Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010

Own the podium has proved a fraught and at times disappointing venture for Canada at these Olympic games, with would-be stars crashing out of the races, like ski cross star Christopher Delbosco did spectacularly on Saturday.

But it’s a different story when it comes to owning the streets, where there’s a sea of red and white just about everywhere you look, both in Vancouver and on the mountain venues of Whistler and Cypress.

The low-tier patriotism starts with a tiny Canadian pin, or a discrete temporary tattoo showing the red-white Maple Leaf flag. But the styles run right up to a full routine of hat, scarf, jacket, shirt, tattoos and a large flag pinned to the shoulders like Superman’s cape. Canada jackets come in red, white, yellow and discrete black, and t-shirts are mostly red, with splashes of other colour.

One t-shirt caught my eye: At first sight it read “I’m American” in big black letters on a white background. Look closer, and the red blotch above the two words is actually a little Maple Leaf, with “not” in small white letters.

Click the video above (or the picture and then the video, if you are on the home page) for a series of photographs by Chris Helgren.