Mt. Nusatsum

Mt. Nusatsum

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Olympic Moments - 14 Gold--7 Silver--5 Bronze

Well, they're over.  Now we really have something to talk about in this province and country, and there will be talk for a long time about a lot of things I'm sure.  How can you argue anything other than to say what a fantastic result our athletes accomplished, I mean really - USA with 37 medals and 300 million pool of potential athletes, Germany with 82 million people gets 30 medals and we get 26 medals for a country of 30 million?  How can the media waste anytime talking about our results other than to heap praise on the athletes and their unbelievable accomplishment.

I really enjoyed the athletes, that's what I focused on, and tried to block out all the peripheral chatter which will carry on in different forums.  One of my Olympic moments was the incredible Canadian athletes - could we have picked better sportsmen and representatives for our country?   Those people tried so hard and were so typically Canadian in their modesty and lack of self-promotion.  The ones that did win medals talked more about their team mates, supporting the other events, or the country, rather than the emphasis on themselves.  The ones that didn't win medals were just as gracious and so Canadian.  Shelly-Ann Brown, one of the silver medalists in the women's bobsleigh, her first words to the media were to thank Canada for what a great country it was before she even talked about her own win.  I was proud just watching them and feeling good for their success.  What a great bunch of future leaders.

My other favourite Olympic moment was not a sporting event.  I made a plane trip out of Bella Coola during the Olympics when we we had to use the 'temporary' security arrangements which involved stopping in another city -- Campbell River to 'clear security'.  On this particular day because we couldn't land at Campbell River due to poor weather we arrived with short notice at another unnamed city with a tiny airport terminal that was quite crowded and the security people a little bit disorganized as they weren't expecting us. They had no walk through metal detector so it was all done by the - put your arms out 'Inukshuk' style and let them scan you carefully with the wand.  Just before me was a mom with about a 3 year old boy.  When it got to the little boy's turn, the big stern looking slightly grey haired CATSA (Canadian Air Transport Security Authority) man got down on his knees, motioned to the little boy to put his arms out 'Inukshuk' like by putting his own big barrel shaped arms out.  The little boy instantly took that as a sign that the big CATSA man wanted a hug, and ran over to him and jumped into his arms, nearly bowling the big CATSA man over. The entire security crew -- about 6 people plus the serious looking RCMP man surveilling everything over in the corner all burst out laughing.  The big CATSA man was so surprised that all could do was hug the little boy back and gave him a cursory scan and wave him on.  A true Olympic moment.  Grizzly

2 comments:

  1. I am going to try that hugging technique the next time I am getting the ol' pat down!

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  2. Hm hm.. that's very interessting but honestly i have a hard time visualizing it... wonder what others have to say..

    ReplyDelete