I have been ranting to whoever would listen for the past week that I am not the biggest fan of the Olympics. This has to do with amateur athletics, which is a whole other topic for another day...BUT, last night was special for Canadians because one of our own decided to be the best - finally.
It took two Olympic games and three days into the third for a Canadian to win a gold on home soil. The victory in men's moguls for Alexandre Bilodeau will go down in Canadian sporting lore. He will take his place among the great Canadian athlete's of all time because of his amazing run down the slope at Cypress Mountain.
Alexandre almost wasn't the man. The night before, gold medal favorite in the women's moguls, Jenn Heil did all she could to hold the honour of being the first Canadian athlete to win on home soil, but she was foiled by the last skier of the night. So, the stage was set for Bilodeau and he came through for Canadians from Newfoundland to Vancouver and everywhere in between.
When we now think of athlete's to represent Canada, we can put Bilodeau up with the likes of Gretzky, Steve Nash, Barbara-Ann Scott, Rick Hansen and Terry Fox.
What other athlete's will we think of the next time Canada hosts the Olympics and we need to pick a famous person to light the cauldron (assuming that we can get the cauldron to work)? Besides the names listed above, we could think of Paul Henderson or maybe Russ Jackson?
Who would you put on a list of greatest Canucks of all time?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.