Olympics 100: Canada at the Summer Games

Raymond B. Blake is director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount
Allison University, the author of Canadians at Last: Canada Integrates
Newfoundland as a Province, and co-editor of Social Welfare Policy in
Canada: Historical Readings.

This wonderful book highlights Canada’s accomplishments and failures
at the Summer Olympic Games, from Athens in 1896 to Barcelona in 1992.

Many of the best Canadian performances took place in the early years of
the modern Olympics. At the St. Louis Games in 1904, the gold medal in
weight throwing was captured by Etienne Desmarteau, who had quit his job
with the Montreal Police Department in order to compete. At the 1928
Amsterdam Olympics, in the five women’s track and field events, the
Canadian team won two golds, one silver, and one bronze. More recently,
there have been remarkable medal performances by such competitors as
Mark Tewksbury, Silken Laumann, and Sylvie Frechette. Among the low
points the author recounts is the Ben Johnson steroid scandal at the
1988 Seoul Olympics and Canada’s becoming (in 1976) the only host
country not to win a gold medal.

Dheensaw also chronicles how the Olympics have changed over the last
century. As his book makes clear, the Olympic spirit that Pierre de
Coubertin strives to instil in the modern Games has rarely been
achieved. The politicization that dominated the Games from 1952 to the
end of the Cold War has been replaced in recent years by a big-business
mentality that is far removed from the true Olympic spirit.