My thoughts on the 2010 Winter Olympics

Five years ago, the Vancouver Organizing Committee announced the “Own the Podium” programme, designed to create world-class olympians ready to compete in Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics, a process that normally takes a decade.
The idea was that if we create many such athletes, we could dominate the olympics in total medal count, which would of course been a record-breaking event for Canada.
The bad news is we didn’t succeed.
But wait. There’s good news.
It was still a record-breaking olympics for Canada:

• The first time we won a gold medal as host country
• The first country to reach double-digit gold medals in these games
• The highest number of gold medals in these games
• The highest number of gold medals of any country in any Winter Olympics
• The first time we have had a three-gold-medal day
• The first time in nearly 50 years we beat the Russians at men’s hockey at the Olympics
• The highest number of total medals we have ever won at any Winter Olympics

In addition, of the top 10 countries these games, Canada was one of only 2 countries to have more than half of their medals as golds.
Well done, Team Canada.