Carol Huynh saves the nation

Carol Huynh. Remember that name. Etch it in your memory. Carol Huynh is the young woman who saved Canada from terminal petulance.

For the first week of the Olympics, Canadians fretted fearfully that they were to be deprived of gold. Like little boys who didn't get their Christmas toy, we were sulking about the house. Everyone else was getting gold, why not us? It just wasn't fair. Or at least this was the depressing picture offered by our daily press. Things looked very dark indeed.

Then Carol Huynh saved the nation. She won a gold medal in free style wrestling. Of course, few Canadians know what free style wrestling is, and wouldn't walk across the street to watch a match, but no matter, we had won gold. Our national honour would survive. The magnitude of the event was illustrated by leading headlines in our daily papers.

When a nation's honour, or at least when a nation thinks its honour, rests on a woman from Hazelton, B.C., whipping a woman from Japan in a competition that most Canadians normally haven't the slightest interest in, is this not pathetic? Or maybe just silly? Premier Campbell of B.C. would have us spend large sums of money to ensure we win lots of gold thingies in the future. "It's critical he said," as he lauded China for all the medals it has won. The fascist nature of China's sports program, reminiscent of the Soviet Union and East Germany, seems to have escaped his notice. The Olympic Games seem to hold some mystical power to distort normally sensible people's sense of values.

Anyway, thank God (and Carol Huynh et al.) we now have some medals. Canada will not crumble after all.