Ohhhh Canada.

The Olympics are supposed to be filled with stories of people who have overcome huge obstacles to compete in the games.

Think Joannie Rochette. The Canadian figure skater who's mother unexpectedly died two days before she was supposed to compete. Rochette not only decided to compete through her pain, she managed to give two stirringly emotional performances. She even won a bronze medal.

Think Hannah Kearney the American mogul skier who despite being an early favorite in 2006, stumbled in her first round run down the mountain and didn't qualify to compete for a medal. Last Saturday, she not only qualified, she won gold.

Think J.R. Celski, the short track speed skater who in the September US short track qualifiers, fell in the 500m race and sliced his leg open with his own skate blade, missing his femoral artery by mere centimeters, and coming dangerously close to bleeding out on the ice. As he was rushed into the ambulance he said to his mom, "It's all over." The "it" wasn't his life, it was his skating career. But "It" wasn't. Just over 150 days later, he would win an Olympic bronze medal in the 1500m race.

For each of these athletes, it was never about the medal. It was about the journey to get there. Rochette did it for her mom, Kearney wanted redemption and maybe a chance to be worthy of a video montage, Celski was just happy to be alive.

There should have been another story to add to these Vancouver games. That story belongs to Brian McKeever. With his entry in the 50k cross-country race, the Canadian would have become the first athlete ever to compete in both the Paralympics and the Olympics. Thanks to genetic macular degeneration McKeever is legally blind (not blond heh heh) in both eyes, today retaining only 10% of his vision, and only in the periphery.

But despite all that, he still made the Canadian Olympic team, garnering crazy media attention and even his own Visa commercial. Unfortunately, early yesterday when Canada's head coach choose the four skiers to fill the four spots Canada had available in the 50k race, he didn't choose McKeever.

McKeever later twittered "Olympic dream over. Don't think I've ever been so sad."

The sad thing is that there are probably 100s more Brian McKeever's out there that we don't know about. Hundreds more athletes that were passed over for their "better and more qualified" peers, hundreds more broken hearts. It's the way the world works and while it may not seem fair, in a weirdly twisted way, it is. How would you feel if you were Brian McKeever's faster teammate, someone who had already proven himself against the world stage by finishing in the top ten or twelve in another Olympic race, and you were passed over for the sole purpose of letting a guy, who in all probability had no chance of winning, race instead. Sure, he would make history, but so could you. Its the ultimate awful decision for any coach to make.

So I guess, that while I'm sad that Canada passed on McKeever in today's race, I can understand why they did. And so does he. While he said that he was bummed (my words not his) he also said that he understood that he was part of the best team Canada has had in a while, and while he wasn't happy about the decision, he respected it.

Canada had a really hard decision to make, and while they may or may not have made the right one, they did what they though was right.