Roto Baseball Guru

There has been many incredible feats accomplished during these Olympic games in Beijing.  I have already highlighted a couple of these feats in a previous post and there are many more that I haven’t mentioned and probably won’t get to mention as well.  The Olympics creates many memories and stories that touches the fans in different ways.  For me, it is usually the surprise stories of incredible feat that creates a lasting image in my memory.  In these Olympics, this lasting image of incredible feat is hands down - Usain Bolt’s achievement of the sprint triple crown of gold.

Unlike Michael Phelps, which had the American media machine hyping him up and making him a household name, Usain Bolt was a virtual unknown coming from the small island of Jamaica.  There was no real hype around him and to the casual fan and most of the people watching the Olympics, the name of Usain Bolt was not known to anybody before his 100m race.  In fact for that race, it was his country man, Asafa Powell that was widely viewed as the favorite to come away with the gold.  That quickly changed after Usain Bolt obliterated the field and won the 100m in world record time of 9.69 seconds - earning him the nickname of “Lightning Bolt”.

As if earning the title of “World’s Fastest Man” was not enough, lightning struck twice more at the Bird’s Nest (the venue where the track and field events were held) with Bolt winning gold in the 200m sprint as well as the 4×100m relay in world record times.  This is a feat that has never before been accomplished before and may never be touched again.  In the journey of winning the sprint triple crown and doing so in such dominating and flamboyant fashion, Usain Bolt has made people pay attention to track again.  After being plagued with an era of drug abuse and steroid use, Usain Bolt did what many previously thought was impossible and he did it in such an electrifying way that you cannot help but appreciate it.  Track and field needed a hero and Usain Bolt came to the calling.

Some circles, including IOC President Jacques Rogges, has criticized Bolt for his flamboyant victory celebrations and indicated that as unsportsmanlike and showing up the other athletes.  As a fan however, I would disagree with this statement and have no issues with how Bolt has celebrated.  It is no different than many other celebrations that I have seen in professional sports such as a victory dance after a football player scores a touchdown or when a hockey player scores a goal.  Even at the Olympics, I have seen many other athletes (mainly the Americans) celebrate in a similar fashion as well.

No, Usain Bolt’s character shouldn’t be questioned here and his celebrations are a genuine display of the joy he felt as well as acknowledging the incredible feats that he accomplished.  And to show the type of character he is, after winning his 3 gold medals, Bolt donated 50k USD of his sponsorship money to the Red Cross of China in a joint event with Chinese beauty and Miss World 2007, Zhang Zilin.

From unknown to international celebrity in a span of a week, success and fame does have it’s price.  But with Bolt’s personality and desire for the flair, I am sure he will rise to the occasion. 

If you ask most people outside of Canada, what they think of Canadians, they’ll usually tell you that we are: polite, humble and giving society.  We’ll always be the first ones to say that we’re sorry, we do not usually boast or self-promote and we usually give credit to our competitors.  I am not saying that it is right or wrong, but just stating a more general observation that I have seen.  For these reasons, it was perhaps a bit out of character for Adam Van Koeverden, one of our brightest Olympic gold medal hopefuls in the 2008 Beijing games, when he made some recent comments regarding Michael Phelps.

After Phelps succeeded in his goal of winning 8 gold medals in these Olympic games, the media was hot and heavy in asking any and all athletes regarding their thoughts on this incredible feat.  When the question was posed to Van Koeverden, he gave the standard praise and pleasantries to Phelps, but also added a slight caveat to his response.  He stated that although Phelp’s feat was incredible, swimming is a sport where you could basically excel in one technique or discipline, and have multiple opportunities to win a medal.  For example, if you were a brilliant short to middle distance freestyler, you have to opportunities to win 6 medals of basically the same discipline: 50m, 100m, 200m, 4×100m Freestyle, 4×100 IM, 4×200 IM.  There really isn’t any other sport that rewards an athlete so many opportunities to basically excel at the same thing.  Furthermore, Van Koeverden indicated that if his sport of kayaking had additional events of varying distances i.e. 1500m, 2000m, 2500m, 4×500m relay, etc, he would be in the running for 5 to 6 medals as well.  Given Van Koeverden’s recent dominance of the sport and his world record time in his qualifying heat, I have no qualms with the little trashing talk and confidence that Van Koeverden exuberated.  In fact, as Canadians I feel that we are too “polite” at times and don’t necessarily have that killer instinct necessarily to succeed in competition and we are all too often in the “just happy to be here” mentality when it comes to the Olympics.  Sure that maybe the safe thing to say, but in all honesty athletes live and breathe to compete and along with that, to win.  So the rhetoric behind not wanting or caring about winning is really a farce.  So let’s call a spade a spade and I would step up and applaud all competitors that are willing to take the beats when they talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.

