Patriot Hearts (32 page)

After the meeting, I wandered about the Sliding Centre to see how our staff members and volunteers were coping and to chat quietly with officials from the luge federation. It didn’t take long into my chat with
FIL
President Josef Fendt to determine that these guys were still lost, in an environment most of them had never ventured into before, surrounded by media trying to trip them up, to get them to say things that might be controversial, that would cast the Games or the sport in a negative light. Amid the avalanche of coverage surrounding Nodar’s death were questions that flashed like a beacon: Was the track too dangerous? Did
FIL
officials, and by extension us at
VANOC
, have bloody hands in this affair?

That was certainly the subtext of many of the stories. Some of the papers in the U.K. were blaming the crash on Canada’s Own the Podium program, suggesting we went so far as to speed up the track to give our team home-ice advantage, the logic being that because our athletes would be able to train on the track the most, they would be better able to handle its speed. It was a preposterous and repulsive suggestion unbecoming of any reporter. No one would ever put lives at risk to gain a competitive advantage. And we had given more practice time to visiting athletes than previous Olympic host countries had. It was tough to read and listen to the coverage, but we had to deal with it.

By Saturday afternoon, there was a lot more information about what happened in the final seconds before the crash. I talked to the officer who had conducted the investigation into the accident for the
RCMP
. I had earlier wondered what expertise the
RCMP
could bring to bear on an accident that happened on a luge run. After all, what did the force’s investigators know about the sport and this type of facility? But this guy was impressive and pretty much nailed what most authorities would conclude in due time.

Nodar was blazing down the course when he lost control of his sled in turn 15. His reaction was evident for all watching to see: he raised his left hand in the air and dropped his feet to the ice in an effort to slow himself down. By turn 16 he was high on the wall and completely out of control. In a split second, the gravitational forces at play acted to catapult Nodar out of his sled, over the wall and into a steel support pole. I was disappointed that broadcast outlets chose to show the tragedy over and over again. I failed to see the public service in this. I just couldn’t imagine being the boy’s parents and having to watch that.

By the afternoon, the investigations at the Sliding Centre were finished. It was decided to resume training runs in all of the sliding track sports, including luge. But the
FIL
made the arbitrary call that men competing in luge would now begin races from the women’s start line, in an effort to reduce speeds and lower the psychological barrier now confronting their athletes. Also, walls at turn 16 were raised as a precautionary measure, and padding was put around support poles. Many luge competitors felt the decision ruined the event and said so. I could understand their feelings, but I also knew there were athletes competing in the sport who were nervous and may have welcomed the move. They just weren’t going to say anything publicly for fear of incurring the wrath of their fellow competitors.

Over the next 10 days, there would be fewer accidents on the track than there were in Salt Lake City in 2002 and about the same as there were in Turin four years later, a reassurance that failed to make me feel any better.

My mind turned to helping Nodar’s parents get their son’s body back to Bakuriani, Georgia, as soon as possible. I phoned our chief medical officer for the Games, Dr. Jack Taunton, to see what the prospects were for getting this done at rocket speed. Jack explained the normal procedures and how much more complicated it was when the police and coroner were involved. But I still didn’t see why, under the exceptional circumstances, we couldn’t just speed the process up.

“Jack, this isn’t good enough,” I said. “We have to do better. You need to make these phone calls and explain our situation. And if you need to talk to the top officials in the country in charge of this, then it’s time to talk to them now. You need to implore them to help us, to pull out all the stops, to go that extra distance to get Nodar on a plane back home in as short a time as humanly possible.”

Jack, who possesses pit bull determination, said he would but he didn’t seem very optimistic.

“Keep me in the loop,” I told him. “I’m counting on you, Jack.”

By the end of the day, Jack had worked some magic and managed to get the various authorities to speed things up, cutting three days off the length of time Nodar’s body would remain in Canada. It was a small but important victory.

I wanted to spend as much time as I could over at the track, talking to our volunteers and full-time staff to make sure they were doing okay. I knew nerves would be frayed. I was worried about Craig Lehto, director of the Sliding Centre. Craig was one of the nicest people you’d ever meet, with a first-class knowledge of sliding centres. He had a huge heart and was loved by his team. We were lucky to have him.

When I saw him on Saturday, I told him that he was now in the midst of one of the most challenging moments in his career. In fact, there might never be one quite like it again. Over the next few days, he was going to need to show what kind of man he was and what kind of leader he was too. His team was going to draw off his body language, his mood and his strength. “This is not easy,” I told Craig. “But people are going to be looking to you for signals, they are going to be looking to you for affirmation that everything is going to be okay and that some kind of order and calm is going to be restored. Mostly, Craig, they will be looking to you to show them, convince them, that you are all going to weather this storm. And whatever you need from me you will get—that I will promise.”

I knew that, like many, he was unfairly wearing some of the responsibility for what had happened. I told him he needed to stop worrying about that now. He had to focus on running the project, to get the program he had developed over the last few years back on track. He couldn’t let that slip away from him. There was too much riding on it. Craig would pass his test with flying colours.

Before heading back to Vancouver, I attended the lighting of the cauldron in Whistler, which was located in the town square. Thousands turned out, and yet the ceremony still felt quaint and warm and Canadian. I said a few words and probably didn’t have the same upbeat lilt in my voice as I might have had under normal circumstances. But Whistler had responded brilliantly to its Olympic challenge, producing first-rate venues and an Athletes’ Village that never got the recognition and kudos it deserved. From the stage, I could see the pride in the crowd over how the resort had come together. Its finest hour had arrived.

