2010 Olympic Experience – Part 1

On July 2nd, 2005 I remember that I was at our office in our big meeting room with about 50 other people. We were all watching the live announcement from Prague which city would be getting the 2010 winter Olympics. Almost five years later from that date we watched that announcement, the start of the result of all of the work began with Olympic opening ceremonies on Friday night.

While there were all kinds of events that were taking place in the days leading up to the opening ceremonies on Friday for me the first real, live Olympic event that I experienced was the Olympic Torch relay that took place at one of our Save on Foods stores near our office in Langley. Even though the torch came to the parking lot in the front of our Willoughby store in the middle of the afternoon, there were easily about 2000 people waiting and our company’s president Steve van der Leest arrived to wild cheering from the crowds. I’ve got to admit that I was really getting into the excitement along with the crowd and seeing the Olympic torch being carried past in person is quite different that seeing it on TV – especially when you know the person carrying it. All in all, it was a great start to the Olympic experience.

In a perfect world Barb and I would have been able to buy tickets to the Olympic opening ceremonies but these were in huge demand and prices being asked for resold tickets were outrageous. Nonetheless, we had decided long ago that we didn’t just want to watch the opening ceremonies from home and wanted to be part of the vibe of being downtown on Friday night with other people. Since driving downtown would not make sense given all of the street closures and parking restrictions Barb and I met up at a SkyTrain station and made our way downtown.

We had already researched several places where we could watch the opening ceremonies downtown and also have dinner and we ended up at a bar called Smiley’s Public House on Pender street where they had plenty of TV screens to watch everything. The place was packed with cheering people wearing all manner of Canada clothes, hats and flags but being a part of the energy and excitement of being downtown and with so many other people was the best part.

Towards the end of the opening ceremonies we watched Wayne Gretzky light the Olympic cauldron and soon after this we had left the bar and were walking around downtown with thousands of other people. Everyone we saw were in high spirits and most people were heading in the same direction as us: towards the cauldron. Once we got to the location of the cauldron it took us about 15 minutes just to get to the perimeter as the throng of people were all there taking pictures and generally looking at the spectacle. The whole evening was a real experience and made all the better by being with all of the people together.

While it was raining most of Friday night when we were downtown, Sunday’s forecast was the exact opposite as it was sunny and pretty warm. In fact it was about 14 degrees when we left home and we were wearing our light, spring jackets.

As we did on Friday night we didn’t even consider driving downtown and parked around Marine and Cambie and took the Canada line SkyTrain downtown. Since the Canada line comes from Richmond and the airport, there were lots of people on board that had luggage and had obviously just arrived in town. I’ve got to admit that seeing all of the people who have come to Vancouver for the Olympics from other countries is part of the attraction for us to want to be downtown with everyone else. We are truly hosting the world.

We have taken the Canada line downtown several times before the Olympics and the crowds riding on Sunday were about 5-10 times as much as normal. However, all things considered it was never an issue to get on any of the SkyTrains even though they were all mostly crowded the trains were coming twice as frequently as normal and many of the trains had extra cars to deal with the increased passengers.

Due to it being a Sunday and mostly due to the sunny weather, the crowds on the streets of downtown Vancouver were unbelievable. Most of Robson and Granville streets were packed as they were pedestrian-only areas and every area seemed to have a street performer drawing crowds or artwork or other kind of display. Over the Robson media centre (and Robson street) was a zip line that carried people overhead every few minutes. Everywhere you looked there was something interesting and new. Voices that you heard as people passed by were languages from all over the world.

Barb and I walked all over downtown on Sunday and went from place to place looking at different pavilions and of course, me stopping and taking pictures. There are dozens of free places to attend downtown alone but be warned that many of the popular ones are going to have lineups.

I have almost two more weeks of time available to attend Olympic-related events and after Sunday’s marathon time that we spent downtown (almost 8 hours), I’m going to slow things down and take my time.

I’ll be posting my Olympic pictures on my photo web site as I take them so you can check back here at your leisure.

Baden