This article is in this mornings G&M, pretty much sums up Canada's sports media's cruelty toward the athletes. Apparently the writers have a defeatist attitude before everything even starts, how sad and pathetic.
[a href="vny!://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080813.wolymblatch13/BNStory/Front"]vny!://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080813.wolymblatch13/BNStory/Front[/a]
'My Globe and Mail colleague Matthew Sekeres describes being at an event where a young Canadian athlete was asked why she'd failed, and reacted with "a look like her puppy had died."'
"There was also the time, in 1976 at Innsbruck, that Canadian sportswriters decided the country's women had no chance in the giant slalom, with most skipping the tedious trip to the ski hills. Kathy Kreiner of Timmins, Ont., then all of 18, roared to a gold; the sportswriters, me among them, scrambled desperately to catch a bus to get to the victory press conference in time.[/p] There are dozens of stories just like these; if you haven't heard them, it's because we don't write 'em."[/p]"As predictable as death and taxes, every Olympics features the traditional "Canada chokes" story.[/p] Less well recognized (and certainly less well publicized) is the fact that almost as traditional is the "Sportswriter eats his words" story, such as the time at Albertville in 1992 that one fellow retired for the night, serene in the knowledge that the start of his piece ("I fell out of bed last night. I wanted to know what it felt like to be a member of the Canadian team at the Olympic Games.") would endure.[/p] Alas, by the time he fell out of bed again the next morning, Canadian TV audiences had watched Kerrin Lee-Gartner tear to a gold medal in downhill skiing."
It's the crazy sports media, cruel bunch.
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