As enjoyable as it is to watch the best athletes in the world go head-to-head (or skate-to-skate, or sequin-to-sequin when it comes to ice dance outfits), the Sochi Winter Olympics, perhaps more than any Olympics in recent memory, highlights how thankful we should be for lower-key amateur sports at the local level.
Athabasca, Boyle and the surrounding community are golden when it comes to the breadth of sports offered, as well as the sportsmanship and spirit of volunteerism that local sports associations engender.
At least in the early days, the stories out of Sochi ranged from chilling (stories of stray dogs being brutally rounded up) to laughable (tales of improperly finished bathrooms). It’s been cited as the most expensive winter Olympics to date, yet the result is more of a monument to Putin’s ego and to widespread corruption than an exemplar of state-of-the-art sports venues.
Add to that athletes’ complaints that the snow is oatmeal-like in texture, and you’ve got a long list of headaches that no athlete — least of all an athlete who’s trained for years to make it to the Olympics — wants to deal with.
By contrast, locally, every new enhancement to sports venues is hard-won, often by the athletes or parents of athletes who stand to benefit. In addition, the enhancements often benefit others and the community as a whole.
The Athabasca Curling Club Society, for example, worked casinos to raise funds for special strips that can be laid under the curling sheets at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex. The new floor coverings not only look great; they’ll save multiplex staff the time it used to take each year to prep the floors beneath the sheets with painted-on advertisements and logos.
And while Russia has been roundly chastised for passing intolerant laws in the lead-up to the Olympics, local sports teams seem to be expanding their scope and inclusively with each passing year. Flips Gymnastics, for example, has a growing boys program. The club places as much emphasis on having something for the casual gymnast as it does on training more competitive gymnasts.
As the Olympics draw to a close, let’s remember to give thanks for the victories we’ve achieved on home turf — not just when we’ve defeated visiting teams at the individual game level, but rather when we’ve pulled together, expanding opportunities for local athletes.
