8.12.2012

“This is by far the greatest honour I've ever had in my athletic career.” - Christine Sinclair


Christine Sinclair, Captain Canada, will be carrying the Canadian Flag at the closing ceremonies that start in a few minutes. Sinclair is a great a role model for all Canadians generally and young girls across the country specifically, in part, because of the years of hard work that's led to her outstanding athletic achievement.

Beyond and above the her effort and her success though stands her strength of character as the reason she so deserves what she herself described this morning as, “...by far the greatest honour I've ever had in my athletic career.” She had the character to speak the truth to power about the terrible officiating in their semifinal loss to the US. Then a few days later, after the Bronze Medal game, she refused to back down, to do the politically correct thing, instead she showed the character that makes her deserve to be a great role model by refusing to withdraw her emotional words of a few days earlier and stood tall with her teammates and coach.

After Christine was told she'd be the flag bearer she broke into tears, next she said, "I broke another rule and I called my mom. [but] My mom doesn’t know how to use Twitter, it’s okay.”

Character is the attribute that defines greatness. A million years ago when i was a young kid growing up and playing sports every coach and parent reminded us often of the Grantland Rice verse, ' It matters not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game." By sticking to her guns Christine Sinclair earned even more fans than she did by scoring her hat-trick against the US.