The piece that launched my writing career recounted an upside-down adventure at the Olympics.
Italiano Solo appeared three years ago in the Rio Grande Review’s online literary journal (www.utep.edu/rgr/archive/2006Website/nonfiction1.html). It traced Pierre and my close encounter with the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, where Euro-chic met pure pandemonium in effortless, Italian style.
Torino hardly bore the outward rigidities of the Salt Lake Games we’d witnessed four years earlier, when 9-11 paraded at the forefront of the world’s thoughts – and even more so as the globe gathered in a highly televised circus on US soil. No, Torino was Italian.
Full-figured waitresses cooed over our 11½-month daughter (“Ah, bella!” “Piccola!” “La principessa!”), while outside their restaurants bulldozers scurried to finish erecting hotels and smooth parking lots – well after the Opening Ceremony’s fireworks. In Torino the second-hand ticket market was a scalper’s sprawling underworld, at one point drawing Pierre and me into the back seat of a taxi beside Chucky, a fast-tongued Brit, who closed a wallet-busting deal by handing us a pair of nosebleed figure skating seats. Torino hosted an Olympics at which helpful officials, no matter how simple our questions, would reply in Italiano. Solo.
My author’s bio attached to Italiano Solo ended with this prophetic line: “Janelle looks forward to the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 – and to discovering the true essence of Canadian society.”
Ahem. In the intervening years from Torino to today, this blog was born. In it I first studied things French. Then I took a crack at the trusty Canadians. It hardly took the Olympic Games to provoke my curiosity in the eccentricities above the 48th parallel.
But would the Vancouver Olympics unearth something I’d not already discovered about my new brethren? Would they still be the kinder, gentler creatures that inhabit the Great White North? Would the Canadian hosts still take pride in their hearty attitudes toward snow and their efficiency at sorting food scraps and plastic bottles?
Vancouver offered up much of the Canada I already knew. These were the greenest Olympic Games – and by this I mean the Canadian organizers recycled. They constructed new buildings out of local rocks and mountain pine beetle-infested pine wood (and actually completed their work in time for the Games). They distributed four types of colour-coded garbage bins at venues and allowed visitors a hand in the sorting.
But this wasn’t the only green visitors noticed. Vancouver was enjoying a winter warm spell – the area’s warmest month of winter weather prior to mid-February in a full 114 years.
The evident lack of snow could hardly stifle the cheerfulness of the good Canadians. They would create the snowy venues. Now they could’ve flown the white stuff in that first week from the US’s southern state of Georgia. Or the Canadians even could’ve shipped snow from our family’s last year’s haunt of la Côte d’Azur, our beloved French Riviera now dubbed la Côte de Blanc. A friend was marooned in these icy hills, in fact, and emailed a photo of his picnic table – with a bottle each of Bollinger and Taittinger chilling in a ten-inch snow drift.
Amid this global weather reversal, the Canadians persevered. From bales of hay they knitted together the freestyle skiing and snowboarding tracks on Cypress Mountain, the most endangered Olympic site situated just outside the city. They trucked snow 140 miles from Manning Park and helicoptered snow down from the top of the mountain. They used the white stuff to ice the hay and create that oh-so-wintery feeling.
One sunny afternoon, as Pierre and I rode the spectator bus up Cypress Mountain for the men’s snowboarding half-pipe competition, waterfalls streamed down the mountainside. It was a nice touch. To calm the stress of public transportation to this venue – and believe me, having forgotten to check out the directions beforehand, the stress was evident in our duo – the thoughtful Olympic organizers had created a trickling and splashing backdrop. It was a moment of pure zen wafting through the bus’ cracked windows.
Despite these modest inconveniences, a host of turquoise-coated volunteers clustered outside Olympic events and greeted us with “hello” and “bonjour” in rapid succession. With 31% of the volunteer force speaking French, and over 60 ethnicities and languages dotting their ranks, these volunteers embraced Canada’s two-language system and obliterated any possible accusation of speaking Anything Solo. It appeared, in fact, that wishing the crowds a wonderful day and terrific event was the singular vocation of a good 2/3 of these officials.
The Olympic organizers accommodated second-hand ticket sales just as chirpily. It’s gonna happen, they realized, so why not make it happen safely – and cream a bit of profit off the top? An official second-hand market was established online, I learned, where folks could buy and sell tickets (on or off par value) and pay the Olympic committee a service charge. It was a much kinder and gentler set-up than our back-seat encounter with Chucky four years ago in Torino.
Even protesters got respect at the Canadian Games. Organizers carved out a prominent square in Vancouver’s downtown for placard-bearers and chanters to make their peace – complete with green-shirted observers to ensure fair play.
