Patriot Hearts (35 page)

The news about Alexandre had evidently gone forth. Gold. Pure gold.

To say that this passion was nice to see was more than an understatement. I was praying that we were at the start of a turnaround. The day the story line began to change. But before I got too far in my thoughts I reminded myself that the next morning I would be brought back to earth—hard. I would be attending a memorial service for Nodar, as a pallbearer.

11
           

The Sun
Finally
Shines

W
HEN I WALKED
into the funeral home on Kingsway Street in Vancouver that Monday morning, I turned the corner into a modest, quiet chapel where a number of people had gathered. It’s there that I saw the open casket with the still, athletic young body of Nodar Kumaritashvili lying inside, dressed in a dark suit he might have worn at his high school graduation.

A memorial service for Nodar had been put together over the weekend. It was a closed, intimate gathering of about 25 or so, including a few teammates and coaches from Georgia and some other athletes and Olympic officials. My old Irish friend Pat Hickey, now the head of the European Olympic Committees and a close friend of the Georgians, was there. While Pat had apparently offered to represent Jacques Rogge and the
IOC
, I thought the president might have been there himself.

The last time I had seen a body in an open casket was at my mother’s funeral. I went up to Nodar’s casket, touched his hand and quietly paid my respects. There was little evidence of the traumatic event that had cost him his life. It was difficult not to look at Nodar and think that just over 72 hours earlier he had been laughing and joking with his teammates, completely absorbing his experience in Whistler. He had undoubtedly been a little nervous and excited about the training run he had in front of him, a kid yet to enter the prime of his life. Now he was lying in this casket, far away from the excitement of the Games, surrounded by just a few. It was all too much to accept.

Nodar’s uncle Felix was there, looking much like I had seen him on Saturday: broken, haunted, sad, lost. His difficult life had become that much more difficult. Private as the service was supposed to be, the funeral chapel started to fill up with Georgian Canadians who had come to support the young man. People came in and went up to the casket, some touching the body. There were quiet tears running down the faces of more than one person in the room; others sobbed uncontrollably. Some people dropped off flowers and left. Others knelt and prayed. Most wore black.

There was a short service. A minister offered a few informal words of comfort and prayers. When he was finished the coffin was sealed and I lined up to be one of the pallbearers who would wheel and then lift the hardwood coffin out to the waiting hearse. Pat Hickey was another one of the pallbearers. We were joined by some of Nodar’s teammates, including the two who had grown up with the young luger and been in his class at school. I was struck by how heavy the casket was, even for the eight of us.

We walked outside into another grey morning. A light drizzle had earlier coated the streets with a fine sheen. But the rain had stopped during the service, so those who had been waiting outside to pay their respects were able to stay dry. Most were from the local Georgian community, but there were reporters there too and lots of cameras.

A squad of Vancouver police officers on motorcycles was lined up on the street about 30 metres to the west of the funeral home. They had come impromptu to escort the hearse from the service to the airport, where the body would be loaded onto a plane to be flown back to Georgia, escorted by the president of the Georgian National Olympic Committee. The officers were lined up perfectly in their bright yellow jackets and saluted the coffin as it came out, which I thought was incredibly moving and professional and spoke so well about our police forces in Canada. I crossed over to the officers to shake their hands. I just wanted to say thanks, on behalf of
VANOC
but really on behalf of all Canadians, for the remarkable service they were performing that morning. Such a spirit of giving.

As I shook their hands, I noticed the most remarkable thing: almost to a person the officers had tears in their eyes. It almost made me start crying. Here were these officers who put their lives on the line every day, some of the toughest individuals you’ll find on the planet, and they were standing there in the rain shedding a tear for this kid from Georgia who had died in pursuit of a dream.

I was so proud of them that I wanted to embrace each one. Here we were in the middle of this nightmare, coming off this terrible weekend, and everyone outside the funeral home was feeling the same. These police officers wanted to do something, make a contribution in some way, and this is how they had decided to do it.

It was a profound moment. It said so much about our country and the people who make it what it is. Empathy is never in short supply in Canada. And we are a country that does not shirk its responsibilities. We help people. We show kindness. We do what’s right. And that’s what these officers were doing. Not because they were asked—they just felt it was right.

In the background that morning, I could hear a quiet rumble growing across the country, a low growl of encouragement. Canada was proud, I think, of the way we had responded to an extremely difficult situation. The Games would be dedicated to the spirit of Nodar and all the athletes like him. But Canadians wanted these Games to be great, they wanted us to shake off the criticism and courageously forge ahead. In some ways, we were like a hockey team that had fallen behind early in a game and now the crowd was encouraging us. It was a slow, silent cheer but it would be heard loud and clear later on.

When I hopped into the car after the service, I wanted everybody to be quiet. It was thinking time. The experience that morning would stay with me and ultimately inspire me to speak out on behalf of Canadians everywhere who were tiring of the attacks we were under, mostly from foreign media. But that chance wouldn’t come immediately.

Soon enough, I was heading to the Main Press Centre, where I would meet the media for the first time since the news conference on that first Friday with Jacques.

As usual, I had Renee Smith-Valade beside me on the podium in the press room. Renee was the primary media spokesperson for
VANOC
and would be our representative at the daily news conference that was held throughout the Olympics. Some days she needed a Kevlar vest, the questioning was so tough. But she handled it like the complete pro that she was, in both official languages; her French flawless.

On this Monday morning, I was joined in the news conference by Quebec Premier Jean Charest. It was Quebec Day at the Games, something each province and territory was allocated as part of the partnership agreements we had signed with them earlier. He was still beaming from Alexandre Bilodeau’s gold medal victory of the night before.

