What a rush

Post on: Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Category: Dragon Boat, Personal, sports | Tags: Olympics, Paralympics, rant, Vancouver

Days prior to the Olympics people were mentioning on twitter that they never heard so many different languages as they were walking around. When I heard that I was just shocked, as Vancouver is a multicultural city just like the rest of North America. Maybe they just been living under a rock all these years.. Who knows? I remember being six years old at Expo 1986 and being amazed at all the different cultures and whatnot and then again 10 years later when Vancouver hosted the World dragon boat championships, so I got to see all these different cultures once again getting together and take part in something they love. This is why I love this city as we are all so different.

I maybe a very proud Canadian with a maple leaf tattoo but I support every athlete out there whether your have a mega sponsor(s) like Shaun White of the USA or those athletes who taking time off work and paying out of your own pocket to attend the games.. Like most of the parlympics athletes had to do.

With that being said, I do believe that the Olympics and the Paralympics has changed us Vancouverites (and maybe even the rest of Canada) in a big way, As I’ve never seen Vancouver so bubbly and so patriot like our neighbours to the south. Where ever you went you heard a huge crowd people singing our anthem or a small group of people signing theirs. There was always someone in that crowd of red and white wearing their nations flags as a cape. This is a once in a lifetime event and it was priceless and just awesome. Only thing I am not looking forward to is the paying off the debt.

The highlight of the Olympics games for me would have been when we broke the 34 year curse of not winning a gold on home soil, and for every athlete being able to make it to the Olympics and doing their personal best. And talking to US Bobsled Elena and Canadian Luger Chris.

On the day of the Olympic opening ceremonies Vancouver’s paddling community got together and just like in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 the torch was on a dragon boat but this time around there were 7 dragon boats, 6 outriggers and 1 voyageur though our local tv station just decided to cover Hugh Fisher (a Gold and Bronze Medals in K-2 in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics) who was the flag bearer in the dragon boat and Kamini Jains (A kayaker in 2000 Sydney and the 2004 Athens Olympics) who was the flag bearer on the voyageur.

Both of these folks are now amazing dragon boat coaches that I look up to. From where Hugh got onto the boat to where they meet up with Kamini, it would normally take less then 3 minutes of paddling but they were told to paddle really slowly. (video clip is over 6mins long).

When the news got out about the luger that died on a training run, the whole world stopped to pay their respects. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take in a lot of the Olympic events other then the free ones due to my new job, I would have loved to have been downtown just to be but the time I got off work I was tired from pulling 12hr + days. Though my best friend and I did head to the opening ceremonies for the Parlympics.





The highlight of the Paralympics games for me would have to be when BC’s own Lauren Woolstencroft won 5 gold medals in all her events. The second would have be a family of 3 I went to high school with and seeing their facebook walls explode with people saying congrats to their dad for doing so well in Wheelchair curling and bringing home the gold.

Mini Rant:

- It’s 2010 not 1910 the Paralympics should be getting the same if not MORE coverage on tv/radio then what they got for these games.. I’m sorry but 57 hours of tv coverage is bullcrap! Hopefully the summer games in London 2012 will be more coverage.
- Sadden when everyone decided to take down all their Canadian flag/car flag two days after the Olympics and barely anyone had them for the Parlympics. Which is a shame, if your gonna show your support do it for both or don’t do it at all.