Ah, Canada. And the kind, gentle, tree-hugging Canadians. They were just as I knew they’d be. I bought a pair of those celebrated red Canadian mittens – the ones bearing the Olympic rings on the outside and the maple leaf stitched to the palm – and sported them proudly. I was especially pleased to own them during those few instances when American fans (my true tribe) got a bit feisty.
But there was a hitch to all this Canadian goodness. And you could whiff it in those red mitts.
On Friday, February 12, the day of the Opening Ceremony, The Vancouver Sun offered this headline:
The message: These Games are ours
The deck beneath this claim:
Canada’s Olympic team is not here to capture anything that isn’t gold, silver or bronze
How very un-Canadian! I did know before heading to Vancouver that the stakes would be high. Never before had a Canadian won an Olympic gold on home soil. Not in Montreal in 1976. Not in Calgary in 1988. Going for gold was an urgent requirement in Vancouver in 2010. It was a medical emergency. And so the Canadians had taken to very un-Canadian-like means to get their medals, such as denying foreigners the typical training access to the new speed skating arena, the skeleton track and downhill slopes.
I continued reading that Vancouver Sun article to find this quote: “We will be the best hosts on the planet, because we are hosting the planet – but on one thing there will be no compromise. These Games are ours. We will own the podium.” The guy who proclaimed these words was the incoming president of the Canadian Olympic Committee, Marcel Aubut.
I, the Yank among Canadians, could hardly criticize. It was thanks to Marcel, my husband’s dear friend, that we were at these Winter Games in the first place. He secured our fistful of prime Olympic tickets. He gave us access to Canada House, the urban retreat on the 6th floor of downtown Vancouver’s Bay department store that welcomed Canadian Olympic athletes and their families.
This time Pierre and my Olympic experience would be different. Unlike the Torino Games, at which we couldn’t even understand a simple set of directions in italiano, we’d see the Vancouver Olympics from a wholly new perspective: from the inside.
My red mittens were further evidence of Canada’s five-year “Own the Podium” campaign, an initiative organized as exactingly as any publicly listed company. The net proceeds from my $10 item – and from all the thousands or probably millions of fingers covered in this red knitted material – went to Canadian athletes. But it was the Government of Canada who was the largest contributor to “Own the Podium”, bringing the total ploughed into programs and technological support for Canadian athletes over the past five years to $117 million. That’s over $22 million each year – an unprecedented amount for the country. (US athletes, by comparison, gain their funding through corporate and individual supporters.)
While at the Games, Pierre met the woman behind the campaign. France Chrétien Desmarais is the Chair of the Canadian Olympic Foundation – and daughter of Canada’s former Prime Minister. She told my husband she’s now raising $28 million a year for Olympic athletes.
Back to those $10 mitts. I must come clean. I didn’t actually buy them. I got them at a party put on by Frank, another one of Pierre’s gang. He hosted about 60 of his closest friends on Saturday, the first day of events, at his mountain home perched at the base of Whistler’s alpine skiing venue. The idea was that we’d nibble hors d’oeuvres from Frank’s swanky kitchen while watching the men’s downhill skiing competition. Together we’d witness Manuel Osborne-Paradis lead the Canadians to that cherished, first-ever Olympic gold on Canadian soil.
At least we ate hors d’oeuvres. Heavy snow, rain and mild temperatures combined to make the ski run inconsistent for racers, so the Olympic committee postponed Osborne-Paradis’ event. But the food and drinks swooshed ahead. One couple at the party spoke glowingly about their nephew, the chap who snowboarded through the blazing Olympic rings in the Opening Ceremony the night before. Prince Albert of Monaco apparently mingled in Frank’s kitchen for a couple hours, but I failed to notice him. I was too busy in the chateau’s great room listening to Manuel (“my friends call me Manny”) Osborne-Paradis while he toasted an unexpected day off with a glass of Grand Cru.
Manny commanded the audience’s attention over the presence of his coach and the Vice-President of Development for Canada’s alpine ski team. It was great having the home court advantage, the Hope for Canada’s First Gold told listeners, several of whom were sliding through their seventh hour of champagne – and it was only 2:00 p.m. This skier could enjoy his a day off as a normal day on the slopes. He could holiday with his family and girlfriend. He could sleep as usual in his Whistler condo.
Outsiders, meanwhile, took rooms in the Olympic Village situated by the garbage dumps. There were bears in these woods, Manny said with a smile. Bears like to root through garbage dumps. These visiting skiers scare easily. The image provoked a swell of whooping that bounced off Frank’s vaulting ceilings.
