“Choker” label unfair, silver-medalist Patrick Chan says

Canadian figure skater Patrick Chan is a two-time Olympian, a three-time world champion, a proud and dutiful son, a nice fellow and, as of Friday, a two-time silver medalist at the Sochi Olympics.

What he’s not, is a choker.

I’ve regularly been chided because I won’t ever use the word “choke” about an athlete – unless they use it about themselves.

Apparently it's not a cheap shot or a gross oversimplification. It’s “telling it like it is.”

But to me, the word disrespects and diminishes their talent and years of hard work. If those who sometimes fail to perform at their expected level at crucial moments really were chokers, we’d never have heard of them. They would never have made this far.

It also makes it sounds like a fatal disease, an almost deliberate kind of self-sabotage because of some fatal character flaw that prevents them from succeeding.

And then there’s the “Canadian curse,” a timeworn cliché that’s pretty much been disproved by our results at these last two Olympics but still crops up when someone doesn’t do what they’re expected to do on the day.

Had Chan won the Olympic gold medal in men’s figure skating Friday night, breaking the ice as the first Canadian male skater to do it, the reaction might have been, “Well, he should have won it. He’s won the world championships the last three years. He was the favorite.”

Had Chan won the silver medal with a great skate – assuming no one had issues with the judging – it might have been, “Well, Yuzuru Hanyu’s been beating him lately. And we Canadians are good at the second-place thing.”

But since Chan essentially backed into a silver medal with a sub-par performance on a night when gold beckoned so enticingly and he only needed to be pretty good, he’s a “choker”.

You hope for his sake Chan isn’t reading Twitter, isn’t even though he probably can’t help himself. The timeline goes lie this, pretty much:

Before the men’s event: “Chan is gonna choke. He always chokes. Plus, it’s the Canadian curse.”

During the skate: “See, Chan is choking. I told you.”

After the silver medal: “What a choke. He always chokes at the Olympics.”

Had Chan won gold, it probably would have been, “Wow. I can’t believe Chan didn’t choke.”

In the end, Chan couldn’t win for losing ­– or winning. Which doesn’t mean the “c” word doesn’t sting. A lot.

Chan’s competitor and Detroit stablemate Jeremy Abbott, who lived his own special hell

during these Games but stood tall in the end, had similar thoughts in a press conference Friday.

Unlike Chan, Abbott is done. He let it rip.

The long program Friday was Chan’s moment. His timing could use a little work, that's for sure.

The very best make it look so easy most of the time, it obscures the fact that spinning around in the air seven times in the blink of an eye and landing on a quarter-inch blade on a slippery surface when you’re already in oxygen deprivation mode is a risky, impossibly difficult thing to do.

And on top of that, when the Olympics are closing in around you like a vise, very few come through.

“Even the best make mistakes, and that’s what differentiates the best from the rest,” Chan said immediately after that long program.

Perhaps. But not making mistakes on the day, sinking your teeth into that moment and

refusing to let go, that’s what elevates the best to sporting immortality.

Perhaps Chan doesn’t have it in him to be immortal, only great. That’s still to be determined. But “best mortal” is still a long way from “choker.”

Olympic pressure, while not as urgent or important as putting food on the table for your kids, is something mere mortals can’t even fathom. It doesn’t begin at the opening ceremonies; it starts right after the previous Games are done, building and accumulating for four years to the point where it's likely a relief when it’s over – win or lose. It’s the flashpoint for a lifetime of work and ambition and dreams.

Here’s what Chan said after Vancouver in 2010, where he finished fifth:

“Maybe not winning the Olympics was the best thing that happened. For sure, hands down … if I had won, I would not be here. I would be trying another sport or doing something else.”

He says he hasn’t decided yet about 2018. But perhaps this silver medal will be the catalyst to persevere another four years.

Or, in Twitter speak, “four years for another opportunity to choke.”

And if he needs a little reassurance, he can listen to his own words, back when he was just 14, about getting back up when you fall.

Most of us can only dream of having that opportunity to fail – or succeed – before the entire world.

But if we had it, we likely would choke.