Perhaps it was only karma then, that after Van Koeverden made his not-so Canadian comments, he went out and had probably his worst race of the past four years, coming 2nd last (8th out of 9 competitors) in the finals of the K-1 1000m event, where he was heavily favoured to win gold.  He had no explanation for his disappointing performance, other than stating that he just didn’t have it that day and was clearly devastated by the results.

Canadians don’t trash talk, because when they do, they usually choke when it comes time to back it up.  I have no explanation for it, other than the theory that there are larger powers at play here.  Regardless of the conspiracy theory though, the story did have a luke-warm ending, as Van Koeverden bounced back from his dismal performance and earned a silver medal in the K-1 500m, another event that he was favoured to win gold in and most recently set a world record in his qualifying heat. 

This was not the result that Van Koeverden, hoped, trained and competed for … however the result is still something that he, and Canada, can be proud of.  He made a good point during one of his closing interviews that in sport, there is never ever guarantees.  Just because you are picked to be the favourite, you still need to show up and compete at your best on that day, to meet the expectations that has been set on you.  Perhaps this is the truest statement that he made, and very typically Canadian.  Maybe if he did not make those statements regarding Phelps, things would have ended up differently.  You never know … karma can be a very powerful force!

Regardless of the disappointing results, Canada is still very proud of you Adam … and yes, that’s very Canadian for me to say that as well.

With all of the feel good stories that have developed in the Olympics thus far, it is inevitable that there would be some disappointments as well.  The largest one of these games will undoubtedly be Liu Xiang’s withdrawal from the 110-meter hurdles, before running his first race.  There are many reasons why this story would be considered one of the larger disappointments, but one single point dwarfs them all, which is the reality that the entire nation of China weighed on Liu Xiang, and that many of the over 1 billion people in China are devastated by the results.

Now that may seem a bit dramatic, however there is substance to that claim.  There is reason why his coach could not hold back tears during the post-race press conference when explaining Liu’s injury.  There is reason why just about every member of the Chinese media were in tears during that interview.  There is a reason why the crowd at the Bird’s Nest (the Olympic stadium hosting the event) let out a shriek when they heard of Liu’s withdrawal and after moments of stunned silence, they exited the stadium.  There is a reason why volunteers and security personnel alike where seen in tears around the stadium.

When Liu Xiang won the gold in the 110-meter hurdles 4 years ago in Athens, it was the first time a Chinese male won a gold medal in track and field.  In a sport where it’s been widely believed that the physique of a typical Asian does not stack up with the rest of the world, Liu Xiang was able to bust this myth and capture the hearts of an entire nation.  Every day since that memorable feat, the expectation and desire for Liu Xiang to repeat in Beijing, the capital of the nation he represents, grew to an immeasurable size.  You see, the Chinese are a very proud people.  As a Canadian born Chinese, I can speak to that first hand from my own upbringing and the traits of my parents.  In a time where China itself is beginning to seek acceptance on the global stage, Liu Xiang’s previous accomplishments represented the possibility for hope, and breaking through the typical misconceptions and stereotypes.  Here was a Chinese man succeeding in a genre, let alone sport, where none other has done so before him.  Whether it’s fair or not, the burden and expectation of an entire nation was on Liu Xiang this time around, willing him to show to the world once more that China does belong on the global stage.

With this in mind, and the knowledge that the entire nation was behind him, Liu Xiang pushed forward.  He willed himself to bear the pain of his injury and decided to at least give the race a try, even though he was sporting an injury to his Achilles tendon that should have kept him out for at least a month.  When it was all said and done, there was no fairy tale ending this time around.  No heroic feats that could bend the reality of the situation.  No, in the end there was only tears and disappointment, as well as the constant what-if and what could have been.  Alas, at times Olympic moments may be magical and uplifting, but like any other fairy tale relationship, it can also break your heart.  Keep your head up Liu Xiang, the nation still loves you.