Patriot Hearts (10 page)

The next big issue that had to be resolved was who would be onstage for the presentation, to give us the best shot at winning. This was always going to be a dicey proposition and highly political. I was dreading it. Rules allowed 11 people onstage, but because of time constraints it wasn’t going to be possible or practical for all of them to talk, so there were going to be some bruised egos. But some people
had
to be up there: Jack Poole, the chair of the bid; me; the prime minister; the premier; some recognizable athletic stars.

We had commitments from Wayne Gretzky, gold medal speed skater Catriona Le May Doan and Steve Podborski, who was not only the first man ever to win an Olympic skiing medal for Canada but who had also put in a lot of work on our bid. We also wanted Jamaican-born Charmaine Crooks, a former Olympic track star and
IOC
member, to talk about cultural diversity. We felt we needed to have Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell onstage and Chief Gibby Jacob of the Squamish First Nation, on whose hereditary lands much of the Games would be played out. Finally, we believed that Michael Chambers, president of the Canadian Olympic Committee, had to be there.

That meant there would be no Paul Henderson, who was an
IOC
member, and no Dick Pound, also an
IOC
member and probably one of the most recognizable Olympic names in the country. The decision to leave Dick off the ticket was very touchy. Dick wasn’t shy about expressing his opinion about anything, anytime. He was direct and could rub people the wrong way. He’d been around the
IOC
a long time, handled some controversial issues such as doping, and had made himself a few enemies inside the organization as a result. That was evident when he ran for the
IOC
presidency in 2001. Jacques Rogge won. Dick finished a disappointing third behind South Korea’s Kim Un-Yong, who was implicated in the Salt Lake City bribery scandal and would later be prosecuted and jailed by the South Korean government.

Dick’s name seemed to come up in most conversations I had with
IOC
delegates, and not usually in a flattering way. Over the closing months, one of the members of our international team had a discussion with Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former
IOC
president, about our bid. Samaranch told our guy that if Dick Pound stood to benefit from the Games being in Canada in even the slightest way our chance of success would be diminished. It was evidence of the sometimes bitter rivalries that exist within the
IOC
.

Dick didn’t offend me in any way and he was unquestionably one of the
IOC
’s brightest minds. The modern
IOC
owed him a lot too and, while I wanted to remain on good terms with him, I didn’t want the awkwardness of his situation to be a detriment to the bid. I remember one time I was in Manchester for the Commonwealth Games, which always drew an
IOC
crowd. It was late July 2002. I was sitting in the lounge of the hotel with a few people when Dick came over and sat down. My paranoia kicked in. I was a little worried about being around him to be honest, not because he wasn’t a decent guy, but because it could create a guilt-by-association problem for me, and we couldn’t afford that. A few minutes after he arrived I got up to leave. As I walked away Dick yelled out: “What’s wrong, afraid of being seen with a real live
IOC
member?” It was a bit of a shot but I ignored it. It wouldn’t be the last uncomfortable encounter with Dick before the bid announcement.

The final days leading up to Prague were mostly a blur. One job I remember was phoning the Prime Minister’s Office to book a time to talk to Jean Chrétien about the speech he would be giving as part of our presentation to the
IOC
. We had only an hour, including time for questions and answers. A lot to cover and everything had to be tightly scripted. There was no room to veer off course and start to ad lib. We were a little concerned that Chrétien might just do that. He had a penchant for talking off the cuff, or “straight from the heart” as he liked to say. Straight from the heart was fine as long as he did it within the time parameters we gave him. Ideally, we wanted him to deliver the words we were giving him, which I had drafted subject to his approval. The question was how to tell him.

Just days before Prague I got the prime minister on the phone. “I just wanted a few minutes to go over our Prague strategy with you,” I began.

“Our strategy?” he replied. “Our strategy is to win, no?”

I laughed. Yes, our plan was to win. But the presentation had to unfold precisely as we drew it up. We needed the prime minister to eloquently convey to the
IOC
that the bid had the backing of the federal government and that he, personally, had an unshakable commitment to the project and to us.

At one point he said, “You know, John, I’m a pretty good public speaker. If things aren’t going well over there, I will improvise.” Which is exactly what we
didn’t
want him or anyone else to do. So I told him something that, perhaps, stretched the truth a little. I told him we had to submit the speeches to the
IOC
ahead of time. Once we did there couldn’t be any big surprises. I told him I’d written some remarks for him and would be grateful if he would deliver them verbatim if he was comfortable doing so.

He said, of course, he would do whatever we needed him to do. Getting to Prague was going to be hell for the prime minister, who had to be in Ottawa for Canada Day celebrations. He was going to have to board a plane as soon as his obligations there were over and fly through the night to arrive in Prague one hour before we were scheduled to go onstage. The man was a warrior who wanted to win the bid as badly as any of us.

ON THE GROUND
in Prague it was nail-biting time. The Koreans had set up shop well before us. Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, had seemingly bought up every inch of billboard space in the city. It was as if the company, and by extension Pyeongchang, had taken over the place. Not only were their signs everywhere, but so were members of the Korean delegation. It seemed as if there were hundreds of them, spread out all over the city looking for an
IOC
voter to corner. We were all staying in the same hotel as the
IOC
members, but the floors they were on were off limits to everyone else. Whenever a few of them went downstairs, officials from Pyeongchang would be on them like fruit flies on a peach.

I grew concerned that members of our group might be tempted to lose their discipline. I didn’t want anyone, under any circumstances, changing anything, promising anything, no matter how seemingly innocuous, to an
IOC
member in exchange for his or her support. We had been meticulously clean throughout the race, and I was determined that we were going to continue being that way to the end.

