 Posted
8/10/2012 2:01:00 PM
The Olympics are winding down. While we wait to see who will carry the flag in the closing ceremonies, perhaps we should ask some tough questions. One might be, what expectations to we have of the athletes we send. What are we prepared to do to earn more gold and face facts, gold is what we want. As it sits we have one gold, five silver and 11 bronze. Right off the top of your head can you name the kid who won the gold? Or the sport? Exactly my point. We want a lot but we don’t seemed very prepared to help in the cause.
If we expect athletes to bring home the gold then we have to be a tad more invested. If we want the best from them we should surely expect to give them the best coaches, trainers, nutritionists, facilities, etc. The whole idea that athletes train to compete AND work to live seems contradictory to me. How can we expect so much from them if we tie their shoelaces together? As a rather large nation we must surely be able to cobble together some decent athletes. And it’s high time we stopped excusing our lack of interest by suggesting we’re a winter nation. B___S___!!
When we built the Montreal Olympics we started a lottery that was supposed to help amateur sports. Well I have no idea where that money actually ends up but maybe we need to take all of it and put it toward a real push for gold. After all there are millions of lottery tickets sold every week. Tha's gotta be a ton of dough!! Start identifying and training kids in school, encourage athletes to stay in the sport by making sure their life commitments are met. You don’t have to be lavish, but surely Cheerios and a roof would be nice.
Sunday will come and we’ll cheer our effort and then excuse our effort. These kids bleed for this country, the least we should do is give them a hand. They shouldn’t end up as starving artists looking for handouts when all is said and done. We should celebrate who they are. Hell we should know who they are, even before they go. The Yanks know their athletes. Yanks go crazy for games and it shows. Let’s take a lesson from our neighbours. I’ve got five bucks says we could beat them if we got invested!!
BTW it’s Rosannagh MacLennan for trampoline!!
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