Day 18: Tragic sadness

No, I am not going to call our Canadian hockey team's loss against the USA a tragic sad affair. I can call it many other things..... It is a crushing loss for the team, the Canadian olympic members and most Canadians. But it's only a game. It is a sport and, as I have said before, we can't have 2 winners. It would be terrific if Canada had won. The morale in this Village would have picked up as you could imagine, things aren't as positive as could be in here.

The tragic sadness is late last night, Joannie Rochette's mother died suddenly in her hotel room in Vancouver. She had recently arrived to see her daughter compete as one of the world's top figure skaters. I woke up and learned the news from our CMO (Chief Medical Officer). A few of the docs got together to review some of the sad events. Joannie woke up to learn the same news. Her father was with her, having been allowed an accreditation to enter the Village. The whole Canadian team, the Canadian Olympic Committee and Skate Canada are all joining together to support Joannie during these horrible moments. Our condolences go to her and her family. She has decided that she will compete. I suspect she will be fighting with the strength of her mother as her internal power.

We continue to see some disappointing results from our Canadians which doesn't help morale. Our skicross men's team was down one athlete due to an injury a few days ago and a replacement literally flown in and showed up yesterday to train for one hour on the course and compete. We thought we had come from behind to capture bronze but a nasty wipe out took Chris Delbosco down at the last turn. If you read my post from a few days ago, you will note that I was standing at that curve and described its dangerous 90 degree turn after a high speed jump. That's where Chris flew off. One would assume he was still trying to get ahead by taking the turn close inside and was thrown up way too high and off balance.

On a positive note.....yes there is one! Kristina Groves got her second medal of the Games with a Silver in the 1500 m long track speed skating event. Christine Nesbitt, skating in the last pair almost made it 2 Canadians on the podium but sadly lost time in her last lap and fell to 6th. I guess we could say that today's many clouds ended up with a silver lining.

Tonight we are trying to deal with many bad moments, mainly helping one of our athlete deal with her tragic loss.

Have a good night.