I wasn’t planning to post something about the Olympics. The truth is, I’m not much of a nationalist. The closest I get to having a patriotic attachment to a place is my fondness for Nova Scotia, the province I first visited at age 20 (I don’t remember a visit as a toddler).
It’s not that I’m anti-Canada. I think Canada is a beautiful piece of real estate. As a nation, I think it’s among the best, but just ‘among’ them. Depending on what you like and how you want to live, Canada may be better than Britain and New Zealand may be better than Canada. But then Britain may be better than New Zealand under other circumstances, and Canada better than both. Get my drift? If you live for surfing, the U.S and Australia have us beat by a country mile.
OK, so why am I writing? Well, while I may not be especially passionate about Canada, I am somewhat passionate about a couple of sports – sports we got medals in today!
Sure, they were just bronze, but I’ll take a bronze in a cool sport over gold in a lame one any day.
Winning bronze in judo was Antoine Valois Fortier: http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/07/31/antoine-valois-fortier-wins-olympic-bronze-for-canada-in-judo/
And taking bronze in weightlifting was Christine Girard: http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/07/31/weightlifter-christine-girard-wins-canadas-third-olympic-bronze-of-the-day/
Now, some people will try to tell you evaluating which sport is better than another is just a matter of personal opinion. This is not true. I have developed a logarithm based on 40 different factors that results in an objective evaluation of which sport is superior to another. For example, basketball has a rating of 138, which puts it marginally ahead of football at 129. Soccer is way down at 87, while hockey has an impressive score of 196. But way up in the ether, you’ll find judo and weightlifting: 962 and 846, respectively.
So there you have it. The math can’t lie. Judo and weightlifting are four times better than hockey.
Given that everyone knows one gold medal is worth two silver or three bronze, a bronze in either of these terrific sports is worth far more than a gold in most other events – except, surprisingly, the only sports to tie (at 730), triple jump and badminton.
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