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In search of Olympic spirit

Thousands of miles away in a small alpine ski resort in Austria, Mike Janyk gets a hero's welcome home. It's February and he has just won bronze at the FIS World Championships in France.
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Thousands of miles away in a small alpine ski resort in Austria, Mike Janyk gets a hero's welcome home.

It's February and he has just won bronze at the FIS World Championships in France. Kirchberg, where the Canadian and American ski teams are training for the 2008-09 season is Janyk's home away from home, and the town isn't going to let him forget how proud they are of him. The streets fill with fans eager to show their support as he, along with teammate John Kucera and U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn, are paraded through town in a sleigh and welcomed to a stage in the main square.

Two months later, with the thrill of victory still fresh, Janyk heads to Quebec, and is mobbed by 500 excited kids at a juvenile ski race at Mont Saint Sauveur. They clamour for his autograph. They want to shake the hand of their new Canadian star.

And then Janyk quietly returns home to Whistler. There is no hero's welcome home, no party in the village, no school kids waiting to shyly to say 'hello.'

After months on the racing circuit, Janyk comes home as the first Canadian male ever to medal in a technical event at the World Championships, a huge accomplishment.

"I'm not saying that I was looking for that by any means," shrugs the 27-year-old, speaking from his parents' home in Creekside. "It was just the difference (in welcomes).

"It's really hard to put it into words but you do get a little sense that there are some people who are definitely upset and resentful, that (the Games) are coming and there's that left-out sense of pride, I guess."

Don't mistake him: Janyk feels the support and the enthusiasm for his Olympic dream from people in Whistler. He gets it firsthand when he's buying groceries at the local market, when he's hanging out with friends, when he's walking through the village and people recognize him. There's a wave of support behind him personally, family, friends, teammates, ski fans.

But collectively there is something amiss.

It's nothing tangible, hard to define, even tougher to point your finger to it.

It's that ethereal feeling of Olympic spirit.

The local disconnect

For the average Whistler citizen there seems to be a disconnect between today's realities and the enthusiasm and excitement that will be expected of them seven short months from now.

It's not just that there's construction upheaval from one end of the valley to the other. It's not that there are none of the prettier signs of hosting the Games visible, like building wraps, Olympic flags, and welcoming signs.

There's a pervasive mood of discontent in the underbelly of the community.

This month, in a column that spread like wildfire through the resort and went national, Globe and Mail reporter Gary Mason wrote:

"Just seven months before the Games open, the mood in Canada's famed resort town is anything but celebratory."

That feeling is not just evident in the loud complaints of citizens speaking out against the new pay parking. It's not just in the expected backlash to a series of property tax increases over the next three years.

The feeling is there in the day-to-day conversations among business owners, unsure of what to expect for business in the next year when the so-called "aversion affect" kicks in.

It's underlying the questions asked among ordinary everyday citizens looking for answers about what life will be like during the Games.

The feeling is most evident in the whispers of more and more locals renting their places and leaving town during the Games.

Mayor Ken Melamed knows it's there. He hears it every day.

"There is a level of anxiety about what this is going to mean to be a host," admits Melamed. "What's going to happen in my town? How is my life going to be affected? Will I be able to get tickets? And if I don't get tickets, what's my experience of the Games going to be like?"

The mayor agrees that the municipality has a responsibility to get the town ready, and not just in the physical sense with welcome mats and banners.

"There is a certain amount of responsibility that we assume I think to make sure that the community of Whistler embraces the Games and is in the right frame of mind, and right physical capacity to be great hosts," he says.

He is saddened to hear of people cashing in, and heading out of town.

Long time local Vincent Massey is sad about that too.

Just last week he received half the payment for renting out his Alpine Meadows house and he gets the balance just before the Games. He is planning a trip to New Zealand with his family. It wasn't his first choice.

Massey speaks of his regret not to be here to showcase his art to the world. His voice is tinged with even more regret when he talks about missing local kids, kids he has seen grow up on the mountains, race the race of their lives down Whistler Mountain.

"I've been an artist in the valley for 25 years," says the sculptor, who has a home-based studio in Alpine Meadows. "I just never saw any opportunity for anything to do with the Olympics.

"It's a hard town to live in Whistler affordably, especially for an artist. So when somebody says they're going to give you a bucket load of money and all you have to do is move out of your house..."

But Massey hasn't bought their plane tickets yet. It's almost as though he wants to be convinced to stay.

He is growing slowly disillusioned, however.

And this is a man who was raised on the dream of hosting an Olympics in Whistler. His father was part of the first crew of businessmen trying to make that dream a reality in the 1960s.

"I've grown up in this atmosphere of 'let's get the Olympics,'" says Massey.

"I wanted the Olympics... Now I don't see the big picture for locals, and not just me and my art, but just for locals per se, especially when it comes to watching the events."

Tickets to events in 2010 were issued based on a lottery system. Few in Whistler have them.

Local retiree Jennifer Erickson was surprised at this ticketing system too.

"I never thought that there wouldn't be an opportunity for a good number of locals to be engaged that way as part of the audience," she said. "It's like throwing a party and being in the bedroom listening to what's going on from the next room rather than being a part of it."

