{"id":14953,"date":"2010-02-12T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T07:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2010\/02\/12\/a-decidedly-canadian-response-to-the-shambles-that-was-the-running-portion-of-the-modern-pentathlon-in-beijing\/"},"modified":"2010-02-12T07:00:01","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T07:00:01","slug":"a-decidedly-canadian-response-to-the-shambles-that-was-the-running-portion-of-the-modern-pentathlon-in-beijing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20100212-01\/?p=14953","title":{"rendered":"A decidedly Canadian response to the shambles that was the running portion of the modern pentathlon in Beijing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living so close to the United States-Canada border means that there’s a lot of friendly teasing of the many Canadians in our midst. It’s a good thing Canadians as a whole seem to have a pretty good sense of humor about it. (Well, except the Quebecers. Those humorless grumps.)\n The final stage of the modern pentathlon is supposed to be a cross-country course, run through grassy fields, with occasional obstacles like a brook that needs to be hurdled. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, however, the course didn’t so much resemble a cross-country run as it did waiting in line at Disneyland. Instead of traversing an outdoor course, the runners ran through a labyrinth constructed on the outer track of the athletic field, navigating dozens of switchbacks that converted the 1000-meter track into a test of how well you can make sharp turns. I remember being completely flabbergasted when I saw the course. It was a total disaster.\n Which is why I was amused at the response from Monica Pinette, a Canadian athlete who participated in the competition. Summing up her displeasure, she said, “I’m pretty angry. I’m going to write a nasty letter<\/a>.”\n That just struck me as a quintessentially Canadian way of expressing extreme dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n

Today marks the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Best wishes to all the Canadians out there. Even if I still tease you every so often. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living so close to the United States-Canada border means that there’s a lot of friendly teasing of the many Canadians in our midst. It’s a good thing Canadians as a whole seem to have a pretty good sense of humor about it. (Well, except the Quebecers. Those humorless grumps.) The final stage of the modern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103,106],"class_list":["post-14953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-non-computer","tag-the-social-skills-of-a-thermonuclear-device"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Living so close to the United States-Canada border means that there’s a lot of friendly teasing of the many Canadians in our midst. It’s a good thing Canadians as a whole seem to have a pretty good sense of humor about it. (Well, except the Quebecers. Those humorless grumps.) The final stage of the modern […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}