Note: The Olympic Cauldron in Sochi has been extinguished, waiting to be re-lit two years from now in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. But I am still trying to catch up on my writing. I hope to have another couple of blogs up in the next few days.
The last few days have not been kind to the US Olympic team in their battles with the mostly friendly rival to the north, Canada. On Wednesday, the Canadian women's 2-man bobsleigh team of Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse overcame the 0.23 second lead held by the US team of Elana Meyers and Lauryn Williams after two runs to win the gold medal. On Thursday, the Canadian women's ice hockey team scored two goals in the final 4 minutes of regulation to tie the score against the Americans. They scored again in overtime to take the gold medal for the 4th consecutive Olympics. Finally, on Friday, Jamie Benn scored on a deflection in the second period and the Canadian team held on for a 1-0 victory to move them into the gold medal game against Sweden. But the Canadians weren't done yet. The Canadian men's team pursuit speed skating team of Mathieu Giroux, Lucas Makowsky and Denny Morrison (the same team that took the gold medal in Vancouver against the Americans) blew the American team of Shani Davis, Brian Hansen and Jonathan Kuck off the oval in the preliminary round, winning by a margin of 3.52 seconds over the 3,000 meter distance.
There is a tendency in the media to read too much into events like these. No, this is not evidence that the nation of Canada is superior to the United States. The team of Meyers and Williams and the women's hockey team both claimed silver medals. While some look at the silver medal as a sort of consolation prize, I, for one, would be thrilled to be the second best in the world at anything.
I think that these discussions miss the point. If you are, or even if you aspire to be, a world-class athlete, you want to be measured against the best in the world. How else do you learn what is required to progress to your goal? In 1992, the National Basketball Association assembled the Dream Team to go to the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona. That team, with 11 future Hall-of-Fame members, was easily the best basketball team ever assembled. Beth and I saw them play at the Tournament of the Americas in Portland when they had just put the team together. They were awesome! Despite still learning how to play together, their average margin of victory was 51.5 points, including beating Venezuela for the Championship by 47 points. Then they went on to Barcelona. In eight games, their average margin of victory was 43.75 points including a 68 point victory over Angola and a 32 point victory over Croatia in the gold medal game. There were a lot of comments in the press that the US had made a mockery of the Olympics by sending such a strong team. This was ironic because when the idea of sending professionals to the Olympics was brought up in 1989, the US voted against the idea. In reality, it was the nations like Angola which voted for the proposal. Their reasoning: How are we ever going to improve unless we play against the very best? The wisdom of this approach is clear; the rest of the world has caught up and the US is no longer the dominant basketball power. Playing the best has made them stronger.
So it will be for these Americans. After a while, the sting of defeat will go away. If they are the kind of people that I think they are, they will take the lessons learned home with them, work hard and come back in four years better than ever. With the possible exception of Shani Davis, who is reaching the end of his athletic career, I fully expect to see all of these teams in PeongChang, Korea in 2018!
And hopefully you'll be there!
ReplyDelete