Channelling Victor Davis

Where’s Victor Davis when you need him?

I think Canada’s current swim team needs to channel a little bit of Davis’ pizzazz to fire up their game at the Olympics.

Mike Brown finished fourth in the 200 metre breaststroke at the Beijing Olympics, and then comments to CBC that if he had matched his semi-final time he would have won a silver.

How do you go to the Olympics and then not do a better time every time you dive in the pool? This is everything you’ve worked for. You mean you went to the Olympic final, had a chance to win a medal and somehow couldn’t match the time you did before?

In that case, in my view, Canada’s problem is a mental one, not a physical one. Let’s get a little of the Davis “I gotta have it” attitude and infuse it into every Canadian Olympic athlete’s mind. I feel like I’m hearing a concession speech from every athlete interviewed before they’ve even competed in the prelims. After he and Arturo Miranda finished fifth in the syncho three-metre springboard, Alexandre Depatie said the pair had done much better in practice. What? Why do Canadian athletes fail to perform to their best when it comes down to the crunch? Is this a national attitude? And how do we change that?

There’s skill, there’s technique, there’s fitness, and then there’s this unquantifiable part of competing, it’s heart, it’s will, it’s determination, it’s red-hot desire. It’s when you dig down deep into yourself to find reserves you never knew were there. In racehorses, it’s called “the winning spirit.” Some horses just refuse to let others pass them, no matter what.

I don’t want the medals for Canada, I want them for the athletes I know have slaved and sweated and worked their butts off to get the Games, giving up so much -- time with family and friends, careers -- and working so hard. I want them to have the mentality that Davis had. He got all fired up and visibly pissed off if things didn’t go right. I want to hear a collective Canadian guttural yell before they compete. I want Canada’s athletes in these Games to have a fire inside that will burn a hole in an igloo and get them to reach further than ever before in their quest to be the best they can.

If a swimmer isn’t ready to pass out or throw up after a race, they haven’t swum hard enough, in my mind. They have to hit that wall at the end knowing that they had nothing more to give. I was a competitive swimmer as a kid, and then in high school, and there was nothing I hated worse then despising myself for not trying harder -- especially when I knew I could. I was lucky to swim in an era when Canada was pretty hot in the sport, with the likes of Davis, Alex Baumann, and Anne Ottenbrite. They’re doing what they can now to help Canada’s swim team return to that level.

Maybe swimmers need to scream “Go, Go, Go,” in their head at every stroke, every kick of their race. Whatever we need to help Canada do better at the Games, it needs to start in the head.