Nesbitt comes from wayyyy back for gold

Christine Nesbitt didn't think she had a chance. She would later call it her worst race of the season. And yet there she was waving a flag festooned with autographs, gold medalist in the 1000m race at Richmond's Olympic Oval tonight:

“It wasn’t pretty, I know it wasn’t pretty,” said Nesbitt, the world champion and runaway World Cup leader who is unbeaten over the distance this season. “I was fortunate to win Olympic gold. It was probably the worst 1,000 I’ve done this year.”

The Canadian women are rolling along, aren't they? That's five medals of seven earned so far by Canada. They're carrying the flag. And then some. Not that Nesbitt seemed satisfied, waiting stonily for one last pair of skaters to go out and chase her time:

“I did not think it would be good enough,” said Australian-born Nesbitt, whose family left Melbourne for Canada when she was an infant. “I wasn’t that happy. I knew the worst I could do was bronze, but I didn’t come here for the bronze.” (snip)
“I don’t know how to react,” said Nesbitt, who vowed to study tapes of her race to fix her problems before the 1,500 metres race. “I don’t feel like I won Olympic gold.”

That 1500, and a meet up with Kristina Groves in which they are both gold-medal threats, goes Sunday. Here's your up-to-date Canadian medal winners:

GOLD
Alexandre Bilodeau, men's moguls
Maelle Ricker, women's snowboard cross
Christine Nesbitt, women's 1000m

SILVER
Jennifer Heil, women's moguls
Mike Robertson, men's snowboard cross
Marianne St-Gelais, women's 500m short-track

BRONZE
Kristina Groves, women's 3000m speed skating

Comments

[JL]

First, I keep hearing something about Nesbitt dishonoring our Flag. I am not sure why anyone would consider her actions as anything but honorable; she brought honor to Canada and she should be congratulated for her achievement.

Second and lastly - Why is it such a big deal Canada in competition with US for medals? I understand that we come from similar countries in the sense that many opportunities available to our two countries may differ greatly from some other participants but in medal count, it doesn't make sense! Canada has a large land mass, but not population, the US has a considerately higher population to draw from. Taking that into account...well Canada is doing extremely well. But on the other hand I totally agree when we are talking about hockey...that's a whole other conversation. Canada needs to kick some US butt on that one!

Congrats to all the athletes that have made it to the Olympics to participate...Go Canada Go!