By Greg Cameron
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a global epidemic going on right now. No, I’m not talking about the H1 N1 virus, I’m talking about Olympic fever.
For the next two weeks, the collective eyes of the world look to Vancouver, British Columbia for the Winter Olympics. As a sports enthusiast, consider me impressed with the quadriennal event.
Friday night’s festivities included the first-ever indoor opening ceremony complete with giant polar bear statues, Donald Sutherland narration, Sarah McLachlan, and arguably the two greatest hockey players ever without the surnames Lemieux, Crosby, or Ovechkin in Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky. Athletic implications aside, the celebration was a seemingly stunningly celebration of our neighbors to the north and their abundant excitement for all events occurring over the following fortnight.
Despite all of the dazzling elements, seeing the procession of countries and the athletes themselves produced the greatest sequences of goosebumps and excitement. Eighty-two nations sent a whopping 2,629 athletes to beautiful Vancouver.
It was truly a global affair on Friday night as countries like Pakistan, Ghana, Cayman Islands, and Colombia made their Winter Olympic debuts. Nations that have idealogical and military differences compete with each other side-by-side for the next two weeks.
However, not all of the Opening Ceremony came with an ear-to-ear smile as tragedy struck these very games mere hours before the world looked to the Pacific Coliseum. Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvilli was killed in a crash during training runs on the Whistler sliding complex.
In my opinion, the ceremony addressed Kumaritashvilli’s passing with as much grace as possible despite having happened mere hours before the ceremony. Flags were dropped to half-staff, and the applause for the Georgian delegation received much more applause and deservedly so, than your run-of-the-mill country fielding just three athletes for the Games.
The athletes presence at the Opening Ceremony helped to make it seem much more like a world celebration than it had in previous years. Personally, I liked seeing NBC’s camera catch glimpses of Shaun White, Lindsey Jacobellis, and others as they saw the amazing spectacle before them.
So far just about a week into the Games, we’ve already seen some great Olympic stories. First, Canada’s Alexandre Bilodeau took home the host country’s first gold on home soil ever in men’s mogul skiing.
I’m not too certain who was happier about the achievement, the entire country of Canada or Bilodeau’s brother Frederic. Frederic Bilodeau lives with Cerebal Palsy, and Alexandre credits his brother’s determination and inner strength to his own athletic exploits.
And on Monday night, we saw the power of love in these Olympics make their presence felt just three days into the Games. Chinese figure skating pair Shen and Zhao took home the gold in the sport they love.
However, more remarkable is that they’ve been skating together for 18 years, and have competed in four Olympic Games. Even better than that is that the pair fell in love, got married and retired in 2007.
For most of us, that seems like a pretty awesome life with the person we love the most and in the discipline that we love the most too. But for Shen and Zhao, that bright shining gold medal was missing—until now.
As we’re only a week into these Olympic Games, and the compelling stories of the Games keep coming each day. The best may be yet to come from Vancouver, as we still have a ways to go until the Closing Cermonies.
But, one thing is for sure, The Olympics, regardless of season, do a great job of bringing the 6.8 billion people on this planet closer together for two weeks. We can sit in Springfield, Mass., and watch athletes from China win gold in an ice rink some 3,000 miles away.
This event makes a certain chorus from a certain Disney World ride ring true.
It’s a small world, after all.
