Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010
Raining hockey pucks at the Olympics
Covering hockey at ice level is rarely without excitement but usually without injury to photographers … until the game I was working at last Friday.
I was covering the last of three hockey games in one day from our assigned position in a seat against the glass. During second period a puck that was shot up to the net above the glass dropped straight down and hit me on the leg. I didn’t think much of it and while fans scrambled for the loose puck I thought ‘what are the chances of that happening?’
Then during the third period another puck was shot up into the net and came straight down, this time on my head.
I did not see it coming but knew what it was when it hit, and I thought ‘hmmm I just got hit on the head with a puck…’ It didn’t hurt much but I felt my head and found it bleeding. I cleared my cameras and laptop away, leaned over the isle watching blood drip from my head to a pool in the floor, and signaled for help.
A doctor from the crowd came down and said the cut didn’t look too deep. Soon a couple of medics appeared, moved me to a seat a couple rows up, and proceeded to wrap an over sized bandage around my head. They stood me up and as we walked up the isle, spectators in the two neighboring sections applauded. The medic told me that they were applauding for me. Embarrassed and laughing, the only thing I could think of to do was to wave to acknowledge their applause.
We arrived to the clinic onsite and after getting treatment I walked out to a group of waiting colleagues who were concerned and eager to show me the photos, some of which had already been tagged on Facebook.
What can London 2012 learn from Vancouver? Seb Coe answers your questions
The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were hit at the very start by the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and for a while the Games struggled to recover, as organisers were faced with problem after problem, from the unseasonably warm weather to transport snarl-ups to scoring problems.
Some even wondered if Vancouver would go on to be called the Worst Games Ever but no one is saying that now, with the action picking up to provide a series of electrifying and heart warming moments while the organisation has settled down.
In fact, Vancouver looks like it will set the bar pretty high for the next Summer Olympics in London in 2012. On Friday, Sebastian Coe, chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee, will be talking to Reuters from the Main Press Centre in Vancouver and will address questions including what London can learn from these Games.
Coe, of course, is himself a double gold medal winner, having triumphed in the 1500m in Moscow in 1980 and again in the same event in Los Angeles four years later.
He will be answering questions in a live chat we’ll be hosting here on Friday at 1600 GMT, talking about London’s preparations for the 2012 Olympics and his own Games experience in Vancouver, where he ran with the torch on the day of the opening ceremony (see the photo above).
If you have questions for Coe, please send them in to the Live Blog within this post, or in the comments below, and join us for the chat on Friday — either at this page or at — for a first-hand look at how things are going before the Five Ring Circus heads to London.
Kevin Fylan, Vancouver
Winter Olympics, day 13 — live
There’s a surprise winner in the women’s giant slalom, and medals to be decided in cross-country skiing, nordic combined, freestyle skiing, women’s hockey and, tonight, one of the most eagerly awaited events of the Games … the women’s figure skating, with the decisive free skate pitting South Korea’s Kim Yuna and Japan’s Mao Asada.
from The Great Debate UK:
What can London 2012 learn from Vancouver? Seb Coe answers your questions
The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were hit at the very start by the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and for a while the Games struggled to recover, as organisers were faced with problem after problem, from the unseasonably warm weather to transport snarl-ups to scoring problems.
Some even wondered if Vancouver would go on to be called the Worst Games Ever but no one is saying that now, with the action picking up to provide a series of electrifying and heart warming moments while the organisation has settled down.
In fact, Vancouver looks like it will set the bar pretty high for the next Summer Olympics in London in 2012. On Friday, Sebastian Coe, chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee, will be talking to Reuters from the Main Press Centre in Vancouver and will address questions including what London can learn from these Games.
Coe, of course, is himself a double gold medal winner, having triumphed in the 1500m in Moscow in 1980 and again in the same event in Los Angeles four years later.
He will be answering questions in a live chat we’ll be hosting here on Friday at 1600 GMT, talking about London’s preparations for the 2012 Olympics and his own Games experience in Vancouver, where he ran with the torch on the day of the opening ceremony (see the photo above).