Could all this un-Canadianness actually be the real, newly-outed Canadian, I wondered?
Manny spoke of a fresh vibrancy within Canadian sports. No longer would athletes be relegated to the kinder, gentler sidelines. Going for Canadian gold would remain a legacy of these Games. The well-lubricated crowd cheered. And out came that basket of red, knitted party favours.
Surely this was the main way the Vancouver Games differed for me from those in Torino and Salt Lake. Yes, I did gain a fuller picture of the host team’s enthusiasm for winning. But thanks to home turf connections, I also experienced how a vast country – the second biggest in the world by land mass – can also be very, very small.
A few nights after the champagne-soaked day in Whistler, Pierre and I were seated within Cioppino’s restaurant at a table for 34 – another intimate party organized by the famous Frank. In attendance again was Prince Albert (who, I learned, should be addressed as Your Serene Highness, but no one could spit out the “serene” bit). Richard Branson charmed a couple of glamourous women. The mayor of Vancouver looked on. The founder of Canadian icon Lululemon explained the origin of his trademark’s name (which, put simply, is a play on the letter “L”, an impossible letter in the dialect of his original Japanese clientele, thus signaling to them that this brand was enticingly foreign). And a jolly chap called Richard, who headed of the West Vancouver Olympic Committee, offered to help Pierre and me find more event tickets. (We gratefully took him up on that offer.)
Sir Richard and His Serene Highness. Lululemon’s founding father, the host city’s mayor and the generous, ticket-toting Richard. And let us not forget COC chief Marcel, France Chrétien Desmarais, party host Frank, superstar Manny or his entourage. Or even the snowboarding nephew. If everyone in the world is supposed to be connected within seven degrees of separation, then everyone in Canada, I reckoned, must interlink within a factor of three.
As our days in Vancouver progressed, this idea gained Super-G momentum in my head. Seeing the Games from the inside shrank the world. Sparing the gritty detail, I soon counted one degree – or even zero degrees – of separation with Jean Chrétien, Canada’s former Prime Minister, and Jean Charest, Quebec’s current Premier. With Nelly Furtado, Nikki Yanofsky, “I Believe” composer Stephan Moccio and Quebecois singer Garou. With Sarah McLachlan, Diana Krall and Elvis Costello – the latter two of whom weren’t even at home in Vancouver during the Games.
Considering the global (and in Branson’s case, spatial) networks maintained by these celebrated folks, I began to think that seven degrees of separation in the world are probably too many. Ditto three in Canada.
Meanwhile Canada battled it out for the gold. The crowds roared in support – even for the likes of my new friend Manny, who crashed out of his postponed downhill skiing event. I wore my red mittens and cheered the home team – when I didn’t root for my US peers or for folks from my former British or South African homelands; or for the Swiss, who gave me my first career; or for the Uzbekistanis because they just plain needed someone to support them.
Laurelle, our now nearly-five-year old, defined her priorities more clearly. A keen student of the “Own the Podium” fervor, she cheered on Canada with surprising glee, waving the maple leaf flag, clanging an Olympic cowbell, and yelling “Go Canada Go” and “Go Get ‘Em Canada” with such high-pitched enthusiasm that I feared she might lose her voice.
But then if the Canucks scurried back to their kinder and gentler ways, falling out of the speed skating rankings or crashing down alpine mountainsides, little Laurelle would hop over the border. “Go USA Go! Go USA Go!” she’d yell through the crowds. And then my dual-citizened child would explain to everyone nearby that she, in fact, had two countries. The other spectators – from Canada and the US and wherever else – fortunately would smile.
That’s the best thing about the Olympic Games. No matter where the Games are played, or who you know, or whether any Bulldoze-the-Foreigner initiative impacts the results, the world cheers on the pursuit of excellence.
Maclean’s columnist Scott Feschuk recently characterized the Olympic observers’ experience as “the thrill of watching people we don’t know compete in sports we don’t care about.”
Well okay, there is a bit of that. Some folks did understand the ins-and-outs of the sports we watched. But most of us spectators sat up in the stands unsure of exactly what came next. We’d ask each other about rankings and heats and flights and scores, hoping to grasp the event in better detail.
But we – the whole world in microcosm – congregated there in an arena or on the slopes, cheering on men and women who had slogged out their guts for years to give a single, grand performance of athletic virtuosity. These athletes knew they may win gold or silver or bronze. They also knew they may not. And in displays of real sportsmanship (at least most of the time), the world of athletes and spectators amassed to cheer on the performances – in a kinder, gentler sort of way.
Even if this time, the Canadians cheered the loudest.
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