What a great first three days it has been for Canada and its athletes in Sochi Russia at the 2014 Olympic games. So far Canada has won a total of seven medals, one bronze, three silver, and three gold and the country seems poised to just keep adding to the total. After three days of competition, Canada sits atop the medal leaderboard. Canada has always been known as a winter country, I mean it snows and is cold for half the year, so it makes sense that we are dominant, but ever since Canada’s performance in the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver the athletes are still very hungry to prove to everyone else that Canada should never be taken lightly.
Canada’s Athletes Leave us Swelling with Pride
With all the controversy surrounding Russia and Sochi, the rumored scandals, the weird laws, the rumored threats, the way some of the hotels have turned out to be in poor condition, a lot of people were expecting a disaster, but once the games started everyone had a different perspective and once again the focus is on the athletes which is where it has always belonged in the first place.
The CBC has done a good job so far of showing us all of our Canadian athletes whether it is online, on TV, on our phones; we have been very fortunate to have access to all of it. I for one have been trying to watch as much of it as I can and have enjoyed every moment.
Lets run down Canadian Medal winners so far,
We have Charles Hamelin who won gold in men’s 1,500-metre short track in speed skating. It is his fourth ever Olympic medal (he won three in Vancouver), and with three events still to come, Hamelin could leave Sochi as the most decorated Canadian Olympian ever. Clara Hughes and Cindy Klassen currently share that honor with six medals each.
The sisters Justine Dufour-Lapointe and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe won gold and silver in the women’s moguls. A third sister Maxime Dufour-Lapointe finished twelth. This is an incredible accomplishment to have not only two sisters win gold and silver, but to have a third sister as part of the top 12 in the world as well.
In men’s moguls Alex Bilodeau won gold defending his title from the Vancouver game while Mikael Kingsbury won silver. With Marc-Antoine Gagnon finishing fourth, and Phillipe Marquis finishing ninth, we saw that Canada owns the moguls on both the men’s and women’s sides.
We have also seen Canada’s Figure skating team win a silver medal. This team consisted of Patrick Chan, Meagan Duhamel, Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue, Kevin Reynolds, Eric Radford, Dylan Moscovitch, Kirsten Moore-Towers and Kaetlyn Osmond who were all amazing to watch and makes me kind of excited for the next rounds of figure skating.
Last but not least is Mark McMorris who won bronze in Men’s Snowboarding Slopestyle despite competing with broken ribs. It was the first time slopestyle was part of the Olympics.
While all of these athletes have made us very proud, however they aren’t the only ones.
The Canadians who competed and didn’t win a medal deserve a round of applause, followed by a standing ovation and a glass raised to them. I am very proud of all of our athletes who have competed so far win, or lose. They have put their heart and soul into these games, all the effort and work, sweat and tears all the other clichés you can think of our athletes have done it. Because of this everyone who cheers on Canada, every Canadian who cares about the Olympics, should raise a glass and tip their cap to all of our athletes and show them how proud we truly are, I know I have and will continue to do so, keep it up Canada, Go Canada Go!
