VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Chris Rudge, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, plopped down at his daily morning media briefing here and got right to it.

“We’re going to have questions about Own the Podium,” he acknowledged. He then launched into an unprompted five-minute defense of the $118 million government-funded albatross on the Canadian team.

The much hyped program declared that the Canadians would win the total medal count at the Vancouver Games – a boast that was not just bold but struck many as rather un-Canadian.

Eleven days into the Olympics and Rudge has all but conceded the standard won’t be met, declaring, “It would take a miracle.” The United States has 24 total medals. Canada is tied for fourth with nine.

“We’d be living in a fool’s paradise if we said we were going to catch the Americans and win,” Rudge said. “We’re going to be short of our goal, I’ll readily admit that.”

The issue is compounded because the goal had been out of character for the nation. This is a country where many see value in simply doing your best, not in pursuing domination as the Americans, Russians, and Chinese do.

Worse, it was taken by the rest of the world as semi-playful trash talk, and with each victory by other nations’ athletes, fans and wise-cracking media (cough, cough) have enjoyed poking fun at it. If Canada was uncomfortable with the promise, it appears even more uncomfortable with a backlash that most nations would have recognized as predictable. Canada was naive not to see it coming.

Consider ever-aggressive Russia, which promised an even grander medal total of 40. It currently has eight, yet no one is fretting over it. It’s the nature of a big prediction, and that wasn’t the nation’s first.

Canada’s own athletes have helped fuel the controversy. Speedskater Denny Morrison originally blamed the Own the Podium program – which provided more resources to coaches and national sport federations – for his 13th-place finish in the 1,000-meter speedskate because he wasn’t allowed to train with his friend Shani Davis of Team USA. Morrison later played damage control and took full blame for his result. “I was speaking with a lot of emotion,” he said.

Skeleton racer Mellisa Hollingsworth broke down in tears after finishing fifth in her race. “It’s haunting,” she said. “It’s sad.” Since the performance was not terrible, her reaction – in which she said she felt like she let her country down – was seen as a sign of the increased pressure that the medal count had put on the athletes. Hollingsworth has also backtracked on her comments.

“It was very, very painful for me to watch Mellisa’s comments to the press right after the race,” Rudge acknowledged.

For a while, Canada could brush off such failings by focusing on gold-medal prospects in men’s hockey – far and away the most followed of the sports. But the team, which struggled through pool play, will now have to play the Russians not in a dream final but in the quarters – and, of course, it lost a highly anticipated game Sunday to the United States.

“It’s frustrating to outshoot the other guy and not win,” Rudge lamented.

Yes, poor, poor Canada. Even its mighty hockey team can’t catch a break.

For the most part, despite some highly publicized gaffes and a luge track that was built too fast, these Games have been a grand success. Downtown Vancouver has been packed each day with fans, the spirit of revelry is everywhere, and the backdrop of a beautiful corner of the world has been breathtaking.

Yet hanging over everything is Own the Podium. If only the officials hadn’t made such a public pronouncement. If only they had tempered expectations. Thirty medals, for Canada? A nation of just 33 million people?

Rudge was standing his ground Monday.

“We put out there as a barometer of success a lot of medals [because] it was easy to understand,” he said. “There are other measures of success.”

He said the Canadian athletes’ mentality has been more aggressive. He pointed to ski cross racer Chris Del Bosco crashing with a certain bronze in his hand. Many critics have identified that wreck, brought on by a daring jump, as a casualty of Own the Podium. Rudge said that the fact Del Bosco wasn’t satisfied with bronze and was still going for silver or gold when he “crashed and burned” was a positive.

“He had a chance for an easy bronze and he said, ‘I didn’t come here to win bronze, I came here to win gold,’ ” Rudge said. “And he pushed and pushed and pushed. … Athletes are pushing themselves like never before.”

Rudge said the lack of medals is a result of a hot American team and the rise of Korea and China, which defeated the Canadians in women’s curling Sunday night.

But as question after question focused on his program, Rudge understood that there would be no simple explanations, no easy excuses. He said everything would be re-evaluated.

“We have a responsibility to the athletes. We have a responsibility to the Canadian citizens who funded the program,” he said.

Now just wasn’t time.

“It’s painful to go into the autopsy while the patient is still alive and kicking,” he said.

The Canadian Olympic team stepped out and spent big, talked bigger, and dreamed biggest. Its members said they were going to win the Games, defeat the world, and Own the Podium.

Eleven days in, they can’t shift back to moral victories and small steps toward progress and expect everyone to forget and accept.

It’s the nature of trash talk, of living in the big leagues: At some point, you have to walk the walk.

“We’re not throwing in the towel,” Rudge said, although it sure sounded like he was.

This post was submitted by Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports.