World, Mostly Turning

Eeeeeeeeee! Canada and the U.S. are tied for gold in the team show-jumping competition. They're going to a jump off, and I found the live feed on the CBC website.

Canada hasn't medalled in an equestrian event at the Olympics since 1968. Ian Millar, veteran of nine Olympic Games, has never medalled.

This is going to kill me. Why are the Olympics not a two-week national holiday?

ETA: The U.S. won the jump off--Jill Henselwood had one rail down. Oh well! Still--a silver medal! ::squees some more::

My parents took me to the Montreal Olympics in 1976. I had wanted to see either gymnastics or diving, but they couldn't get tickets to those very popular events, so instead I watched a day of track and field. I remember that it was a broiling hot day, we got terribly sunburned, and that we had crepes for dinner at a restaurant before going back home. I saw Greg Joy win his silver medal in the high jump (Canada became the first host country not to win a gold medal at its own Games that year, so the silver was rather a big deal), I think I saw Edwin Moses run the 400-metre hurdles, and the phrase "Cold beer, bière froid" became forever engraved in my consciousness from listening to the vendors hawking their wares in the stands.

And I've loved watching track and field events ever since.

I found out, completely by accident, that the Canadian Track and Field Championships were being held in Ottawa this weekend. It is a mark of how little support this sport receives in this country that the event was almost totally unadvertised and was held in a stadium with bleachers not unlike what you might find behind a high school. I had to pick my father up from the airport on Friday and his plane was delayed by two hours, so I used the opportunity to breathe in a little track dust. It made my day. Jim was in town this weekend, so I dragged him down for several more hours on Saturday. Among other things, we watched Perdita Feliciens win the 100-metres hurdles by the narrowest of margins (she was favoured to win the event in Greece, but went down on the first hurdle in the final) and Nicholas Macrozonaris come first in the 100-metre sprint. Donovan Bailey--past Olympic gold medallist and ex-training mate of Nicholas's--used to call him Nicholas Alphabet because he could never remember his surname. :-)

Saturday was the tenth anniversary of the men's relay team's win at the Atlanta Olympics. Track and field events are so very not Canada's strength, so this was cause for much excitement at the time. The event organizers reunited the relay team--Carleton Chambers (who ran in the heats and semi-final, but not the final), Robert Esmie (who shaved "Blast Off" into his hair for the race and again this weekend), Glenroy Gilbert, Bruny Surin, and Donovan Bailey--for the occasion. They drove out in a stretch limo, gave a little speech, then hung around afterwards for autographs. I got them to sign our tickets and already have them framed and hanging on my wall.

I am well pleased.

Surprise winner of the cross-country ski sprint. Cutest. Olympian. Ever. And her mother is exactly the same. I just want to eat them all up. :-)

So one of Canada's Olympic rowers is named Buffy. Her last name? Williams.

Hee. :-)