With the Summer Olympics drawing to a close it was an encouraging experience to watch the Canadian athletes doing themselves proud. Seeing them compete against the best in the world makes a person feel proud of their accomplishments. Their feats of strength, endurance and courage are far beyond what most of us could ever dream of doing. The thought of doing two somersaults off a 10 metre platform into green water is away beyond my pay level. Even blue water is out of the question.
Watching Rosie on the trampoline was enough to make you hold your breath, especially when one heard about the injuries she has experienced since the last Olympics. Winning gold made her unique, a one of a kind. Then seeing De Grasse run beside Bolt put him in elite company. Others made the top 10 or even the top 20 or 100. Just being named an Olympian is such an honour.
Others were part of a team and that is as much a challenge as performing as an individual. From Synchronized diving to 7’s Rugby (now my favourite sport to watch) teamwork adds another dimension to sports. As it does with any enterprise – work or play. (It was nice to hear North Bay mentioned as the host city for the beach volleyball selection trials, so we did contribute).
It is a barely-known fact that I ran at the Olympic Stadium back in 1978 ( photo above). This was at the original Stadium built in 586 BC for the Pythian Games (later expanded in 2nd century AD) at Delphi in Greece. Somehow, in my usual fashion, I started in the wrong direction and met my two competitors half-way around the circuit. They disqualified me of course but allowed me to sip from the wine bottle anyway. There were no medals, just Greek wine which tasted like pine pitch and water – Retsina.
This has nothing to do with the Olympics but I have become one in a thousand. My wife says I am one of kind and I’m never sure what she means by that, but I have now become a statistic. One in a thousand men get breast cancer.
Lost in the news about the Olympics has been some health issues that naturally caught my full attention. News that Ontario is under-funding its (our) health care system by millions of dollars at North Bay alone was not too much of a surprise given the layoffs at our hospital. The wait time for my surgery was understandable in these conditions. Premier Wynne avoiding the hospital when she was here on her whistle-stop tour of the north was also understandable. I guess that’s another term that can be tossed. We’re lucky to hear a diesel horn let alone a train whistle.
Then the news that our doctors voted against the Wynne inspired agreement with the province caught my attention. Now I am certain that the doctors and nurses into whose hands I’ll be going shortly will do their Olympic best with me but this experience certainly brings the health care in Ontario into a clear focus.
There is a bright side to this. If I’m up to it, the Warriors of Hope say they have a place in the boat for me. Just think of it: my wife and I might become one of a kind – a man and wife paddling on the same breast cancer survivors team.
