My first memories of the Olympics are from Calgary in
1988. I was living in a little town
north of Kingston, Ontario and for whatever reason we couldn’t see the Olympic
torch when it ran through… so my parents made sure to take me to the next town
to see it. I think that they yanked me
out of school to see it… but as a current teacher I don’t really want to
confirm that.
Other memories, as I sit on the plane with other
London-bound travelers, some of whom are probably coming over for the Olympics
as well, are flooding back right now.
Ben Johnson’s rise, then fall, in Seoul in 1988. My grandfather letting me know that Silken
Laumann had won the bronze medal in rowing after her crash months earlier in
Barcelona in 1992. Tonya Harding and Nancy
Kerrigan in Lillehammer in 1994. Donovan
Bailey’s massive win in Atlanta in 1996.
Watching every single minute of Sydney 2000 Olympic coverage in the last
year of university. Cramming 17 people
into a residence room in France to watch Canada beat the US in the Salt Lake
City games in 2002. Witnessing the
Australian short track speed skater seemingly come out of nowhere to win in
that same games. Hooking up the cable in
the grade nine French class I was teaching to watch Brad Gushue’s team bring home
gold to Newfoundland and Labrador in 2006 from Turin. Seeing the triumph of Eric Lamaze, Ian Millar
and the rest of the equestrian team take gold in Beijing in 2008. Once again being present to the flame running
through my (new) hometown in 2010, and then watching medal win after medal win
from afar during the Vancouver 2010.
And now I arrive at the London 2012 games. As I had mentioned in my other blog, one of
the main purposes of taking the 2009-2010 school year off was to go to
Vancouver to volunteer. It didn’t really
pan out, but what did take place during the fall of 2009 was the groundwork for
the London games. My friend, who lives
on the outskirts of London said that she and her husband would be very happy to
have me stay at their place (thanks, Em and Chris!). In 2011 the mobilization for tickets began…
and although we were not victorious during the first request, we strategized
and picked different events and got the first tickets in June 2011!
Since then it has been, for me, a fun treasure hunt to get
more tickets. In fact, I’ve got nine
events to go and see! To wit:
Wednesday July 25th – Women’s Football in Cardiff
– GB/NZ and Brazil/Cameroon. This is
also the first event of the Olympics!
Tuesday, July 31st – Women’s Football in Newcastle
– CANADA/Sweden and France/Colombia
Friday, Aug 3rd – Women’s Basketball in London –
teams tba
Monday, August 6th – Canoe/Kayak sprint in
Buckinghamshire in the morning, Men’s Beach Volleyball in London in the
evening.
Tuesday August 7th – Men’s 3m Springboard Diving
semi-finals in the morning, Athletics in the evening.
Wednesday, August 8th – Men’s Court Volleyball
Thursday, August 9th – Women’s Football Gold
Medal game
As you can see, it’s going to be a wild time. But I can’t wait.
In fact, I can, because
I’ve been waiting years for this opportunity, and a few more days isn’t going
to hurt.
Cheers,
Vick.
Remind me to show you the scrapbook I made for the Atlanta games when I was in high school. I kept it because I'd worked so hard on it, and it is a moment in time collection. But I have articles about all those athletes from Canada who won medals, etc. that year. I totally have one on Silken, one on Marnie McBean, etc. It's no wonder we're friends.
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Awesome! I'd love to see it.
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