By the primary 10 days of the Olympics, Canada had extra memes than medals. Extra gaffes than golds. Extra “oh no” than “O Canada.”
Canada didn’t win their first gold medal of the Video games till the ninth day of full competitors. In the meantime, the narrative centered on the Nice Curling Kerfuffle of 2026 and its accompanying viral on-line content.
However the Canadian comeback seems like it’s already nicely underneath means. There’s even an opportunity that Canada might go away Italy with extra medals than its noisier neighbor to the south.
To know how, now we have to first rewind to Canada’s greatest Winter Olympics embarrassment.
On the 1988 Calgary Video games, the host nation didn’t win a single occasion, ending with two silver medals and three bronze. (In Canada’s protection, these Video games had solely 46 occasions, in comparison with 116 immediately.)
However these Video games had glimpses of hope in occasions labeled “demonstration sports activities”. One such sport was curling, and the host nation took unofficial gold and bronze medals. The 2 different “demonstration sports activities” – freestyle snowboarding and short-track speedskating – additionally introduced Canadian success.
Because the Video games expanded, Canada’s medal tally grew even quicker. They accelerated their progress even additional with the “Personal the Podium” marketing campaign in 2005, and the funding paid off – when Canada hosted once more in 2010, they earned a then-record 14 gold medals and 26 whole.
By Tuesday, Canada has three golds and 12 whole medals. If occasions have been evenly unfold out, they’d be on tempo for some anemic tallies – one other four-gold efficiency, like at Beijing 2022, and 16 to 17 whole.
However occasions aren’t evenly unfold out. These Video games have had loads of occasions in Alpine snowboarding, Nordic snowboarding and biathlon, none of which have been anticipated so as to add to a Canadian gold rush. Neither have been luge and skeleton.
Since 1988, Canada’s biggest Winter Olympic alternatives have come within the demonstration sports activities of that 12 months – curling, freestyle snowboarding and short-track velocity skating. And there are nonetheless loads of medals at stake in these disciplines this week.
Already, freestyle snowboarding is main the best way for Canada with 4 medals – gold and silver for Mikaël Kingsbury, gold and bronze for Megan Oldham. Nonetheless to return: skicross phenom Reece Howden, halfpipe medalist Cassie Sharpe and the blended aerials staff. On the similar venues, Canadian snowboarders will contend for medals.
The one space that has lagged behind expectations is short-track velocity skating. Courtney Sarault has medaled in two particular person occasions and has one remaining, and he or she earned a 3rd medal within the blended relay. Steven Dubois and William Dandjinou have missed out on particular person medals regardless of making the finals, however they every have another particular person alternative plus the boys’s relay. Sarault additionally has one particular person occasion and one relay left.
The Olympic curling match continues to be in progress. The identical is true in ice hockey. Whereas Canadian groups there have had a number of missteps, they’ve loads of time for redemption.
The boys’s hockey staff, an amazing favourite to not less than attain the rostrum with NHL gamers again within the Olympic fold, had no hassle profitable their group. However the ladies’s hockey staff have been routed 5-0 of their first showdown with the US, albeit with out captain Marie-Philip Poulin, and wanted two objectives from Poulin to see off a decided Swiss staff 2-1 within the semi-finals. Thursday’s closing would be the seventh gold-medal assembly of the rivals.
On the curling ice, Canada’s blended doubles staff missed the playoffs with a 4-5 report. Then the ladies’s staff, who received consecutive world championships and dominated the world rankings since onetime rivals Rachel Homan and Tracy Fleury joined forces, misplaced to the underdogs from the US in addition to a less-experienced British staff and the highly effective Swiss contingent.
However Homan’s staff have rebounded, cruising previous China and a strong Japanese staff, then profitable a thriller in opposition to first-place Sweden on Tuesday to strengthen their possibilities of making the playoffs.
The ladies have misplaced some video games. The boys have misplaced some followers.
Whereas the game with the rocks and brooms was invented in Scotland, it’s greatest in Canada. Curling suits a optimistic stereotype of Canadians as people who find themselves unfailingly well mannered even once they’re standing on a sheet of ice.
That picture was shattered, although, when Canada’s males confronted off in opposition to defending Olympic champion Sweden on Friday. Marc Kennedy, a member of the 2010 staff that received gold on house ice in Vancouver, reacted angrily and profanely to an accusation by the Swedish staff that he had illegally touched a stone upon supply. When video surfaced that offered almost sure proof that Kennedy had certainly touched his finger to the granite after releasing the deal with, the Canadian response was to accuse the Swedish staff of illegally taking video contained in the curling venue – not precisely one of the simplest ways to try an exoneration.
Kennedy’s teammates additionally did Canada no favors. Whereas they stated they might completely get a beer with the Swedish staff in the event that they preferred – a standard gesture in a sport that has an unwritten rule that the profitable staff should purchase the primary postgame spherical of drinks for the shedding staff – they pointedly in contrast the groups’ data, saying Sweden was “pissed off” and “attempting to get in our heads a bit of bit”. Spherical-robin play continues by means of Thursday, with the boys’s closing set for Saturday and the ladies’s for Sunday.
Add all of it up, and Canada has a strong probability of profitable 10 to 12 extra medals, which might put their whole comfortably within the 20s. The possibilities of the Canadians raking in not less than 14 golds, as they did at house in 2010 – or reaching the double-digit totals of 2014 and 2018 – are ebbing. However getting caught at 4 golds, as they have been 4 years in the past in Beijing, is about as unlikely as Canada changing its curling golf equipment to bowling alleys.
Might they even catch the US? In whole medals, most likely not. The Individuals, who completed Tuesday with 21 medals, can most likely depend on extra in ice hockey, velocity skating and girls’s determine skating, with further probabilities in freestyle snowboarding and snowboard.
However by way of gold medals, Canada have quickly moved up since beginning the Video games with a protracted drought. Then the lingering narrative for Canada in 2026 would change from “curling controversy” to “Canadian comeback”.
Thanks for studying! Be part of our group at Spectator Daily
