My Olympics

Photo from the Vancouver Sun
The 2010 Winter Olympics are for the most part over. The medals are all but won and the memories are both wonderful and provocative.
An Olympic event that had the amazing come from behind wins the front runners losses and performance over immeasurable personal tragedy.
In 1988 I worked for the CTV host network at the broadcast center and even though I was not even close to any of the action and normally got to work and left for home long before and after the daily action I still found the air in Calgary rarefied with the excitement of the Olympic Games.
The office from which I was working had no fewer than 20 TV sets on the wall all showing the grand spectacle this visual overload along with my general disinterest in sports led to a very blase attitude toward the games yet I could feel the spirit of those games when walking down the street, when going into the walking mall downtown and seeing these people from all over the world here for this unifying experience.

It is not like we in Calgary were uninitiated in having a massive influx of foreigners in town after all we host the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth (Calgary Stampede) many folk from all over the world come every year to take it in but it is hard to tell who is and isn't from Calgary during our annual summer extravaganza, we sell far too many white cowboy hats.

This was different it was a time to show how like rather than different we were to the citizens of the planet. In doing so the people of the world clearly saw what makes the host city unique at the same time underscoring the things that make us all very much the same. I include all things from commerce to family to community to brotherhood and its incipient tendrils which lead to a collective spirit.

My toque is off to Vancouver because it has taken me from an Olympic naysayer to an Olympic fan. I have seen the Canadian public collectively say "We want to win" without being rude or brash. I have seen, again thanking fate for giving me a broken foot, because I have watched, I have understood because I have listened without prejudice. This has allowed me to feel the personal glory and agony of these young people who do things I would never dream of trying yet having a common tie not in the discipline of their sport but in what is inside the competitor, the thirst to do the best the very best that they can by following their personal publicized passion.

I cheered madly last night when the Canadian women's hockey team took the gold prize then as easily teared up as the camera went over the faces of the defeated USA team.
I was in awe of the stellar performance of the young Yu-Na Kim who won the long program in figure skating. Then bawled when we saw Joannie Rochette taking a medal with a telling tear in her eye. Not because of a loss of one or two steps on a podium but I suspect for a deeply personal loss, one which we have or will have to face in our own lives, with much bravery.

So I have now a better understanding of these games and once you get past the politics the commercials and sometimes the swagger you come to a fine place that makes this in all ways our Olympics, a statement that can be made by every person everywhere just as the song of the 2010 games suggests if I believe!
I do believe that this was, is and will be
My Olympics.

Photo from The Province