Keeping it Real…

Who’d have thought!  China had BILLIONS more to spend;  UNLIMITED resources; and  UNCHALLENGED control over all the planning, events and organization of their  Games … but in the end Beijing, in my view, ranks well BEHIND Vancouver in pulling off the Olympics! 

Because Vancouver had the PEOPLE:  a free people who gathered by the hundreds of thousands to welcome the world proudly and loudly, to celebrate, mingle and party freely with each other and  foreign visitors spontaneously.

It was so visible all over the city …  not just in the downtown or around venues, but people wearing and waving  flags, sporting them on cars,  in home windows, flying them from houses and adorning businesses, along with the sea of red and white clothing .. and sometimes just wearing the Maple Leaf across their shoulders.

And not just in Vancouver or B.C. but across the country.  Wow!!

The success of the Torch relay, wild beyond belief,  … covering 45,000 KM … I’m sure surprised even the most optimistic organizers. It allowed Canadians in every part of the country to become involved and bond from coast to coast.

 (However,  I still condemn those journalists who took part and participated in an event they should have covered “independently”.  And, as I feared,  many who accepted the VANOC invite without winning  any lottery to take part, sure enough went on to become cheerleaders … not reporters. Proving once again …bribery works!) 

But the beauty of  the outpouring by Canadians was that all of it flowed freely from their hearts …  without state-controlled choreographing.

That’s how the Vancouver Games beat Beijing’s …  in the best, most precious way possible … by the actions of  millions of PEOPLE themselves … Canadians …. living the true Olympic spirit the way even the most controlling restrictive dictatorship could not achieve.

Gold!

Certainly, the Gold Medal for Hospitality goes to Vancouver, to B.C. and to Canada.  The Vancouver Games brought Canadians together from coast to coast in a way no other Canadian Olympics or World’s Fairs ever did.

And a spontaneous national pride we have never seen before was front and centre … probably suprising us as much as the rest of the world.

 GOLD!

And what about the Games themselves?

I  award them a BRONZE Medal.  Worthy of a medal … which is still terrific … but not achieving the ultimate perfection required for Gold.

As we’ve all seen over the past two weeks,  Olympic victories are very hard to come by … sometimes only hundredths of a point separating Gold from Silver and Bronze. 

In my view, Vancouver’s chances for the Gold medal were lost with the death of Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili.  It was a tragedy for the young athlete’s family, country, and VANOC .. and in evaluating the Vancouver Games  .. it simply can’t be excused or overlooked.  (I was shocked when I saw visuals of the course immediately after the death and spotted all those metal posts right beside the high speed course apparently without any thick padding surrounding them. Inexcusable.) 

No Gold.

Silver?  No.

The Opening Ceremony was creative, beautifully choreographed and staged … but I felt it lost points because it went too light on Canada’s other official founding culture, the French fact, not to mention the many other cultures who helped build the country. Points deduction.

The Closing Ceremony did better in that regard … but in the Olympics, once you have had points deducted, you don’t get them back by improving in your next event.

And during the Opening Ceremony, there was no excuse for the failure of the fourth torch arm to be raised: there obviously should have been a manual backup mode … but apparently there was not.  Points lost.

And VANOC can’t control the weather, but it’s decision to hold some OUTDOOR events at Cypress, instead of all at Whistler  came back to haunt. And 20,000 spectators had their tickets cancelled because the mud on the slippery slopes beside the trucked in snow course became too dangerous. Points deducted.

And VANOC’,  with all its years of  planning,  failed to come up with an outside Olympic Torch arrangment that would allow clear access or even photos by the people unable to attend Games events themselves.  Lost points.   And adding insult to injury, VANOC did allow the “privileged” .. those with identity passes to walk right up to the flame and pose for photos, while those who will pay for it all were kept well away. More points lost. 

And those 24-hour Olympic lanes OUTSIDE the downtown area, along Cambie, Granville, West Broadway, Fourth, Twelfth, Grandview for MILES AND MILES,  24 hours a day, making it illegal for even taxis and Handidarts to stop outside medical buildings were barely used and clearly bureacratic overkill. While many shopkeepers and restaurateurs along those routes paid a huge price.  Big deductions.

And  how did a (reportedly) emotionally disturbed but otherwise quite ordinary citizen, using his own homemade pass, not only make it into a “secured” venue, but also into the VIP area and get within 12 rows of U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden? Despite a BILLION DOLLARS spent on security.  Mega-point penalty!

And with all ther state of the art technology at the disposal of VANOC , the sponsoring agencies and the pavilion organizers, especially the BC Pavilion at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Federal Mint Pavilion on Granville Street,  they should have been capable of handing out “tickets” giving a specific time to report back for entry, instead of having people … including the elderly and handicapped … wait HOURS in lineups. Big point loss.

These are just a few of the points deductions I calculated as a spectator to the spectacle. I’m sure those who watched it all and with an even more critical professional eye.

But all in all … the Vancouver Games were greater than I think most expected as a Winter event … a huge undertaking that was carried off overall very, very well by a cast of thousands of workers and volunteers, who deserve a Bravo! Well done!

And of course, there were the athletes;  who made us all feel so proud by the way they not only excelled, but carried themselves both on and off the slopes or rink.  What an example almost all of them provided, whether they won a medal or did not.

 All of it buoyed by the massive participation of the Canadian people ourselves … so I feel despite the glitches … the Vancouver Games  do deserve a BRONZE MEDAL … and praise for a job well done.

We’ll deal with the bills later.

NEXT: the CTV/TSN/ROGERS media coverage … worth a medal?

Harv Oberfeld

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