the blog quebecois

Long-track speed skater Cindy Klassen, who set a Canadian record with five medals at the Torino Olympics, was named the winner of the Lou Marsh Award on Monday.

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The 27-year-old from Winnipeg is the country's most decorated Olympian, with six career medals.

She set a Canadian record at the Games in Italy in February, when she won gold in the 1,500 metres, silver in the 1,000 and team pursuit and bronze in the 3,000 and 5,000.

Her five-medal haul marked the highest total by a female speed skater, surpassing the four gold medals won by Lidiya Skoblikova of Russia at the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games.

Klassen, who lives in Calgary, previously won bronze in the 3,000 at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

At the risk of sounding like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl (whatever that sounds like), I've got to call "turd in the punch bowl!" on this one.

Klassen was a good but not great player in a fringe sport; noticed, if at all, once every four years. By Olympic standards, Skoblikova's achievement of four golds trumps Klassen's full house, ace high. If I may mangle a metaphor or two.

Basketball's second-year-running MVP Steve Nash and baseball's American League MVP Justin Morneau were far more worthy of consideration.

Simple numbers. Klassen was the best (or second-or-third best) among a relatively-tiny (20,000? 30,000?) group of competitors; Nash and Morneau rose to the top of their respective professions, which boast millions of participants. It's a mug's game to compare one sport to another, but I think there's a difference between footie and football.

My vote would have gone to Nash, a tiny white man who projects his will through forests of big black men.

At least he's finally got a decent haircut. That's gotta count for something.