Most days our team assembled in the dingy, dark confines of the Charles University Faculty of Law, where we had rented space for run-throughs of our presentation. Premier Gordon Campbell was terrific, working with people on their speeches, quietly reassuring everyone they were going to be great once the spotlight hit them. It was a side of Campbell that the public rarely gets to see, and I thought that if people did they would undoubtedly feel differently about him. He had a warm, funny, compassionate dimension that really shone through in Prague.

Wayne Gretzky arrived with his family a few days before the vote. Wayne has a legendary fear of flying, so agreeing to hop on a plane for 16 hours was incredibly kind of him. He showed up at the daily practice sessions and then disappeared. He told me he didn’t want the media swarms to become a distraction for the group. I really wanted Wayne there after hearing an interview with him and
CTV
’s Rod Black in which he talked about the thrill of playing in the Olympics for the first and only time in Nagano. He said it surpassed any of the four Stanley Cups that he’d won, which was a pretty amazing statement. Hearing that sentiment coming from such a world-recognized athlete would mean an incredible amount.

We set up a little war room in a space adjacent to my room in the Intercontinental Hotel, and each day a small group of us—Bob Storey, Jack and I, mostly—went over the delegate list, checking, double-checking, our support and talking last-minute tactics. The way we had it figured, Salzburg would be out on the first ballot. We thought we might be close to a first-ballot win but probably wouldn’t get there. After Salzburg went out, we figured to pick up almost all of their votes.

I didn’t get much sleep most nights. Meetings would go late, and I had a million things running through my mind. It was like that scene in
The Wizard of Oz
after Dorothy has been struck on the head during the tornado. She dreams she’s looking out her window and all these people she’s encountered pass by. Well, that was the inside of my head. All these people and concerns just kept passing by and I couldn’t do much to stop it.

The night before our presentation in Prague, a group of us were at a restaurant when Dick Pound and his wife walked in and joined us. It was awkward as hell. Dick leaned over to tell me he was prepared to go onstage the next day and introduce the group. I felt terrible. I didn’t like being put in this position and I had to tell him no, that the list of those who would be onstage was finalized and had been submitted to the
IOC
. Dick sloughed the rejection off, but I knew it bothered him. It was a slap in the face, even though it was not intended to be. He was the leading
IOC
official in Canada, a name recognized around the world, and we hadn’t asked him to be onstage with us. How else was he to interpret it?

The morning of the vote everyone was nervous, which was understandable. We would be first up among the three bid cities, not the ideal position. I wanted to be last, but Pyeongchang drew that straw. We were to be onstage at 10
AM
. The prime minister arrived at 9
AM
, all smiles, telling everyone he was raring to go even though he must have been exhausted. The 11 of us who were going to be onstage lined up outside the hall in the Hilton Hotel, in front of the hundred or so lucky Canadians who got to watch the presentation live.

Before we went in I went down the line and thanked everyone individually for their contribution. I wanted them to know that, win or lose, what they each had done had meant a great deal to me, the project and their country. For me this was the best day ever. We were at the finish line in one piece, together, inspired and proud. We had made it, hurt no one, cheated no one, promised only what we could deliver—as truly Canadian as we could be. There would be no shame whatever the result. I was never more content—a bag of nerves yes, but morally completely at ease.

Jack Poole had given every one of the Canadians who would be entering the hall behind the presentation team a “lucky loonie” to stuff in their pockets. The lucky loonie had a fabled heritage, of course. One was put under centre ice in Salt Lake City by the Canadian who was in charge of maintaining the ice surface for the Olympics. After the men’s and women’s teams won there, the lucky loonie became the stuff of lore.

And then the doors opened to soaring, powerful music from the movie
Spirit.
On a big screen in the room were glorious images of Canada and its people. Two minutes of pulsating energy to help us take the room over. It was the perfect mood-setter.

Now it was game time.

Jacques Rogge made some introductory remarks and then stopped and looked at me: “Mr. President, the floor is yours.”

I stood at the podium microphone and for a few seconds seemed to be frozen as I looked out over the crowd, centurions of the most powerful sport parliament in the world in whose hands our fate rested. The cameras were rolling and the world was tuned in. “I am John Furlong, the president of Vancouver 2010, and as I stand before you today I must admit I’m extremely nervous.”

I have no idea why I decided to tell people that I was shaking in my boots. I guess I thought honesty was the best policy. It was funny how many people would later comment positively on that small admission. They felt it showed a vulnerability they could relate to. Who wouldn’t be nervous under the circumstances?

It was my job to introduce our team and I started with Jack. He conveyed how ready we were to get started. We could begin construction the next day, he assured them with confidence. He talked about some of the infrastructure improvements that were already underway, including work on the Sea to Sky Highway.

Premier Campbell was next. He was the guarantor. It was his job to tell the
IOC
that the Games would not get into financial trouble, because they were backed by the provincial government. He was completely convincing. The prime minister followed and talked about the federal government’s commitment and the commitment all Canadians were making on this day. He made it personal and also spoke of trust and Canadian values. He was utterly on his game and nailed the emotion we needed.

Because of time constraints, we had had Larry Campbell, Gibby Jacobs and Michael Chambers tape comments, and we showed their videos. Then Charmaine Crooks talked about Canada’s multicultural heritage and her own immigrant history. She assured the
IOC
that athletes from around the world would receive a warm welcome from a country made up of people from around the world.

I was up next.

“Although my accent might lead you to believe that I am an Irishman,” I began, “I stand up here today a proud Canadian. The day I arrived in Canada a Customs and Immigration officer looked me in the eye, and as he handed my passport back said to me, quite simply: ‘Welcome to Canada—make us better.’ He challenged me to contribute to the greater good of Canada and for the last three decades, while I built a career in sport, this national culture of giving became a real force in my life. I came to realize that to give is the Canadian way. . . and it is expected from every one of us.”