Roland Tanglao@urbanvancouver.com's blog

If you watch TV coverage of the Olympics, you see coaches, fans and friends taking videos and photographs of the Olympics. Yet next to none of that is on the web, aargh.

START OF RANT:

Like Arieanna and Boris, I want the raw and the cooked and I am willing to pay for it.

I want the established media's Q&A, high gloss stuff.

I want the raw video, text, photos, audio from the fans, coaches and friends of the athletes.

In other words, I want the everything there is available for the Olympic events I am really interested in.

For example, I am a cross country skier. So for Chandra Crawford's win in cross country pursuitsprint (Chandra's CBC web forum):

• Great passion from Master of Ceremonies (Mark Tewsbury?)
• The usual Blah blah blah :-) Not against blah blah blah since I do alot of it
• Total package is $62.5 million
• $35.5 million is value in kind: fuel, etc.
• $9 million in athlete development program
• $18 million in cash to pay Olympic expenses
• a portion of that will be through sale of "glassware at sight"
• benefits Petro Canada "leverage relationship" :-), employees will share in value

"My aim is to stand on the podium in 2010". That's what Georgina Wheatcroft, bronze medallist at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 said yesterday at the Rona 2010 sponsorship announcement and I say go for it. She curls out of the Royal City Curling Club in New Westminister. Like all the athletes there yesterday, Georgina was personable and engaging. This is what it is all about: the athletes striving for excellence and the rest including corporate sponsorship are enablers (essential but nonetheless "just" enablers).

Imagine if:

• There was ubiquitous Internet access at the media area last night. It was so 1999 to have only a few high speed lines in the Gondola.
• The 2010 Olympic emblem process had been more open and transparent. Perhaps there would have been 50% non professional designers on the emblem selection jury. Perhaps they would have shared on a site like Urban Vancouver what they went through as they received the 1600 emblem ideas, catalogued them and decided which ones were the best. Perhaps there would have been no $150 entrance fee (or perhaps that would have lessened the controversy about the emblem competition) and perhaps there would have been some more creative ideas for the emblem. Perhaps there would be more sympathy for the Olympics organization which seems to be very corporate and have no human face (other than a few brief moments of athletic achievement every four years!).

Catriona, Chief Gibby and Elena were the stars of the Imagine 2010 show last night.

Catriona for PM! Her French is better than Chrétien and Martin's. And she is poised and enthusiastic. Something those two lack.

Chief Gibby rocks as do most aboriginal chefs. Something about being truly rooted in the land. A sense of place and serenity. Again, lacking from the rest of the speakers last night.

Finally, the passion of graphic designer Elena Rivera MacGregor stood out whether you liked Ilanaaq or not!

Why my negative blink reaction? Because it looked like a bunch of rocks impersonating a multi-coloured Chinese character. Because it seemed flat. Because it seemed very similar to other logos out there. In particular, the Barcelona logo.

As I was cross country skiing at Cypress in a blizzard yesterday, I reflected on how lucky we will be to have the Olympics in our backyard. Bring it on! Herewith some photos.