Onward to Sochi

The Lemon of Pink - By the time you read this, I may have finally gotten to bed at a more sensible hour on a weeknight. The Olympic winter games concluded on Sunday past, bringing 14-days of roller coaster patriotism and groggy early work mornings to an end.

Who will ever forget the morning after the U.S. beat Canada in hockey - "Those sons a *&%^"; or after Virtue and Moir won the ice-dancing gold - "Oh it was just beautiful, did you see it? Oh. Okay. I thought everyone liked ice dance..."

Yes, it was the worst of nail biting times, and the best of times. All in all, even though the 'Own the Podium' criticisms will still most likely be heard for a long time, it seemed like a pretty successful Olympics.

A lot has been made about the Own the Podium campaign during these games. Our country has always had a somewhat embarrassing record when its come to supporting its athletes financially. This program was created to rectify that, and to help us win gold on home soil. The latter proved to be successful as at last count we had seven golden medals of our own (at press time).

I think there's a lot we can do at a local level to support our athletes here at home and to help them own the podium. We can start with letting our politicians know that sport is important to us - not just during an Olympic year but all the time. Funding should be made available so that the very best among us can pursue their dreams.

Bay St. George has its very own Paralympian in swimmer Katarina Roxon. Her journey to the Beijing Olympics made us all very proud, but at what cost did she get there? Her father told me once that their family could have built a very large and beautiful home with the amount of money they spent on bringing Katarina to competitions around the world - all so she could have the chance to compete, excel and pursue her dreams. He wasn't complaining about it, but putting into context just how much a dream like hers can cost.

I don't believe that burden should fall on her family alone.

So as we continue to celebrate our country's successes, we should also look ahead to the future. To the London games in 2012 - in which both Ms. Roxon and her sister Miranda hope to compete - and further ahead to the 2014 winter games in Sochi, Russia.

Let's tell our representation we believe in funding for sports and try to support our athletes where we can - be it by donating to a program that helps fund sport, or by forking over a few bucks to a local Minor Hockey fundraiser.

Let's try to do more to help our athletes truly own the podium, and share in their successes not just by sharing the fact that we, too, are proud Canadians, but prouder still because we really helped them get to the top.

*Disclaimer: the author is not an athlete, unless armchairs count.