photo: Art Studio 21 Photography
Let the Games begin
Observations from the editor of British Columbia Magazine.
[This article was published in the Winter 2009 issue of British Columbia Magazine. Please be aware that some information may have changed since publication.]
My first and last downhill skiing experience took place with my family when I was about 10. I’m not sure why my parents thought I could ski, except that my older sister had learned on a school field trip. But when I pushed off the top of the bunny hill that day, I had no idea I was supposed to carve turns back and forth down the slope. I went at it straight on and was hell-bent for the bottom when I lost control and became a tumbling pinwheel of arms, legs, and skis.
The ski patroller on duty reached my sprawled body in moments, his expert stop spraying a snowy plume over my upturned face. As he extended the two pieces of my snapped eyeglasses in his gloved hand, he said with genuine feeling: “Wow! That’s the best accident I’ve seen all day!”
Go ahead, laugh. There is something inherently funny about the physical chaos of a raw amateur trying a new sport—as you’ll see in this issue’s “Do-It-Yourself Winter Games” feature. I sent a half-dozen willing writers out into the province last winter to attempt various activities of the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Luge. Biathlon. Slalom skiing. Snowboarding. Speed skating. Hockey. The less experience they had, the better the slapstick. And wouldn’t you know it: some even turned out to be pretty good athletes.
The Olympic spirit infuses this issue’s special package of adventure, nature, and people stories: from the derring-do of those writers who braved snowy mountainsides, frozen ponds, and public embarrassment for our “Do-It-Yourself Winter Games,” to the moving portrait of scrawny sprinter Percy Williams, B.C.’s first and most unlikely Olympic hero. In our “Faster, higher, stronger” photo essay, a gallery of exciting wildlife images demonstrate how the will to survive drives these animals to perform Olympian feats of speed, strength, and endurance.
Coverage of the sporting events of the 2010 Games will be comprehensive, with some 10,000 media representatives in attendance, and a television audience of three billion worldwide. It is an unprecedented opportunity for B.C. to showcase its people, landscapes, and culture; for the excitement of winter sports to entice British Columbians into healthy recreation and fitness; and for young athletes of the world to set an example by putting aside social, religious, and political differences to pursue their peak physical performances—just as the athletes did in ancient Greece.
Our Olympic heroes have the power to inspire and unite us through sport. I remember the tide of celebration that washed over Vancouver during the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002. A few days after the Canadian women’s hockey team had earned gold in their final game against the U.S., my husband and I watched as the Canadian men’s hockey team subsequently beat the Americans for a second round of gold medals. As we switched off the television, we could hear horns honking and people cheering throughout our South Granville neighbourhood. Swept up in the excitement, we drove downtown to join an impromptu victory parade inching along Robson Street. Canadian flags streamed from car windows and flapped from the ends of hockey sticks hoisted aloft by a sea of jubilant fans in red hockey jerseys.
Less than a year later, on July 2, 2003, Vancouverites again broke out the maple leaf en masse. A crowd of thousands filled General Motors Place with an ecstatic roar of approval as International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge announced that B.C. would host the 2010 Winter Games. Appropriately, the venue has been dubbed Canada Hockey Place for 2010—and could be the scene of joyful pandemonium again if our hockey heroes reach the Olympic finals.
We hope this issue conveys a hint of the excitement B.C. is experiencing in this final run-up to 2010. We hope our stories make you laugh (picture journalist Larry Pynn in girly red ice skates, one size too small). And we hope our writers’ “DIY ” adventures may inspire you to try a new sport this winter (with better results than my aerial freestyle incident). If our issue accomplishes each of these goals, we’ll consider it a gold-medal winner.