It's things like this that have been squelching Whistler's Olympic spirit, she said.

She's been worried about this disconnect for more than a year and a half after bringing it to the previous council's attention at an Olympic town hall meeting in January 2008. That was even before she knew about the ticket lottery.

Erickson appealed to council at that time to do something about the lack of spirit and involvement among the wider Whistler community. Her appeal was met with widespread applause from 100 or so community members at the meeting.

"I don't think anything's changed," said Erickson this week.

"We just go on as if this is happening to us, not with us. And I just think it's a shame."

This dampened spirit not only creates a culture of discontent in the community, it also turns people off getting more involved - and Whistler needs people to be involved. Not only does the town need its regular core of employees to keep the streets cleared of snow and the restaurants staffed with waiters and bartenders, Olympic organizers also need thousands of volunteers for the big event.

"This is a small town that is taken over by the Olympics and if all of us were behind it, it could be the time of everybody's life... And that's not what I see," says Erickson.

Ski patroller, local mom, parent's chair at the school district, and long-time local Cathy Jewett clearly remembers Erickson asking about Olympic spirit at that town hall meeting.

Her frustration that we're still talking about a lack of spirit is evident.

"It's driving me insane, this negativity," she says.

"They have had a year and a half... but there has not been enough information, enough opportunity for the public to ask unfettered questions about what's going to happen and it makes us wonder if VANOC (the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games) even knows."

On the flip side, she says the negativity is a growing force unto itself and able to gain momentum.

"It's very easy to criticize what's going on and there's some big changes," says Jewett.

"There is a lack of appetite for any kind of effort (on the part of locals) to a certain extent."

VANOC's director of operations communications Maureen Douglas admits organizers still have work to do sharing information so that the community feels informed and comfortable about what to expect and perhaps ease some of these "pre-show jitters".

"The challenge with the Olympic Games is you don't get a dress rehearsal," says Douglas. "So along with the excitement is a sense of nervousness and sometimes the nervousness can be more prominent than the excitement."

Olympics opportunities lost and gained

Mayor Melamed, who is weathering the constant attacks on council with a somewhat weary smile, admits things like Mike Janyk's return home was an opportunity lost for building that feeling in the community.

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) was at one time one of the skier's sponsors.

"Could we have done more, taken it to the next step? Yes. Unquestionably."

But, the mayor asks, who organizes an event like the one in Mont Saint Sauveur or Kirchberg? Who pays for it?

The municipality has been under steady scrutiny these past months as the community questions every dollar spent in the face of rising property taxes and new user fee charges for things like the new composting facility. There has been outrage over spending at municipal hall on Olympic jackets for staff and tickets as a staff incentive program.

"People tend to focus on how much we're spending, I think there's a whole other story on how much we didn't spend," says the mayor.

"There have been a lot of ideas, a lot of things that we would have liked to have done but have had to put off."

On this particular day he has been asked three times why costs are spiralling out of control. He hold up his hands, baffled by the questions; costs are not spiraling out of control, he says, and everything is within budget from Whistler's perspective.

All the average person sees, however, are the trees coming down for Celebration Plaza, the medians being torn up on Blackcomb Way, the money going to the athletes' village, the money to pay to pave the day skier parking lots, the inconvenience of the highway upgrades.

"People are not seeing the post-Games phase," says the mayor.
"They're seeing the pre-Games dislocation."

Every decision, he adds, has been made at municipal hall with a post-Games frame of mind.

He uses Celebration Plaza, which will be the village hub for entertainment and celebration during the Games, as an example.

The municipality came to the table with $4 million of the $14 million project, while the rest came from outside funding - money that would not have been available had it not been for the Games.

Though it is a construction zone right now, it will become a family hub of programmed and unprogrammed recreation for residents and visitors.

The athletes' village is another example. The $160 million project will be transformed into hundreds of much-needed homes for Whistler employees after the Games. Whistler has paid a fraction of the cost, roughly $10 million, to build the village. It will reap the rewards for years to come.

All in all, having the Games in Whistler amounts to $87 million in direct cash infusion to the resort, says the mayor. Everyone seems to forget about that part of the Games, he says.

Mike Janyk's mom, Andree Janyk - also the mother of World Cup skier Britt Janyk - would agree.

There's a long pause when she is asked about Whistler's Olympic spirit.

"From my perception, from being connected to athletes and not just my own athletes but the Canadian Alpine Ski Team, and other athletes, I don't think it's as strong as it should be, or could be," she says.

Whistler has become focused on the physical side of hosting the Games, not the emotional. To its detriment.

"We've succumbed to... the business of putting on the Olympics versus engaging the passion," she adds.

She struggles to find the words as she talks about this passion.

You don't have to love ski racing to feel it, she says. Take the Tour de France - it's the commitment, the desire, the energy, the sheer will, the effort to be the best.

"It transforms your life (watching it)," she says.

What is Olympic spirit?

Ask anyone who's been to the Games and they can tell you about this thing called Olympic spirit.

