Records Are Meant To Be Broken

2010 Olympic Games | What a party! We have it all. The 17 days of Olympic fever brought us true grit, courage and inspirations from our Canadian athletes. From the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony and everything in between, we learnt a lot about our athletes, wore our hearts on our sleeves, and showed the world what Canada is all about. Truth be told, this experience was beyond our expectation. Everything was above expectation.

There were so many defining moments that you could choked up a tear or two. Everything seemed to be scripted, right to the story book ending. From the below par and disappointing presentation four years ago in Turin, to the tragic death of the Georgian luger on day one, to the failed gold medal expectation from Jennifer Heil for our country first gold medal at home, to the unexpected first gold medal win from Alexandre Bilodeau on home soil, to the melting snow on Cypress Mountain, to Joannie Rochette's sudden loss of her mother just two days before she skated her short program, to behind the eight ball in medal standings mid way through the games, all the way to the agonizing equalizer less than 60 seconds from finish in the men's hockey gold medal round on the final day, to Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal in the sudden death overtime and brought the whole country into a titillating frenzy.

To top that, it was the 14th gold medal for Canada. A games record for any country at the Winter Olympics. It breaks the previous tie of 13 gold medals held jointly by the Soviet Union in 1976 at Innsbruck, Austria, and Norway at Salt Lake City, USA in 2002. It is also a gold medal record haul for Canada at the Olympics Games, winter or summer. The previous Canadian record of 10 gold medals was at the Soviet's led boycott of the Summer Olympics Games in Los Angeles in 1984. Interestingly the gold medal record for a host country at the Winter Olympic Games was 10. This was obtained at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, and also at the 1994 Lillehammer Games in Norway.

While we viewed ourselves as coming in third in the medal standings, the International Olympic Committee and the rest of the world outside of North America will list Canada on top of the 2010 Winter Olympic medal standings with 14 gold medals. Germany with 10 gold medals finished second, and United States in third place with 9 gold medals.

Well done Canada and a big thank you!