The Homeground Advantage

I've been a bit behind on the Olympic games, so it was only in the last few days before the games that I began to read about Canada's determination to protect its home ground advantage, which, baldly put, consisted of spiting international athletes by denying them training time at the Olympic venues while jealously spoiling their own athletes.

Canada's sporting authorities appear to have missed the distinction between an international sporting event, which it is their privilege to host, and a private invitational in which a group of international athletes are invited to compete on the home field.

Even in the latter situation, Canada's behavior would be seamy, but in an Olympic context, this is exactly the sort of behavior we all once took pains to point out in our Cold War adversaries. We smugly noted their inability to comprehend the Olympic Spirit, their evidence absence of moral center - these were evidence of failure of regime, remember?

Canada - you're much MUCH better than this.