Getting behind our amateur athletes

Great news yesterday as speedskater Cindy Klassen was named Lou Marsh Award winner for 2006.

The Lou Marsh Award is given annually to the country’s top athlete, as voted on by members of the national media.

Klassen won five medals at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy-- the most ever by a Canadian athlete at on Olympiad.

Klassen edged 2005 and 2006 NBA MVP and 2005 Lou Marsh Award winner Steve Nash; NHL MVP Joe Thornton and the league’s top goal-scorer Jonathan Cheechoo; American League MVP Justin Morneau and other Olympians including Jennifer Heil and Clara Hughes in a reportedly close vote.

To be totally honest, I’m not sure most Canadians know who Klassen is, and the award sure could have used a marquee name like Nash or Thornton to bolster its profile. But the voters did the right thing by acknowledging Klassen’s outstanding performance at the Olympic Games.

While Nash and Morneau may have the most prolonged success ever by Canadians in their respective sports, and while Thornton and Cheechoo are the first Canadians to dominate NHL scoring charts in the last few years, Klassen performed at the highest level any athlete from this country ever has on the world’s biggest sporting stage for two nearly perfect weeks in February.

It’s a wonderful accomplishment, an amazing early Christmas present, and a great message sent to amateur athletes all across Canada as they prepare for Canada’s biggest Winter Olympiad in Vancouver in 2010.

Instead of kicking away at the dying horse, the national media is ready to get behind our athletes, and while the 2010 games are more than three years away, the media will be behind our performers every step of the way.

You’re in the spotlight now, guys. Go get ‘em.