Team of the Games

With all the talk of Olympic medals, Own the Podium, Ice Hockey Gold, and patriotism the one thing that might be lost amongst all of us is the performance of the Canadian Men's Cross Country Ski Team at the 2010 Olympics.

In Vancouver Canada's foursome of Ivan Babikov, Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey and George Grey set a series of national records the likes of which was totally unexpected. Consider:

• In the team sprint Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey narrowly missed the podium with a 4th place finish. Canada's best ever result in this race.

• In the 30km pursuit Canada had three men finish in the top ten - More than any other country in the world.

• Canada's 4 x 10km relay team finished in 7th place. Canada's best ever result in this race.

• In the 50km mass start - Canada's Devon Kershaw finished in fifth place less than 2 seconds behind the winner. Canada's previous best in this event was a 44th place finish.
  

If one were to evaluate a teams performance in terms of best ever finishes and national records the cross country team of Babikov, Kershaw, Harvey and Grey would have ranked ahead of every other Canadian sport and team at these games. However, in a Olympics where the Canadian public seemed fixated on Olympic medals the performance of this team seemed to fly under the radar.

Although they may have not won an Olympic medal this foursome certainly showed that Canada can compete with Scandanavian and Eastern European nations in nordic sports. Own the Podium may not care, but this blogger was truly impressed.