Farewell Olympics

And so the 2010 Olympics come to an end. Big congratulations to every competitor that competed, no matter your country. Just making it that far is a feat within itself, and everyone should walk home feeling accomplished. This is the standings, for anyone who's interested from the official Vancouver 2010 Olympics page:

Country Gold Silver Bronze
Canada 14 7 5
Germany 10 13 7
United States 9 15 13
Norway 9 8 6
Korea 6 6 2
Switzerland 6 0 3
China 5 2 4
Sweden 5 2 4
Austria 4 6 6
Netherlands 4 1 3
Russian Federation 3 5 7
France 2 3 6
Australia 2 1 0
Czech Republic 2 0 6
Poland 1 3 2
Italy 1 1 3
Belarus 1 1 1
Slovakia 1 1 1
Great Britain 1 0 0
Japan 0 3 2
Croatia 0 2 1
Slovenia 0 2 1
Latvia 0 2 0
Finland 0 1 4
Estonia 0 1 0
Kazakhstan 0 1 0

I believe if I heard the reports right, Canada now holds the record for the most gold medals won by a host country. That's not too bad. Plus we came in third overall this go round, with Germany in second with 30 total medals and the United States with 37 total medals. The only thing I didn't enjoy about these closing ceremonies (I didn't enjoy this during the openings either) was the french speaking being done before the english. Yes we are a bilingual country, but our french speakers are the minority and the Olympics aren't being held in Quebec. Not to say that french speakers are second class citizens because they're not, but I would bet good money that choosing the french before the english was purely political so that Quebec didn't complain. It was great to see Michael J. Fox there, and of course William Shatner. The musical lineup could have been better. The only ones I enjoyed were Nickelback, Neil Young and the french act whose name I didn't manage to catch. But the Olympics are about the athletes, not the ceremonies and overall I think they were pretty successful.