Want medals, Canada? Use good ol' American ingenuity | Ron Judd

WHISTLER, B.C. — Nobody should really be surprised.

It turns out that among the many, many things Canada is not good at is being boorish, devious and prideful. When they try, major backfire.

Just take a look at the Olympic medal count, which, at this writing, shows Canada with only nine medals at its home Games — just one more than the U.S. alpine ski team. And only one more than, ahem, France.

It was enough to make an official from the now-roundly mocked "Own the Podium" program wave the white flag Monday.

"We'd be living in a fools paradise if we said we were going to catch the Americans and win," Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Chris Rudge said Monday, apparently referring to Manitoba.

At the risk of bragging — or setting off a truly embarrassing barrage of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" by some inebriated American frat boys in Whistler Village — we must point out that America by that time already had won 24, at which point we simply stopped counting and went back to cheating on our taxes.

It is almost enough to make you feel sorry for the cuddly Canadians, who are wearing their hearts on their cute little red mittens everywhere you look. They really wanted things to be different this time around.

This is a nation, recall, that is still feeling the (well-deserved) shame of hosting two previous Olympics and failing to win a single gold medal — which is pretty amazing, given that in the Winter Games, they give you one just for having snow on the ground.

OK, that was piling on.

This time around, Canada did win a gold medal. A few, even. Then, in the Canadian custom, they went back to saving their strength for 2014.

Maybe by then some of Canada's substantial investment will begin to pay off. It has been widely discussed that Canada spent, through Own the Podium, about $120 million to boost training for athletes and win the medals race.

There's nothing wrong with that, in concept. In fact, the scheme was pretty much copied from a similar program the U.S. put together before the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games. But Canada only got it half right: It's OK to quietly spend money to try to win Olympic medals — it's just unbelievably stupid to talk about it.

Own the Podium did succeed wildly at one thing — ticking off the entire rest of the world, which came to Canada just that more stoked to administer a sound butt-whooping to our quaint northern neighbors.

In fact, Norwegian ski god Aksel Lund Svindal, who has medaled in every event he has entered here, plus a couple he just thought about entering, came right out and said it: Some clown from Own the Podium forbade him from his usual practice of training with the Canadian ski team at Whistler, giving him extra motivation to make Lutefisk of Team Canada at the Games. Which he did.

Canada pumped $10 million from Own the Podium into alpine skiing, more than any other sport. Its skiers, upholding a proud, 16-year tradition, have nary a medal to show for it.

Ouch. We hope somebody kept receipts.

But look, Canada: Keep your chin up and consider it a learning experience. Clearly, putting the Own the Podium program out there in front of God and everybody was a rookie mistake. Next time you really want to lord over the medal count, consider doing what we did last time we lorded over the medal count.

Cheat.

That's right, cheat. Keeping your downhill course and sliding track off limits? Bush league, Francois. How about changing the rules as you go along?

That's what America did in 1932 at Lake Placid, N.Y., the last time we truly owned the podium (small o-t-p).

You could look it up. In those Olympics, Americans and some Canadians, too, blew the doors off the Euro speedskaters by surprising them with things like mass starts for races — something they had never seen before, let alone trained for. Americans, including Lake Placid's own Jack Shea, took full advantage, dominating the events.

One heat for a 1,500 meter race was stopped midway through because some skaters were accused by track officials of "loafing." Other racers were disqualified in the 10,000 meters for failing to set a proper pace — a new one on everybody.

Other venues saw similar creativity: bobsledders J. Hubert and Curtis Stevens won the gold after heating their sled runners with a blowtorch — a practice now forbidden.

Do we need to spell it out, Maple Leafers?

If you want to stay atop the podium with the big boys, you're going to have to do something we know you really don't want to have to do.

Apply some good ol' American ingenuity.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists