Canadian athletes better start eating their Wheaties

Recently there was a commercial created by VANOC that showed the story of an inspirational winter athlete. The commercial finished with the following words "She hopes to be the first Canadian to win a gold medal on Canadian soil." Is this supposed to be inspirational? Canada has hosted 2 Olympic games, 1 summer in Montreal and 1 winter in Calgary. That's almost a combined total of 400 events and they couldn't muster a single gold medal? This is not to disparage the Canadian athletes as they are clearly just as physically fit and train just as hard as any other group of athletes. The problem seems to be the government and funding that's given to support amateur sports (the type of sports Olympic events focus on). I remember another commercial, this one by Rona that said they employ over 300 Olympic athletes or something to that nature. Is this supposed to be a good thing? How much does a job at Rona pay? Do you think this is enough to support training and equipment for these athletes? While in some countries Olympic athletes are given millions of dollars to train and millions more if the athletes win, Canadian athletes have to worry about their mortgage and paying their bills. Is this a good mindset to be in when you are about to jump off a diving platform? I don't think so. If the Canadian government doesn't change its attitudes quickly, our "glowing hearts" will atrophied from disappointment by the end of the 2010 winter games.