Inside the press conference room, a couple hundred journalists from Canada and around the world were waiting for us. It was an intimidating setting, no question. There was a bank of cameras stretched across the back of the room ready to catch every single breath we took. I had learned enough about the media that I knew everyone, especially in television, was looking for that one provocative statement, maybe a slip of the tongue, that reporters could hang their stories on. Body language was everything.

After congratulating Alexandre and the province of Quebec, I spoke for a few minutes about Nodar’s memorial service. I noted how the body was on its way home. I talked a bit about our ongoing challenges up at Cypress. Jean talked for a few minutes about Quebec Day and also acknowledged Alexandre’s historic win. Then it was time for questions.

The first one was for me. It was posed by a burly guy sitting right at the front. He had a shock of white hair and a white beard to match. It was Réjean Tremblay, a popular and influential columnist with
La Presse.
As I recall, he asked a question of me in French and asked that I answer it in French as well, a cheap shot intended to put me off balance.

So this is how it’s going to be, I thought.

It was perhaps fitting that on Quebec Day the question of French content in the opening ceremonies would dominate the news conference. Not that anyone outside Quebec was much interested in the topic, but Réjean and another writer from Quebec did a pretty good job of monopolizing a good chunk of the time set aside for queries.

While I certainly had handled all types of questions in my time with the Olympics, I had rarely faced a journalist who was as hostile and surgical as Réjean was that morning. He wanted to know why there wasn’t more French content in the opening and wasn’t satisfied with any answer that I gave. So he continued to ask the same question several different ways, in an increasingly belligerent tone, until he elicited sighs from other journalists in the room who were as tired of the line of inquiry as I was.

Tempting as it was to take a run at the lack of cooperation we had received in Quebec trying to secure talent and music rights, I chose to take the high road instead.

It was a dead certainty that the pair were going to put Jean Charest on the spot and ask him what he thought of the opening. I knew what Jean was going to say. He loved the show but was disappointed and wished there had been more French throughout the production, though he was happy with
VANOC
’s effort overall to promote and respect French Canada at the Olympics. If he hadn’t said there should have been more French in the opening, he would have been fried by Réjean in his next widely read column, which would have led to some piling on by others in Quebec. That’s how the media game often works. So I wasn’t really upset that the premier said what he said. He had little choice. He was far from being an adversary.

But the French journalists wanted me to apologize for the opening and I refused. I said we had nothing to apologize for and that I was proud of the measures we had taken both during the opening and throughout the organizing of the Games to promote Canada’s other language. I sure wasn’t going to say sorry. “What we tried to do was include all the elements that we needed to do at various levels— words, music, artists,” I said. “Let me be clear about what we are trying to do here—we are putting on the Olympic Games. It is a 17-day project and there are multiple, multiple layers.” The show was unmistakably Canadian to any observer, I explained, and the global coverage was incredibly favourable and glowing with praise.

Eventually, we were able to move on to other topics, but the first 20 minutes or so of the press conference was no fun at all. It took every ounce of discipline in my body not to sound off and let the world know that this was trumped-up, pseudo-political opportunism intended to embarrass. But I remained composed, answered the questions the best I could and waited for the conversation to change.

Afterward, however, I was steaming at those who were attacking us about the French content for purely political reasons, a group that included federal Heritage Minister James Moore. Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser, also jumped on the bandwagon, announcing he would investigate the complaints that there wasn’t enough French content in the show.

An investigation? This had to be some kind of joke.

The sum total of complaints Fraser had received, we were told, was about 30. Unlike his predecessor in the role, who had been a great collaborator and supporter of our efforts, Mr. Fraser pointed fingers from a distance but rarely pitched in with ideas or support. I told him more than once that his approach was not helpful and asked him to identify any project he had experience with that had outperformed us—he did not have one. Privately, he would tell me how impressed he was but in front of a parliamentary or senate committee he would bail on us. So proud was I of our efforts to deliver a bilingual Games, I invited Parliament and Senate committees for official languages to visit us and see what we were doing. We received no response.

Later that day, the Quebec government was hosting a reception at Quebec House, which was in a sparkling and innovative temporary building on the shores of False Creek, across from the Athletes’ Village. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t an event I was dying to attend. I knew it would be awkward from the moment I got there. But I’d be damned if I was going to be intimidated into not going. I wasn’t going to run from anybody. Quebec had been our first provincial partner. Jean Charest had been there for us from the beginning, his mild but reasoned criticism of our opening aside.

When I arrived, the atmosphere inside was terrific. People were in a great mood, still high from Alexandre’s gold medal run. Although no one was saying anything to me directly, I could feel the French controversy floating above the crowd. I wasn’t there long before I saw James Moore heading toward me. James is a big guy you can see from anywhere. He has jet black hair combed straight back and always reminds me of someone from the cast of
Mad Men.
He was smiling. I doubt I was.

We shook hands.

“You’re probably a little annoyed at me,” James said, almost right off the bat.

“Well, I was certainly disappointed by your comments, no question,” I said.

“Well, I hope you understand that I was just doing my job,” James answered. “This isn’t anything personal.”

I told him I understood he was doing his job, but if he was going to criticize us I thought he at least needed to put the matter in context. When James was appointed Secretary of State for the 2010 Olympics, we gave him insider access to virtually all of our decisions. He was certainly aware of some of the challenges we had had trying to inject French content into the opening. And he knew about the myriad of other things we had done as an organization to reflect the French culture and influence in Canada, initiatives for which we had won wide praise. Instead, he just dumped on us for the lack of French in the opening, when we were still reeling from the death of Nodar. His timing was impeccable.