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editorial

As the Olympic flame is extinguished in Pyeongchang, there is now an entire generation of Canadians that has experienced nothing other than our country being pretty terrific at this Winter Games thing.

Not for them the cheering of top-10 finishes and gritty displays of pluck.

When Kaetlyn Osmond of Marystown, Nfld., stepped onto the podium to collect her bronze in the ladies' figure skating competition on Friday, it was the 27th time a Canadian athlete had partaken in a medal ceremony – a new national record.

Farewell to Pyeongchang: The closing ceremony and what you missed at the Games

In the end, our athletes walked away with 29 medals, to wind up third in the overall standings. The showing bests our previous high-water mark of 26 at Vancouver 2010, the event that taught us it's okay to embrace a distinctly un-Canadian posture of national swagger.

Hands up everyone who predicted Canada would return with a best-ever haul of winter medals – and several planeloads of indelible, courageous performances – even though we stumbled in the sports we hold dearest and traditionally dominate: hockey and curling.

It turns out we're a figure-skating and ski-cross and short-track speedskating nation now.

Part of this is by dint of sweat, dedication and individual genius on the part of an exceptional crop of athletes. But it's also by design.

Own the Podium, the high-performance-sport funding organization set up ahead of the Vancouver games, identified the best prospects and steered resources to them.

Athletic accomplishment isn't measured solely by results or a piece of Olympic hardware, but it's hard to argue the $75-million that OTP spent over the last four years (most of it in public funds via Sport Canada) wasn't money well spent.

Some of the marquee performers in Pyeongchang are young enough to have been inspired by what they saw in Vancouver. Now a new crop has a fortnight's worth of captivating performances to build a dream around.

May they have every opportunity to do so. After all, we have a reputation to uphold.

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