... but it became rain and then tapered off to nothing by mid-day.
We arrived at the Village Square about 3 pm, where there was free live entertainment the whole day, and the theme, of course, was 'Paint the Town Red!' I even got the tattoo....
The mayor was there...
And this woman is the co-founder of the Whistler Film Festival (Hailey just completed a contract with them), and isn't her little guy red... I mean cute?
The crowds were huge...
... and the entertainment was fun...
Many of the participating countries have bought out existing businesses in order to have a presence here during the Games ... for instance, this is Switzerland House, in a space that, a month ago, housed a restaurant:
The restaurant would have been paid some exhorbitant amount to clear out for a few months!
We had intended to go watch the torch 'hand off' between two of the local First Nations at their Cultural Centre, but we decided to walk over to Skiers Plaza, where the torch was to be lit, first ... just to see how much of a crowd was gathering. We were able to walk RIGHT UP to the fence separating the crowd from where the athlete would run up to the stage!
Once we had that spot we didn't dare leave ... and sure enough, within minutes the crowd started to fill in, and we couldn't have left if we wanted to -- an estimated 20,000 people turned up to watch the torch arrive, and we had 'front row seats' not 30 feet from the podium!
Our Premier, Gordon Campbell, was schmoozing the crowd -- he passed me a provincial 'Torch Relay' pin, but by the time I recovered enough to get a picture, he was moving on...
Games CEO John Furlong was there, along with a host of other 'important people,' of course.
But the most important people got the torch there! Here's a cool local story...
Local athlete, torch bearer, and 'home town girl' Julia Murray, (21, and one of four Canadian women on the skicross team), tore some ligaments in her knee a few weeks ago. So instead of running, they had her go by snowboard up the hill behind where the celebration was taking place, to the top of this little ski hill..
There she passed the torch off to Steve Podborski, one of the original 'Crazy Canucks' -- another of whom was Julia's dad, Dave Murray (who died of cancer several years ago). When the alpine skiers take off down the hill during these games they'll be skiing on the Dave Murray Downhill, named after Julia's father and Steve's old team-mate. Here's Julia and Steve passing off the torch at the top of the hill...
Then Steve skied down that hill, and the crowd went crazy when he passed the torch to a young local mountain biker Tyler Allison, who hopes to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics...
It was an amazing and very moving moment, and I loved every minute of it!
Gotta go ... turns out that we're making a quick trip home to the Island today -- Hailey and a friend here are attending a mutual friend's baby shower in Victoria, so we get to go home just for overnight -- and the timing is perfect because Joshua will be down this weekend and Michael was slated to have River and Gibson overnight on the boat tonight anyway! We'll have a family breakfast in the morning, and be back here in Whistler by tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. :)
2 comments:
Looks grand! Wish we could send Whistler some of our snow (near Washington, DC) - between 20-35" has fallen in the area since yesterday at noon and it is still snowing with near white-out conditions.
Good luck and have fun during your time there. I was in Whistler several years ago, but during the summer. Lovely place.
ANOTHER great blog, Marilyn.
I liked the Mom's hat..did you get the pattern!!!!
You'll have great weather to drive home to Victoria...the sun is shining...drive safely.
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