Pride in our Olympians

For the past 10 days, the television in our home has clung to the CBC and TSN channels broadcasting Olympic coverage from Pyeongchang, South Korea.
From the opening ceremonies onward, if we were not awake, then the coverage was recorded so we could it watch in our waking hours.
We enjoyed watching the Canadian flag be raised all 16 times during the awards ceremony and our hearts swelled when “O Canada” was played for our gold-medal winners.
Our Canadian Olympians make us proud.
By Monday morning, Canada had racked up gold medals in team figure skating, two-man bobsled racing, the 1,000-metre short track speed skating, 10,000-metre speed skating, mixed curling doubles, and freestyle skiing men’s doubles.
By that evening, two more gold medals were added to our total.
I never would have thought that skiing or snowboarding would be considered a gymnastic event, but watching the aerial acrobatics of world skiers has convinced me otherwise.
The aerialists must compete in the most dangerous sport in the world doing twists, turns, and summersaults in the air without a safety net to catch them.
We expect our hockey teams and curling teams to medal. But did we know how strong our speed skating team was or how magnificent our slope-style skiers were?
By the time this column hits the streets Wednesday afternoon, our medal total will be much higher.
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir will have medalled in the dance pairs competition. The women’s hockey team will have a medal. There will be other medalists, too.
Here is a list of medalists through Tuesday’s morning competition:
•Scott McMorris-Bronze, snowboard slope style;
•Max Parrot-Silver, Snowboard slope style;
•Ted-Jan Bloeman-Silver, men’s 5,000m speed skating;
•Ted-Jan Bloeman-Gold, men’s 10,000m speed skating;
•Justine Dufour-LaPointe-Silver, women’s moguls;
•Louise Blouin-Silver, women’s snowboard slope style;
•Mikael Kingsbury-Gold, men’s moguls;
•Kaitlyn Lawes/John Morris-Gold, mixed doubles curling;
•Kim Boutin-Bronze, 500m short track speed skating;
•Alex Gough-Bronze, luge;
•Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford-Bronze, pairs figure skating;
•Team Canada-Silver; luge relay;
•Canada’s Figure Skating Team-Gold;
•Kim Boutin–Bronze, 1,500m short track speed skating;
•Samuel Girard-Gold, 1,000m short track speed skating;
•Alex Beaulieu-Marchand-Bronze, slope style skiing;
•Justin Kripps/Alexander Kpacz–Gold, two-man bobsled;
•Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir-Gold; dance pairs skating; and
•Cassie Sharpe- Gold, Olympic Free Ski Halfpipe.
In our house, we cheered on Red Lake native Eric Radford, wanting the Canada pairs to perform an outstanding performance. His brother is one of the coaches with the Red Lake Goldfins swimming club.
Every Olympics brings new sports to us for competition. The world’s youth compete for medals and inspire new generations to pursue their dreams.
Those athletes come together in harmony and peace, and demonstrate to the world what the world might be if we followed their ideals.