And now, in accordance with tradition, I declare the XXI Olympic Winter Games closed, and I call upon the youth of the world to assemble four years from now in Sochi to celebrate the XXII Olympic Winter Games.
JACQUES ROGGE, PRESIDENT
International Olympic Committee
Vancouver Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony Speech
February 28, 2010
March 2010
Great job Vancouver! Get ready Sochi.
An Olympics that began with hurt and sadness – Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, killed when his sled crashed in a training run a few hours prior to the opening ceremonies – emerged as magnificent and demonstrated just about the best we are as an international community.
Speaking to those in attendance at the opening ceremonies, and to those watching and listening around the world, John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, struck the right balance of memorializing an athlete who died young, honoring those about to compete, and celebrating the wonder of what was to come, when he said, “May you carry his Olympic dream on your shoulders and compete with his spirit in your heart.”
So the 2010 Olympics began.
Yes these Olympics had operational problems, including one which was broadcast globally: a beam of the Olympic cauldron failing to rise from the event floor during the opening ceremonies. And – although this was not the fault of Vancouver organizers – the weather was not great, providing little snow, and too much rain and fog and temperatures more than a few degrees above freezing.
Still, the games were mostly a big win.
It was fun to be in such a beautiful city, in that environment, during the 30th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice” and gold medal clinching game against Finland 
– reliving the emotion and wonder.
Some of that historic energy seemed to carry through the years and into the event that closed the athletic competition of the 2010 games: an adrenaline-rushing and anxiety-pulsing Canada-U.S.A. men’s hockey gold medal game. It was a contest that showed hockey – supported by the passions and carrying with it the hopes of hundreds of millions of people – at its best and most exciting: fast and with flow and precise passing, sometimes even elegant; with hard hitting, but light on the mugging; high energy and high spirited; all out from start to finish.
Congrats, Canada, on the win. Nice job U.S.A. Together you did a lot of good for hockey, the sport I love.
(By the way, my daughter, Taylor, who is a talented high school hockey player, and shares my love for the sport, has a favorite player. Who is it? Why, that would be Sydney Crosby – yeah, the guy who scored the game winner in OT. Figures.)
It is healthy and helpful when following sport to tie in to the broader human stories, to go beyond and behind the Xs and Os, the scoreboard, the stopwatch, and the scores of judges. What girded and supported the performances of Vancouver were countless hours of personal sacrifice, and lifting, running, calisthenics, skating routine after routine, exercises and drills to strengthen and focus the mind, flips and aerials, and runs down tracks. Every athlete was nurtured by family, friends, coaches, and other mentors. Every athlete arrived at Vancouver with dreams, a history of triumph and defeat, success and failure, hurt and exhilaration, confidence and doubt.
Consider the stories of women’s figure skating – Kim Yu-Na from South Korea winning her country’s first gold medal in the event; and the bronze medalist, Joannie Rochette, displaying grit and inspiring poise in competing four days after her mom died of a heart attack.
How about the U.S. winning its first gold in the four-man bobsled since the St. Moritz games in 1948? Steve Holcomb, a former Utah National Guardsman, piloted his crew of Steve Mesler, Justin Olsen, and Curt Tomasevicz to victory. But here’s the thing – only two years ago, Holcomb, who is responsible for steering the 500-lb. sled at speeds of up to 95 miles per hour, had been left legally blind from a degenerative eye condition. Holcomb’s sight was saved through an experimental procedure in which permanent lenses were placed in his eyes.
In late November 2007, Norwegian alpine skier Aksel Lund Svindal suffered broken facial bones and deep body bruises in a scary crash during a training run on a slope in Beaver Creek, CO. Svindal was in the hospital for weeks in Vail, CO and in Olso. He was out of competition for the winter. It would be understood of someone who endured such physical and emotional trauma never again skied fast and aggressively enough to win. A little more than two years later, though, Svindal was in Vancouver to take on the world. He won gold in the super-G, silver in the downhill, and bronze in the slalom.
These are just a few stories; again, every athlete has her own, his own.
It gets you thinking.
What stories are being written now?
Who are the authors?
And which stories have chapters and verses that remain to be told in Sochi?
Believe in Your Dreams – and Believe in Miracles.
Sincerely,
JIM CRAIG
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