Because I needed to be in Whistler on Saturday, I was unable to take in Jenn Heil’s performance at Cypress Mountain in women’s moguls. Jenn is a five-foot-nothing dynamo from Spruce Grove, Alberta, with a smile that could light up a continent and a personality that could warm a small country. She represented our first legitimate chance of winning the first gold medal on Canadian soil. She had taken the gold in Turin. I knew Jenn wanted it badly and had trained her heart out to be the one here at home. When I got word that she had finished second, I felt a little sad for her because I knew that while a silver medal was nothing to sneeze at, gold was what she wanted. Gold was what we all wanted for her, and it certainly would have helped change the negative story lines that were being rolled out by the media.

I had been on the phone throughout the day Saturday, talking to various members of my team about new issues that were beginning to emerge. For one, we were receiving some early grief for what was perceived by a vocal few to be a lack of French content in the opening ceremonies. If there was one issue that could get my blood boiling throughout the Olympics, it was the tightrope we seemed to walk daily over the use of French. As an organization, we had gone the extra mile and beyond to ensure the Games reflected Canada’s linguistic duality. During the run-up phase, we had received heaps of praise from Canada’s official languages commissioner, Graham Fraser, for ensuring that
VANOC
was fully bilingual. He applauded us for hiring bilingual staff in key positions. Almost a quarter of our staff spoke French. We were ensuring that all signage was in both languages. We had 4,500 volunteers who had driven or flown across the country, many from Quebec or other French-Canadian communities, to work on the Games. We had every document printed in both languages. We had signed memoranda of understanding with the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique and the Fondation canadienne pour le dialogue des cultures to help us raise the profile of francophones living outside Quebec. Sure, Fraser had taken the odd shot at us, but by and large we had raised the bar on official languages.

And, of course, when it came to the opening ceremonies, few knew that we had tried to have the famous Quebec anthem “Mon Pays” in the lineup but were shot down by the song’s author. Still, it wasn’t enough to deflect criticism.

As fate would have it, one of my scheduled stops in Whistler was a reception hosted by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, where I was to drop by and deliver a greeting on behalf of
VANOC
. The organization is made up of countries and states where French is the customary language. Given the events of the previous evening, and some of the reviews around French content that were in the morning newspapers, I wasn’t sure what kind of greeting I would receive. As it turned out, although there were some private discussions among delegates at the function about the opening ceremonies, no one confronted me over it.

I did hear from some that they thought the show was spectacular, moving and emotional. Having said that, there was an elephant in the room—I could feel it. People were talking. The topic was doing the rounds. Still, I left mostly unscathed. It was funny because months later, in August 2010, I would get a letter of commendation from the president of the same organization in Switzerland praising our stellar efforts to recognize French at the Games. It said the organization also hoped Games organizers in London and Sochi were attempting to clear the high bar that we had set.

When it came to French content at the Olympics, Quebec premier Jean Charest said it best in one of the many conversations we had on the subject. “Whatever you do,” said the premier, “it will never be enough for some. You will always have critics.” And he was right. But the French debate, such as it was, was infused with politics. So when Heritage Minister James Moore, who represented a riding in suburban Vancouver and was also the minister responsible for official languages, came out and denounced the amount of French in the opening, I thought, Okay, this is clearly about votes in Quebec. But knowing that a big part of the conversation was political didn’t help defuse my annoyance. I mean, as our head minister and partner, he had been intimately aware of our challenges as well as our plans. I had briefed him myself.

There we were, having spent years working to share these Games with the country, working to infuse the organization to the degree we could with the French spirit, and this was the respect we got? Not enough French in the opening? You had to be kidding.

I went back to Vancouver late Saturday night by car. All the way there I tried to answer some of the thousands of e-mails I had received in the previous 24 hours. Yes, there were a few denouncing my appalling French. But there were many more giving me marks for the courage of trying. There were lots urging me to keep my spirits up, giving me the same pep talk I was giving my team. It was gratifying that unknown Canadians cared enough to write me and tell me to hang in there. That the sun was going to shine . . . eventually.

We had experienced more transportation problems throughout the day. Who knew buses from California didn’t like climbing hills? But beyond that, politicians and dignitaries were also creating problems. For instance, for buses going up to Cypress, there was a drop-off point halfway up the mountain, with security screening tents that spectators had to pass through as part of a strict protocol imposed by the
IOC
and the
RCMP
. But then a procession of black Escalades belonging to the security detail of U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden showed up and they weren’t stopping at any checkpoint and having the president’s number two man jump out to be searched and walk 800 metres. Not a chance.

If that wasn’t enough, the vice-president’s security detail also effectively stopped all traffic trying to get up the mountain. And it wasn’t just Joe Biden. Arnold Schwarzenegger was another, and even the prime minister’s entourage caused problems on the first day. At any given time we would have kings and queens and other royals visiting the Games, adding layers of protocol headaches behind the scenes.

Part of our challenge was getting these groups to understand that there was a way to access the venues smoothly and a way that would cause us enormous grief. I think there was a great deal of sympathy for us. The leaders knew we were managing a difficult situation, especially on Cypress, and after the first day we didn’t have nearly as many problems with political processions.

I met with my staff first thing Sunday morning. We went over the list of issues that had emerged from the day before: the pesky transportation problems, more weather problems, the French fallout from the opening, Nodar—the list went on and on. During my time in Whistler, it had become evident that confidence was fragile. Nodar’s death had really caused people to spiral, but also the weather was getting everyone down (especially up at Cypress, where events were threatened with cancellation), and the international media were reacting negatively to some of the problems we were experiencing.

I felt it was important that we, as an executive, fan out and get to as many venues as possible, especially ones where there were problems—like the Sliding Centre in Whistler and in Cypress— and give the staff and volunteers on-site support and assurances that they were doing a great job and everything was going to be okay. We decided to double the executive presence at key soft spots, especially in the mountains.