July 26, 1996
Why so glum, Canada?
A SLOW START IS NORMAL FOR US; LOOK OUT FOR SUPER SATURDAY
By TERRY JONES -- Team Sun
ATLANTA - Greg Greenough feels like the Maytag repair man.
He sits there at 11 Baker St. at Canada House waiting with the champagne on ice for the special ceremonies they have planned for each of our Canadian Olympic medallists.
And nobody has come by yet.
The secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Olympic Association is the director of Canada House at these Olympics.
And in the absence of any gold medals, he's been a real gold-bricker.
But he's a patient person.
"I'll have some company soon,'' he says.
"Curtis Myden and Marianne Limpert can't come until the swimming is over. And Clara Hughes had to return with the cyclists to train for another event. She'll be here eventually,'' says the former treasurer of the Edmonton Eskimos football club.
CHAMPAGNE ON ICE
"All the champagne is still on ice. We have their highlights taped to show and we have a little presentation to make to each of them.
"And I'm sure we'll be real busy with a lot more medallists here real soon.''
And he will.
Soon. Real soon.
Super Saturday is almost upon us.
Which is to say, keep your pants on, Canada.
What's that all about, the moaning and groaning we hear is going on back home?
The reports we're getting from Canada - particularly from all-knowing Toronto - insist that fans are frustrated with only one silver and two bronze medals so far in these Olympics.
Apparently there are people who are already saying the Games have been a bust for Canada.
Say what?
And apparently the phone-in callers to talk shows are mostly moaning about the lack of medals (although there is some thought that now Cito Gaston has been rehired by the Blue Jays they'll get back to their favorite hobby of Cito-bashing).
Get a grip.
Maybe you all figured we were going to win 30-some medals like the CBC's Ron MacLean.
But he's a hockey puck.
OK, so we had to wait until Limpert's silver medal to pull ahead of Armenia, Costa Rica, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Slovakia and Georgia (the country, not the state, as the state, I believe, is ahead of us), which is a tad embarrassing for a country with a 306-person Olympic team.
KNEE-JERK REACTION
But it's the way it always is. And it's always knee-jerk back home.
Anybody remember Seoul?
Day Six. No medals.
Day Seven. Ben Johnson.
Three days later, scratch that one.
How about four years ago in Barcelona?
Day Five. Nothing.
Day Six. Nicholas Gill.
Day Seven. Mark Tewksbury.
Yesterday was Day Seven of the Games of the XXVI Olympiad.
The Summer Olympics just aren't scheduled for Canada to get out of the gate great.
We're always guaranteed to get off to a bad trip.
If CBC paid the money that NBC pays for TV rights, maybe Canada could do something about that. NBC, which has now matched the world record for all-time, make-you-want-to-throw-up jingoistic coverage, is going to make sure there are American medals out there somewhere every single day.
Unless you count the 44 at the boycotted Los Angeles Olympics (and you can't because, with all the Iron Curtain countries boycotting, most of our medals were made out of fool's gold), we're on pace to equal the 18 medals we won four years ago in Barcelona.
And we've never done better than that.
We won 11 in Montreal in '76 and we won 10 in Seoul in '88. We could match both those totals by the weekend.
Super Saturday is a day away. One more sleep. So take a sleeping pill and wait for it.
Canada should win five or six medals tomorrow. It could be the all-time mother lode of medals.
Silken Laumann in rowing. Marnie McBean and Kathlene Heddle in rowing. Derek Porter in rowing. Tanya Dubnicoff in cycling. Anne Montminy in diving. And Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin in the 100 metres.
A silver and three bronze are way ahead of schedule for Canada at these Olympics.
We're two medals ahead of my personal projections.
I called it six gold, six silver and six bronze and I'm sticking with my pick. I figured a medal in the pool and a medal at cycling to this point even with a chance of being shut out entirely before Super Saturday.
But if you're one of those people calling the talk shows bitching and complaining about "only'' three medals so far, why don't you place the call to your member of Parliament instead?
WAIT FOR THE WEEKEND
If you don't like the way this feels, ranking down there with Lower Slobovia, waiting for the weekend, wait eight years for the Games of the XXVIII Olympics in Rome or Beijing or wherever they put them.
If you want to wave the flag and put people on the podium, you have to pay for it, and government has turned off the tap.
In eight years we could be back with Armenia, Uzbekistan and Moldova going into the final weekend, winning between one and six medals every Olympics just like we did every Olympics from 1948 in London until 1976 in Montreal.
Chew on that this weekend.
And quit your complaining.
