As the curtain fell on the Games in Rio last night, we are left to reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly of those Summer Olympics.
The good is easily defined — the strikingly first-rate performances by Canada’s athletes, both in actual competition, but also in their behaviour and deportment, which was the class of any field, track or ring they graced.
On the medal front — four gold, three silver and 15 bronze — the Canadian effort can surely be judged a success for a nation where the colder sporting endeavours so often prove our stronger suit.
And praise indeed for our fabulous Canuck women, leading the way with 16 of those medals, and in doing so, again establishing this country as a power in the swimming pool. They did indeed, as Kipling once wrote, fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds’ worth of distance run.
But, heresy as it seems these days, winning isn’t everything. Holding yourself with grace under extreme pressure, while those around you flounder and flail is, if anything, more important. Medals are marvellous, but character never loses its sheen.
Yes, we Canadians managed this in a Games constantly speckled with controversy and pettiness.
As for the bad, well, the decision to allow various Russian athletes to compete – a country that engaged in state-sponsored drug cheating at its own Games in Sochi — was a shameful disgrace, tarnishing the entire Olympic movement.
Then, the host country announces that the Paralympics, which follow these Games, is going to be severely curtailed because they’ve frankly run out of money. Oh, and many of the so-called volunteers took the uniforms and goodie bags, and then were never heard from again.
Then, the ugly sight of athletes involved in make-believe gunpoint robberies, while others are banned from the final ceremony because of loutish behaviour.
Meanwhile, the local crowds, not simply content with cheering on their own heroes, thought it sporting to hurl abuse at anyone challenging a Brazilian for a medal.
Which brings us suitably back to Calgary and our city’s cautious first steps toward a bid for the Winter Games in 2026.
“From almost the moment that I was elected mayor, six years ago almost, citizens have been coming to me saying, ‘it’s time,'” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi in deciding to spend $5 million in exploring such an opportunity.
“It’s time in the worldwide Olympic movement; it’s time in the sport history of this city, and it’s time in the cultural history of this city for us to bid for another Olympic Games.”
We echo those sentiments, even during these tough economic times, where every dollar spent should be questioned. We expect that this feasibility study would be thorough, and itself an exercise in frugality, just as we’d also expect that, if ultimately successful, such a glorious event would mirror that cost consciousness.
The excesses of Sochi, and the likelihood of similar expense at the next Winter Games in South Korea in 2018, and then in China in 2022, should no longer prove the standard for the International Olympic Committee in choosing venues.
We have seen too much strutting and preening nationalism, inevitably leading to a legacy of empty, crumbling shell facilities.
Such excess didn’t happen in 1988. Countless Albertans and visitors enjoyed those Games, which made a profit of $140 million and left legacy facilities such as the Olympic Oval, Canmore Nordic Centre and Canada Olympic Park, which almost three decades later, are still in active use.
Yes, the city has grown, but we believe the volunteer sprit that transformed the event back then is still deeply rooted in our Prairie nature. Can, for example, anyone imagine Calgarians booing a competitor, because failure might lead to a Canadian gold?
Some will say we don’t need another Olympics. That we had our turn. Perhaps, but ask instead whether the Olympics might instead need Calgary.