Mayor Melamed describes himself as "a convert" now that he's been to the Games - Salt Lake City (2002), Torino (2006) and Beijing (2008).

When he watched the Olympics on TV he was concerned about the high level of commercialism, the corporate influence, the sheer volume of money spent to put the Games on.

But at its very core, there's something much bigger than that.

"One of the reasons I'm so comfortable in my level of support is I'm a convert," says the mayor. "Having been to an Olympic Games I understand much more about what Olympism means, about what it means for the athletes, about how transformative it is for a town and a country..."

He's one of the lucky ones. He gets to feel this kind of Olympic spirit more often than most.

Every time he speaks on behalf of Whistler at a 2010 event, he experiences it again and again.

"I get it all the time," he says. "The community, unfortunately, doesn't get exposed to it."

Whistler's Olympic spirit hasn't always been dampened, says Andree Janyk.

It was there when her father, Peter Vajda, joined in the efforts to bring the Games to Whistler in the 1960s. It was the very reason the ski resort was created in the first place.

That spirit took on a whole new meaning, however, the moment in Village Square in 2003 when Whistler won the right to host the 2010 Games. Remember, she said, as the crowd packed into the square, hanging out of buildings, huddled close together, erupted in one giant roar when IOC President Jacques Rogge paused and said: "Vancouver."

There was a feeling of something bigger than us washing over the crowd that day, Janyk recalls.

"I remember the excitement when we got the bid, and I think we squandered that excitement," she said with a wistful sigh.

"I don't think we've taken the opportunity of the Olympics to increase the culture of sport. It is about sport and we've kind of made it about everything else."

Peaking too early, or too late

Olympian Steve Podborski believes there is spirit in an appropriate measure right now and it will ramp up accordingly before the Games.

"The athletes, in most cases, are still in the middle of their summer training or just ending their rest periods," says Podborski, who won bronze in the downhill at the Lake Placid Games in 1980.

"It's not time to start banging the drum."

Podborski also knows what it's like to be a non-athlete at the Games without the pressure of competition weighing heavily on your mind. He has worked as a TV commentator for three Games.

"My experience of the Games is that there's so much excitement during the Games time that people are barely alive at the end of the two weeks so you don't want to start too early..."

But you don't want to start too late either.

One of the lessons from the 2006 Torino Games in Italy was just that.

The city did not get fully engaged in the Olympics until one week in. Then the Italians began to rise to the occasion.

"I think it's an interesting question to ask: is there a risk of peaking too soon?" asks the mayor. "There's definitely a risk of peaking too late. We don't want to repeat the Torino example."

Tyler Mosher is aiming to compete in cross-country during the Paralympics next March.

He feels support for his Olympic dream from all sorts of places in Whistler whether it's from his fellow Rotarians, his neighbours, his employees and his peers.

He's not worried about spirit.

"The fact of the matter is: we're Canadians," says Mosher. "We don't get excited about anything until it happens."

Mosher is a business owner in town and knows first hand the pressure businesses are under in this economic climate.

But he is confident the spirit will be alive and well in 2010.

"I think we have the spirit. We're just not big cheerleaders. We're all doers," he says.

"As soon as it starts happening, it's going to be huge."

In the meantime, however, the municipality has plans afoot to get people engaged.

It will be taking part in the VANOC Game Plan evening next week, where people can go for on-the-ground information about what daily life will be like during the Games.

In the fall there will be another transportation update with more details, such as the transit schedule.

On the more celebratory side there will be a fall open house at the athletes' village so citizens can get a taste of where the athletes will be living during the Games and what Whistler's newest neighbourhood will look like following the Games.

On Wednesday, Nov. 4 the town will be marking the 100-day countdown to the Games, just as it has marked all major milestones since winning the right to host the Games.

"It's hard to believe we're talking about 100 days," says Michele Comeau, the RMOW's manager of communications.

The municipality will also be producing a 2010 Residents Guide - a one-stop shop of municipal information for residents during the Games. That will be released in December.

Comeau says spirit has waxed and waned over the last seven years.

It peaks during things like World Cup events, and hits troughs during tougher economic times.

"When you look at any Games host there's always some ebbs and flows of people's level of excitement and engagement," she says.

"There's probably more of the anxious feeling going on right now."
She sees the fall as the opportunity to begin ramping things up.

She hopes people will embrace these opportunities to become involved and to keep in their sights what an amazing opportunity it is for the community.

Winter sport is Whistler's pastime, tourism is its economy, and hosting the Winter Games, she says, is a "phenomenal opportunity" - particularly in this economic climate.

"It's something that most places could only dream of right now," says Comeau.

VANOC's Douglas has no doubt that Whistler will rise to the occasion.

"This community has the perfect heart and soul to do this," she says.

Though Cathy Jewett has had her share of disappointment with the Games through her involvement with the schools - namely the decision to close the schools during the Games, and the fact that they won't be rented out by VANOC as they hoped - she is volunteering for VANOC.

She will be chief of patrol for the women's alpine events.

"It's like a baby," she says of the Games. "You can't put it back in, you just have to love it as much as you can.

"I think we need to embrace it or we'll be hanging our heads in shame."



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