Winning Gold at Home

Much is being made of the fact that Canada has never won an Olympic gold when it has hosted the games, people have gone as far as to say that Canada is the only country that has been host and not won a medal. This is not true.

In the winter games four times the host nation has not won a gold - France in 1924, Switzerland in 1928, Yugoslavia in 1984 and Canada in 1988. The first two games only had 16 adn 14 medals up for competition, so not winning a gold is not a big issue. In 1984 there 39 golds are the games and in 1988 it was up to 46, so Canada not being able to win a gold in '88 with 46 awarded is not a good result.

In the summer games Canada is the only host nation to ever come away with out a gold medal - this in a games where there were 198 up for grabs. Canada managed 11 medals in total, a better haul than the country had seen since the early 1930s and not only a bit lower than has been the typical total result since then. Still, somewhat pathetic for the nation and an interesting reflection of the 1976 games.

Canada should be on course for a record number of winter games medals in 2010, and possibly a record number of gold from any games. Canada had 13 4th place finishes at Turin and 9 5th place finishes. That is 22 just outside of the medals versus a total of 24 medals. The focus on getting on the podium and the home field advantage should boost Canada to about 35 medals, of which 12 to 13 should be gold. That should be enough golds to make up for Calgary and Montreal.