Disclaimer: This was last modified on 22nd of Feb 2018. I suggest catching up on the last few days of the Olympics after this. There are still important events going on.
The Winter Olympics are one of the cornerstones of Canadian athleticism. We always do well, and we are continuing to do well this year. As of the time of writing, we have 24 medals: 9 gold medals, 7 silver, and 8 bronze. This puts us at third with Germany (25) and Norway (35) ahead in total medal count, and third as well in gold medal count (Germany-Norway are tied at 13). Some interesting things are happening in the meanwhile: clean Russian athletes following the doping scandal are playing under the OAR (Olympic Athletes of Russia), and the joint women’s hockey team of North and South Korea are playing, the two countries having entered the opening ceremony under one flag. But let’s focus on Canada; we’ve been doing really well, so here’s a recap.
Our Olympic medal haul began on the 11th of February, where Justine Dufour-Lapointe took silver in Freestyle Skiing for the Ladies’ Moguls event with a score of 78.56, just 0.09 points behind the French champion Perrine Laffont. We did very well that day, also earning a silver and bronze from Max Parrot and Mark McMorris in the Snowboarding Men’s Slopestyle, and another silver medal in the Men’s Speed Skating 5000m. Ted-Jan Bloemen was just short of the first place finisher Sven Kramer from the Netherlands, but still raced very well.
On the next day, millions of Canadian fans’ hearts were won as the figure skating team took home the gold medal. The event team was composed of Patrick Chan, Gabrielle Daleman, Kaetlyn Osmond, Meagan Duhamel, Eric Radford, Tessa Virtue, and Scott Moir. Mikael Kingsbury also received a well-deserved gold medal in the Men’s Moguls, and Laurie Blouin of the Ladies’ Slopestyle snowboarding team brought another silver medal for our country’s total medal count. The following day was business as usual. We won the mixed doubles curling event thanks to Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris, and also claimed two bronze medals, one from Alex Gough from luge women’s singles, and Kim Boutin of short track speed skating 500m. A few days later on the 15th, Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford took bronze in the figure skating pair skating event, our luge team took silver in the team relay, and the highlight of the day was Ted-Jan Bloemen’s 10000m figure skating Olympic record, earning another gold medal for Canada.
As the Olympics were reaching their halfway point, we took home some more medals. On February 17, Kim Boutin secured yet another medal after finishing third in the ladies’ 1500m short track speed skating event, and Samuel Girard took the gold in the men’s 1000m rendition of the event. The next day, the men’s ski slopestyle bronze medal was won by Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, barely behind the competition. Something interesting happened the following day in the men’s 2-man bobsled. The German and Canadian team actually TIED for first place, down to the hundredth of a second! We did this back in 1998 with the Italian team, and I’m all for sportsmanship and good competition. Plus, it kept us in the race with them for medal count. The next day, our hearts were won yet again by the dream team of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. The Canadian duo claimed gold in the free ice dance event. Fun fact, apparently they began their training right here in Kitchener! We claimed yet another gold medal on this day: Cassie Sharpe in the ladies’ ski halfpipe, edging out the competition by more than three points.
As the Olympics flowed into its final week, we claimed two more medals on the 21st. The women’s bobsled team got third just behind USA and Germany, and Brady Leman won gold in the men’s ski cross. On the 22nd, Kim Boutin once again proved how good she is by taking silver in the ladies’ 1000m short track speed skating event. The men also took bronze in the 5000m relay in the same sport. Unfortunately we did have some heartbreak on this day. In a nail-biting shootout, we were just short of winning the women’s hockey gold medal. We were dominating for so long; in fact, the last time the Americans won was 1998, where they beat us.
Well that’s the recap; hopefully my medal count is right. Be sure to tune in to the rest of the Olympics. USA is out of men’s hockey so maybe we have a repeat gold situation set up. Congratulations to all the athletes; you make me really proud to be Canadian.
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