2010 Olympic Games Part 1: Emails, the Torch, and Opening Ceremonies

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On the prodding of my Uncle Jim, and the fact that I’ve finally got some free time in the car of yet another cross country drive (I’ll get into that another time), I’ve finally now able to catch up on these entries. 2010 has already been a rollercoaster of epic proportions, with working, self publishing and selling a book (I’ll get to that, too), looking for long term jobs, planning the July wedding, projects around the house, and keeping up with my responsibilities over at theexpeditioner.com—you could say things have been busy. Excuses aside, here is my official, ‘I’m dang sorry falling behind with the blog entries’ apology. I’d say I’ll never do it again, but, honestly, it’s likely to.

These next few posts are going to all be from my unbelieveable trip to the Olympics. For the sake of not forcing you to read an entire novel, I’ll break them up into a bunch of smaller entries and hopefully catch up to the present, because it seems like there is stuff I could write about happening everyday. Without further adieu…

Email #1

“Louis, how’s home treating you? I bet you miss that nasty kimchi, eh? I was just wondering, what are the real chances I could crash on your couch during the Olympics? 1 in 10? 1 in 1,000,000?”
“1 in 1. Seriously.”

Email #2

“Matt- I just got word from my buddy I met in Korea saying he has a couch I can crash on during the Olympics! I’ll be heading up there on Feb 8- 19th. Do you have any ideas what we could do on www.theexpeditioner.com? A feature? A blog? Whatever. Let me know.”
“That is so sweet! You should try to get a press pass, I checked out the VANOC website and the time has passed, but the Whistler local media house is still accepting applications. Check it out! We can totally do a daily blog, publish some pictures, anything/ everything. I’m so jealous!”

Email #3
“Hey James, I’m going to be doing a blog from the Olympics for school kids. I was talking my old teachers and it gave me the idea. It should be cool, I’ll post experiences, videos, pictures, and observations from the games. I’m going to try to make it interactive so the kids will enjoy it a little more. I figure

if we just spread the word it may catch on a little bit. What do you think?”

Email #4

“Dear NBC Montana,
I just happened to wake up early this morning and caught the tail end of Good Morning Montana. Hasslyn asked the audience to let you know any Olympic plans you may have. Well, here you go.

I’ll be up there, going to whatever I can, writing with a press pass, and if there is anything I can help you with, please let me know. I would love to share the experience with Montana!”

“Jon- Thanks for the email. We would love to have you begin an Olympic blog for us. We’ve never done anything like that, so we’ll see how it goes, but we’re excited to begin the project. Your blog would be featured on our Olympic zone site. Please give us a call and we can figure out the details.”

**I’ll leave the links to all these projects at the end of this post for you to check out!

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On February 8th, I grabbed my camera, video camera, flip video camera, laptop, press pass paperwork, research, directions, and headed west to meet Louis in Whistler. How’s that for feeling like a serious journalist. Without knowing what I was getting into, I was off to ten days at the Winter Olympics… a dream of mine coming true before my eyes.

The drive was uneventful, and I arrived at Louis’ place with time to head into town and grab a few pitchers of the local brew. He was an awesome tour guide and historian right from the start, and it was super cool to see him completely in his element, instead of the Korean restaurants and No Rae Bangs that I’ve only ever seen him in.

The next day I scouted out the area to get my bearings, headed to the media house to grab my pass and realize it didn’t do too much for me other than make me look important, and headed up the incredible Peak 2 Peak gondola. This isn’t just a chairlift with a protective cover, like the typical gondolas out there. This was one of the most amazing machines I’ve ever seen.

The Whistler-Blackcomb ski area is made up of 2 mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb (that was easy, right). They are huge, hulking mountains that sit directly next to each other and are made to look even more drastic against the deep valley separating the two. Both mountains are a part of the same resort, but have always been too difficult to travel between the two, until the Peak to Peak opened.

It is described as sitting “on the shoulders of giants.” That couldn’t be more true. This gondola begins on top of Whistler mountain, and travels to the top of Blackcomb mountain, over that drastic river valley I told you about. Yes, I rode on that today!

For 11 minutes, I dangled 1472 feet in the air, in a metal box going 7.5 meters per second, hanging from three strings nearly two miles (1.88 to be exact) from their nearest support pole. Okay, it wasn’t as simple as I make it sound, it was far more complex than I could even imagine. I couldn’t help but think about how amazing this contraption is as I floated in the sky between these two peaks.

I had to get going, however, because I was going to head down into town to stay at Louis’ parents house and tour Vancouver the next morning, catching the opening ceremonies downtown.

As we walked through town, we saw a person holding an already used, Olympic torch. They were letting people hold it and take pictures with it, so, being the extremely professional journalist that I was, asked if I could get my picture with it. It was very cool holding a part of Olympic tradition. This thing, for only a short period of time, held a flame that came from Greece, and was an integral part of the longest Olympic flame route ever- a 106 day, 45,000 kilometer, quest across all of Canada!

It was funny that happened, because as I drove through Vancouver later that night, I crossed an unusually busy intersection. So busy I took notice. I knew I would be in the neighborhood of the torch during my Vancouver day, so I made it a goal of mine to see the torch being run. I was a bit lost in Vancouver and found myself driving on a street lined with people and Canadian Flags. I put the pieces of the puzzle together and quickly pulled into a parking spot, grabbed my camera and found a spot to watch. It was more of a great accident getting to see it, than brilliant planning.

A LOT of police officers drove by on motorcycles, then two big trucks with advertisements and loud music, then a few more police officers. We could see the large flame above the crowd and everyone starting to cheer in the distance. Then a man dressed in all white with the white torch in hand jogged past us. He continued for another block, met another torch bearer with the same outfit on, they touched the tips of their torches to ignite the new torch, turned to the crowd for a wave, turned, and was on his way. It’s a silly thing to watch, but then again so is Luge, but I’m really glad I got to see it.

On my way home, I couldn’t help but reflect a bit on what had happened to me on the trip thus far. I thought about ancient Greece, the men in the competing in chariot races with the Olympic flame above them. I thought about the controversial Olympic games in Munich, the beauty of the cauldron being lit by an archer (was that Albertville?), the horror of the bomb in Atlanta, the greatness of the U.S. beating the Russians, and so much more. What is the legacy this Olympics will leave on history? What moments will be remembered for the rest of time? Surely there will be something, and I will be a part of it—that’s a really cool feeling.

Holding that torch in my hands, I looked it up and down. There was an inscription on the edge near the ashy top. It read, “With Glowing Hearts.”
Before the Games have even begun, these three simple words already began to take meaning with me.

* My Olympic Writing Links*

School blog- www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Wick2010Olympics
The Expeditioner blog- www.theexpeditioner.com
NBC Montana articles- www.nbcolympics.com
All Pictures from the Trip- =Olympic pictures here
= Whistler/Vancouver pics here

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