If you have questions for Coe, please send them in to the Live Blog within this post, or in the comments below, and join us for the chat on Friday -- either at this page or at this link -- for a first-hand look at how things are going before the Five Ring Circus heads to London.
Kevin Fylan, Vancouver
Up close and personal with Olympic gold
I felt like I was floating on cloud nine as I gingerly touched the Olympic gold medal sitting there in my hand and staring back at me.
I’ve dreamed of this moment all my life. Words cannot describe how I’m feeling right now – then the voice of the security woman at the door broke my reverie: “No biting, kissing, licking and chewing of medals in any kind!”
Unfortunately I had not just been crowned an Olympic champion –- unless queue jumping counts as an Olympic sport!
Instead, I had just got a taste of what over 70,000 fans have been queuing up for -– to get an up close and personal look of the Vancouver Olympics medals.
The Olympic accreditation hanging around my neck afforded me the luxury of being fast tracked into the Royal Canadian Mint building but once inside I felt the same excitement as all those members of the public who had stood on their tired legs for up to eight hours.
For the first time at a Games, the general public have been given the chance to inspect, touch and feel a real Olympic medal.
A crush that led to Olympic gold
Canadians basking in the warm glow of Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue’s gold medal winning performance in the ice dancing were all asking the same question on Tuesday … Are they as close off the ice as they are on it?
Turns out the answer is no, but things might have turned out diffrerently, as Allan Dowd reports…
“I know I had a crush on Scott, that’s for sure, but I wasn’t alone there,” she told reporters.
“That’s certainly changed,” Moir shot back.
And no, they are certainly not dating now.
“Just on the ice for seven minutes every time we do the program,” Moir joked.
Winter Games, day 11 — live
Canada v Germany in the hockey is the highlight of the Winter Olympics programme today, with the host nation facing a test of nerve in this sudden death play-off.
That’s not all, though, folks, with the men’s giant slalom in alpine skiing one of five medal events.
Canadians own the streets, if not the podium
Own the podium has proved a fraught and at times disappointing venture for Canada at these Olympic games, with would-be stars crashing out of the races, like ski cross star Christopher Delbosco did spectacularly on Saturday.
But it’s a different story when it comes to owning the streets, where there’s a sea of red and white just about everywhere you look, both in Vancouver and on the mountain venues of Whistler and Cypress.
The low-tier patriotism starts with a tiny Canadian pin, or a discrete temporary tattoo showing the red-white Maple Leaf flag. But the styles run right up to a full routine of hat, scarf, jacket, shirt, tattoos and a large flag pinned to the shoulders like Superman’s cape. Canada jackets come in red, white, yellow and discrete black, and t-shirts are mostly red, with splashes of other colour.
One t-shirt caught my eye: At first sight it read “I’m American” in big black letters on a white background. Look closer, and the red blotch above the two words is actually a little Maple Leaf, with “not” in small white letters.
Click the video above (or the picture and then the video, if you are on the home page) for a series of photographs by Chris Helgren.
Winter Olympics day 10 — live
Team ski jumping, cross country skiing and ice dancing are the highlights of the Winter Olympics programme on Monday. We’re falling it all with on-the-spot comments from our team of correspondents. Please feel free to dip in.
If you want to get ahead, get a canoe
If we needed any more proof that these Winter Olympics are more like the Spring Games, just look at what snowboarder Shaun White did the day before his amazing gold medal halfpipe run.
He went Kayaking. Not far from Cypress Mountain where he won gold with a near-perfect run on Wednesday night.
“We were at a friend’s place. I was like – what am I going to do today? I had to take a day off and obviously not walk around and use my legs. But I didn’t just want to sit there, because if I just sat around I’d go nuts just thinking about this competition.”
“They’re like we’ve got kayaks…let’s go for it. We ended up cruising around Horseshoe Bay. Pretty hilarious — I had to be the guy that stood up the kayak obviously and tried to pet the …giant seal that came by. He wanted to hang.”
Puck! what bad luck! Don’t cover any javelin events