Article content

I caught the bug on a September day in 1960. Once you catch it, it never entirely goes away.

I caught it, as millions have, by watching the Olympics.

For an American that summer, the Rome Olympics were an inspiration: Gold medals went to decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph and a loud-mouthed boxer named Cassius Clay, who would become Muhammad Ali, my personal hero.

Article content

High jumper John Thomas lost to the Soviet jumpers, but that just sparked my determination. I had a goal that was crystal clear from the start: One day in the not too distant future, I would make the U.S. Olympic team as a high jumper.

I jumped on my bike, rode to the track, scaled the chain-link fence and trained until I was so exhausted I flopped on my back in the infield, staring at the stars and imagining how it would go — the leap over the bar, the medal podium, returning with the gold medal around my neck to adulation in my hometown.

I failed. Miserably. I managed to accumulate two state championships, a state record, a track scholarship and a journalism degree, yet I didn’t even make the Olympic trials. Instead, it was one of my peers, Dick Fosbury, who won a gold medal and pioneered a new approach to the sport along with Canadian jumper Debbie Brill.

I was left to fulfil my Olympic dream a different way — by covering seven Olympic Games, from Calgary in 1988 through Torino in 2006. Along the way, was I appalled when a Toronto sports writer wrote that you don’t “win” a silver or bronze medal at the Olympics — that unless you win gold, you’re a loser, no matter the colour of your medal.

Article content

Article content

I could not disagree more. After 16 days spent watching athletes in almost every discipline compete at the glittering Paris Olympics, I have never been more impressed. First, by the spectacle the French staged with their incomparable city as a backdrop, marking Paris as the clear gold-medal winner in any contest among Olympic hosts. Second, by the quality of the athletes themselves.

Unless they cheated to get there, you’ll find no losers at the Olympic Games. Every one was a champion somewhere along the way. Not only are Olympic athletes incredible in the things they can do, they are most often thoughtful and articulate, even when faced with inane questions moments after a competition.

The Paris crowd got it right Sunday when they cheered on Kinzang Lhamo of Bhutan, who received a standing ovation when she finished last in the women’s marathon, 90 minutes behind the winner, Siffan Hassan of the Netherlands, who also won bronze medals in the 5,000 and 10,000.

Canada had more than its share of heroes, from judoka Christa Deguchi to canoe gold medallist Katie Vincent and B-Boy Phil Wizard in breakdancing.

Article content

The big stories you know: 17-year-old Summer McIntosh well on her way to becoming Canada’s greatest Olympic athlete with her four medals, three of them gold; Ethan Katzberg winning the hammer throw by almost five metres and Camryn Rogers almost duplicating his feat in the women’s event, turning Canada into a nation of hammer-throw aficionados.

The Olympics that began with the drone spying scandal in women’s soccer ended with a shower of medals for Canada. And the grand finale: Canada’s 4×100-metre relay team blowing away the Americans to win the gold medal.

There were failures, notably in basketball. The women’s team was flat awful, as it was in Tokyo. The vaunted men’s team looked fine until it bowed to France in the knockout round, and the women’s 3-on-3 team snatched defeat from the jaws of a medal with a series of awful passes and silly fouls.

There were the inevitable heartbreaks, with Mo Ahmed’s tumble in the 5,000 meters after barely missing a medal in the 10,000 and Marco Arop missing the gold medal by 1/100th of a second in the 800 meters.

But Canada can be proud. We’ve come a long way since the 1976 Olympics, when Montreal hosted a billion-dollar boondoggle that brought us 11 medals overall, zero of them gold.

Article content

So nurture our young athletes. Encourage the dream. Most will fail, as I did, so remind them to have fun and to take from the sport the things that never grow old, like fitness, the discipline necessary to pursue a clearly defined goal, the friendships, the love for that moment when an athlete ascends to the medal podium or finishes last in the marathon, because they’re all champions.

Heroes: Camryn Rogers, Ethan Katzberg, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney, Andre De Grasse, Maude Charron, Alysha Newman, Marco Arop, Katie Vincent, Sloan MacKenzie, Christa Deguchi, Letsile Tebogo, Janine Beckie, Jessie Fleming, Kailen Sheridan, Eleanor Harvey, B-Boy Phil Wizard, Janja Garnbret &&&& last but not least, Summer McIntosh, superstar.

Zeros: Rana Ryder, Noah Lyles, Bev Priestman, John Herdman, Nick Bontis, Jasmine Mander, Joseph Lombardi, Steven van de Velde, Charlotte Dujardin, Hulk Hogan, the International Boxing Association, Lululemon Team Canada outfits, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.

Now and forever.

[email protected] 

x.com/jacktodd46

Article content

Article content