Vancouver 2010

Torino 2006 Skeleton Gold Medalist athlete Duff Gibson chats with Olympic Outsider host Dave Thorvald about having a beer named after him, life as a Calgary fireman, being Canada's (and the world's) oldest gold medalist, training for technical and speed courses, the Whistler track, athletic challenges and the future of the sport at an Olympic rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery in May 2006.

Download The Duff Man! - Olympic Laughs with the Superhero Skeleton-ist Duff Gibson
(.mp3, 8MB, 9:53)

Today, in Vancouver, shortly after noon, the Olympic countdown clock was revealed to the public in an event attended by supporters and surrounded by the chaos of protesters chanting and protesting the coming of the Olympics.

Here's VANOC official Press Release regarding today’s presentation:

“What’s six metres high, three metres wide, weighs 1,170 kilograms and is wrapped in a 15 metre by 12 metre gift box from Omega on the Vancouver Art Gallery’s northwest corner in downtown Vancouver? It’s the new Vancouver 2010 Countdown Clock, presented by Omega, Official Timekeeper. Preparations are underway to unveil it to the citizens of Vancouver, rain or shine, in a fast-paced noon hour celebration on Monday, February 12 – the three-year anniversary to the start of the 2010 Winter Games.”

Vancouver BC Place Stadium dome un-flated {Note: Cross posted at GetElastic, Urban Vancouver and Ephemeral Feasthouse}

Note: Photo updated with correct date, apologies for any confusion.

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Vancouver’s noble and venerable stadium BC Place - which opened in 1983 as one of the first self-supporting domes in the world - is the latest casualty of the wildest winter weather ever around here.

[Cross-posted to Urban Vancouver and my personal weblog.]

Kris Krug just posted a photo of a poster seen in Gastown, and surely elsewhere, of a stylized middle finger made out of the Olympic rings. If it had the Olympic colours, it probably would have been less subtle, but let's be honest, I don't think a lot of people, myself included, initially saw an obscene gesture made with one's hands, but a body part that people are more discreet about. I wonder if the people who were behind the 2010 Riot stencils are behind this poster as well.

As mentioned in a previous post, ... Canada's Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean (a Haitian refuge who immigrated to Quebec as a child), and Vancouver Mayor Mayor Sam Sullivan were on hand - along with a phalanx of officers of everykind - to reveal the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympic flag.

I headed out from North Vancouver via transit to attend and watch the pagaentry. After stealthing into the media event, I asked VANOC CEO John Furlong a few questions on a snowy Vancouver morning.

Listen to Olympic Outsider #7 (.m4a)

In my scans for photos tagged with both 'vancouver' and 'olympics' on Flickr (the script I whipped up to give me RSS of that seems to be getting more and better results than a tag search), I found Andrew's photo you see to your right which has someone spray-painting "2010 RIOT" in public places. A quick search for '2010 riot' found another photo, this time with a nametag with the phrase.

Canada's Governor General Michaëlle Jean (a Haitian refuge who immigrated to Quebec as a child) and Mayor Sam Sullivan (suddenly, the world's second most famous quadrapelegic) were on hand with a phalanx of officers of everykind to reveal the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympic flag.

Every day during March, the 30 Days of Sustainability website will be posting a question of the day. Today's question is about the 2010 games -

How can Vancouver use the 2010 games as an opportunity to advance ourselves as a leader in sustainability?

Please click on the link above to go the site and add your comments. The more the merrier... short or long.

Vancouver needs to be talking about this topic! We have an opportunity to be a world leader in sustainability, and the Olympics are a powerful opportunity for us to model this to the world. Let's not miss it.

Thanks! 

Does anyone know where a Vancouver wannabe can get her hands on one of those Vancouver 2010 Scarves? 

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):