crawling with weekend triathletes, runners, bikers, hikers, kayakers, skiers, snowboarders etc and I certainly seem to see fewer lardy people here around town than in other cities.

Perhaps in Australia the population feels it is more important to be seen to be successful in sports on the international stage?

It's great to see Team GB members doing well after implementing training improvements and financial support for sportspeople, but why should we care how we compare to other countries in terms of medal tallies?

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It's their inferiority complex.

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Who said I'm being serious?

<Twitches Groucho moustache and duck walks off stage>

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

You must have been in the expensive seats. Most of the times I have seen the Canucks (at least, when they were good) I have been in the nose bleeds and the passion from the fans is not that different from the terraces in a Championship ground in England.

The one thing I do miss is the singing. I guess that is because most of the singing at a football (soccer) match is while the ball is being kicked around aimlessly in midfield. As soon as the team get onto the attack the singing breaks down into a vociferous roar. In hockey the puck rarely spends more than a few seconds in centre ice so there is no time to get much of a song going.

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As for the medal count, does anyone really care that much? It's the summer games. Canadians spend the summer camping by a lake and drinking beer. If there were a medal for that we'd be nailed on certs.

If we don't do well in 2010 there will be hell to pay.

Re: Canada Nil Points
 

Have you never attended a Flames game?:eek: