Man behind Games in Vancouver looks back after a decade of change

VANCOUVER (CityNews) – Standing at Jack Poole Plaza, where the Olympic Cauldron now sits, the mastermind behind the Winter Olympics admitted the final days leading up to the Games weren’t the smoothest.

“Ten years ago, we were rushing like crazy to finish up the preparations on Cypress, we had been through a month in hell, we had anticipated we’d have more snow than you could possibly imagine and we had none,” former Vancouver Organizing Committee CEO and President John Furlong, recalled.

But it all eventually came together — even though just barely – with Furlong saying everything was ready to go the night of the Opening Ceremony.

He was in Prague in 2003 when VANOC found out Vancouver and Whistler had beat out Austria and Korea to host the 2010 Winter Games.

“All hell broke loose,” he said. “For my colleague Jack Poole and I, that was the end of our term as head of the bid corporation. We came home as champions and began the exercise of building the project itself. The day we got home we started to work, and seven years later, the city had transformed.”

The games, however, didn’t come without difficulties. Anti-poverty advocates saw spending on the major sporting event as frivolous, while others were simply concerned with the impact the eventual cost the Olympics would have on the city.

And then, tragedy struck when a Georgian luge athlete was killed in a crash during a training run just hours before the Opening Ceremony.

“Just about the worst start you could possibly have,” Furlong admitted. “It was heart breaking. It broke my heart. My whole team and I, we were shattered by that day. It took us a while to come out of that weekend and find our form and we energize ourselves and refocus on the job at hand.”

But 10 years on, Furlong said it was clear as the Games were winding down that Canada was about to make history.

“Winning that gold medal to me was sort of a reference to the fact that this is what happens when you deserve a good outcome so that’s special for me. There’s hundreds of moments, it would be hard to separate out from that. But from a very difficult start to a terrific ending, it was a great story about the Canadian spirit. Doesn’t get any better than that.”

It was Wayne Gretzky who was the final person to carry the torch that would light the cauldron and kick off what Furlong has described as, despite setbacks, “an amazing period of celebration” for Canada.

The cauldron — which actually malfunctioned during the Opening Ceremony on Feb. 12, 2010 — now reminds Furlong of how much Vancouver has changed.

“This is the marker we left behind to say we were here and a symbol that the city has been transformed,” he told CityNews. “There’s not a block in the city that wasn’t touched by the Games, you know? New buildings went up, the Games just inspired the best out of everyone. The country got to see Canadians for who they are. All of that was pretty special.”

-With files from The Canadian Press