Olympics 2010

[jlvsclrk]

I've posted my favourite pics from the Olympics to facebook - Click and enjoy! And if those aren't enough, LMK and I can send you links to my sister's albums.

Other than the night of the opening ceremonies, I didn't take my camera out when the weather was bad, so there's nothing that shows how dreary it was for a few days out there. But if you followed the Olympics, you'll remember all the trouble they had with the Whistler alpine events on the first weekend, causing a massive amount of rescheduling. Then the weather cleared up and stayed good for nearly a whole week and the mood in Whistler just got better and better. It helped of course that Canadian athletes had started winning by then. Those first few days were really nervous times to be a Canadian. A lot of people were questioning our "Own the Podium" slogan - it's not very Canadian somehow to go so unreservedly for the gold. Those qualms seem very distant now given the great success the Canadian team experienced over the last few days, including the euphoric gold in Men's Hockey.

My volunteering activities brought me to the brink of exhaustion. I'm just not fit enough to stand on my feet for hours at a time in the cold without suffering some pretty dire consequences. My feet are still sore! The job was very easy - sending media busses out to the venues on time - but there were challenges. One of them was simply understanding where people wanted to go, not as easy as it might seem given the frequent language barriers. We got pretty good after a few days at anticipating troubles and bringing up extra busses when they were needed, especially for the Whistler Olympic Park, which wasn't actually in Whistler but over 30 minutes down the Highway in the Callaghan Valley. The other problem was many of the media consistently misread the bus schedule or were given incorrect information by others. That was always frustrating to deal with but we did our best.

Oh yes, and at the very end of my very last shift, they sheepishly brought out some chairs for us to sit on. I would have loved to have a picture of my face.

I saw five events live - preliminary rounds for hockey and curling, men's combined (downhill & slalom), cross-country and bobsleigh. The combined was the least interesting from a spectator POV, mainly because I arrived late and couldn't get a decent view of the course from the spectator "pen" at the finish line. By contrast, you could roam around the course at both the cross-country and bobsleigh and get really close to the action. No pics from the cross-country alas since I went straight after work, but trust me when I say it was exhilerating to be there. But the organizers made me furious by not having enough busses so I had to wait more than 3 hours after the event ended before boarding my bus. My feet were REALLY mad at me by the end of that day! The worst was they had a few volunteers at the very end directing you to the right line (Whistler or Vancouver) and seemingly thousands at the front, but no one in the middle telling you what was going on and how long the wait would be. Finally we reached a volunteer who said they'd only been expecting 12,000 spectators and had already bussed 16,000 home with several thousand still to go. I'm sorry, that explanation just doesn't fly. For one, the organizers know how many tickets were sold! I was truly pissed off.

But really, that and my feet were the only negative experiences from the Games. It was so much fun walking around Whistler, absorbing the crowd energy. Claire and I would usually meet in a sports bar after my shift ended and before hers began. She doesn't have TV or the internet at home so this was my main chance to get caught up on what was happening. And food always tastes better when you've been out in the cold somehow!

They scheduled several dozens of musical acts during the Olympics in Whistler alone. Most of the headline acts were reserved for the Victory Ceremonies and included bands like All-American Rejects, The Fray, One Republic and Feist, who put on a fabulous performance. That lady can sing! The free concerts also included a lot of amazing talent, including The Barenaked Ladies (always a Canadian favourite) and Devo, still rocking hard after all these years.

All told a great time! The Olympics can make you grumpy with the occassionally ridiculous crowds, long wait times for security, transportation problems and the like, but the events themselves are even more magical when witnessed live. I've definitely got London on my "To Do" list for 2012!