I’ve never been an avid follower of any particular sport.
I did tune-in for this year’s Superbowl and the NBA All-Star Weekend, and I’ve caught several game-changing UFC fights in the last few months. I’ve also been known to watch the occasional football or lacrosse game in Calgary thanks to a hook-up to free tickets. And I enjoy them.
But I can’t rattle off names of players or years they’ve been with a certain team or even many teams’ hometowns without a quick Google search for confirmation. I also wouldn’t remember how a certain team played the year before and probably not the score of the last game either. I know that confession makes me vulnerable to the avid sports fans out there, but I’m just being honest.
That being said, I’ve been following the Olympics pretty religiously - by my standards - this year. I haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly what my new-found sports curiosity is, but I think it has to do something with the fact that the world’s best athletes are all in one place, showing off their power and speed in some of the most physically challenging events in the sports world.
The sporting events themselves would be difficult to perform under the most ideal circumstances, let alone, competing against the best of the best with a lot of expectations to live up to.
I think part of my intrigue is that I’m able to live vicariously through the Canadians that are in Sochi, Russia right now. The other day as I was plugging away on the treadmill at the gym, the women’s ski jumping was playing on the TV. I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking here I am putting one foot in front of the other on a self-propelling plain, while this woman about my age is propelling herself 140 metres in the air almost face-first.
So then I got to thinking, what’s going through her mind at that moment, knowing this is the big day that countless hours of hard work, blood, sweat, tears and everything in between has gone into? It also must be a pretty empowering feeling not only for the ski jumpers, but every other Olympian to know that millions of other winter sports enthusiasts have strapped on their skates or boots in the hopes of one day representing Canada in the Winter Games, and here they are.
That also makes me wonder what separates Olympians and medallists from the rest of highly-skilled athletes. Does it have to do more with genes and fitness level or access to the best kind of training? For many of the Winter Olympic sports, I think family encouragement and support to begin training young is one of the biggest components.
Considering most of the athletes in the sports of luge, speed skating and cross-country skiing, for example, are already well into their training of the sport by their mid-teens, age is an important factor that I don’t think anyone overlooks. Gabrielle Daleman, a figure skater from Toronto, Ont., is Canada’s youngest athlete competing this year and she just turned 16 in February.
Watching the Winter Games, it looks like an athlete taking their spot on the podium is a pretty emotional moment for the parents too.
I can imagine the time and financial investment for them has been big too, but well worth it.
So to our 220 Canadian competitors in 14 Winter Olympic Sports: good job, we’re cheering for you, medal or not.
And, thank you for getting me interested in following sports.
