 | | Brent Dowdall
Senior Communications Specialist
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Amid the euphoria Canadians displayed from coast-to-coast during the final days of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, it was easy to forget how the Games got off to a very rocky start. The remarkable turnaround in perception came from an unexpected source—the people in Vancouver (and Whistler) who embraced the Games. Having spent more than two weeks as an Olympic volunteer, I can state unequivocally that the people made the Games.
The early flaws are well-known—the tragic death of a luger, the continuous headache known as Cypress Mountain, the placement of the Olympic cauldron behind a security fence. While the Vancouver organizers never deserved the tag of "worst Games ever" from the British press (most venues, infrastructure and logistics were running smoothly even in the early days), there was real concern that the Olympics might not be able to overcome its early struggles.
Somewhere around the middle of the first week, however, something changed. Vancouver embraced the Olympics. A city where many people had much ambivalence about the Olympics threw away their reservations, and joined—or in some cases, created—the party. A completely unexpected six day stretch of sunshine and spring temperatures brought Vancouverites and visitors together, not only to the venues, but the exhibits, pavilions and the nightlife. Where something wasn't happening, people made their own fun, like impromptu road hockey games on downtown streets.
Irritants were transformed into experiences. Lineups, instead of being a symbol of organizational disarray, became a badge of honour. Nine hours to touch a medal in the Royal Canadian Mint pavilion. Seven hours for a 25 second zipline ride over Robson Square. Three hours to get inside Sochi house, a preview of the 2014 Games. Even the lengthy waits to enter every venue were tolerated— imagine going through an airport screening (empty pockets, metal detector, body search) at every sporting event. Yet there was surprisingly little grumbling about the lineups—strangers struck up conversations, children played together off to the side, people organized themselves to get coffee for their groups. This atmosphere could not have been organized; it was created and shared by those who were part of it.
The experience was not generated by wins either. The Olympics atmosphere turned the corner for good during the second weekend (Feb. 20-21), at the same time as Canadian athletes were going through a multi-day medal drought that had the media tossing around creative phrases like Blown the Podium and Flown the Podium. Yet that didn't matter to the people who flocked to LiveCity Downtown or Yaletown, Robson Square, the Aboriginal pavilion, Canada's Northern House, the German, Irish, or Swiss houses, or a multitude of other locations. The phrase “Olympic spirit” is overused, but it does exist and it did emerge in Vancouver.
Quantifying the value of the Olympics has turned into a running debate. Opponents of the Games cite the $6 billion cost (the most-widely quoted figure) as money that could be better spent elsewhere. Proponents cite the economic benefits such as new infrastructure, such as the upgraded Sea-to-Sky highway and the Canada Line Skytrain, the tourist or investment opportunities open to visitors, to the promotional value of a two-week advertisement for the city, province and country.
The Conference Board estimates an economic gain for British Columbia of $770 million this year, which will add about 0.6 percentage points to the province's gross domestic product. This is the Board’s estimate of the economic impact generated by extra tourism and public spending associated with the Olympics in 2010; it does not include the economic activity generated in previous years by the construction of Olympic and transportation infrastructure. $770 million in one year is a significant amount of money, but it is a one-time boost, and the Olympics remain a small component of the provincial economy that is poised to come out of the recession with the strongest growth in the country this year.
What is far less measurable is the vibrancy, the excitement and the joy that the Olympics brought—not just to the athletes, the organizers and the volunteers, but the people who took it on themselves to be part of an experience whose value didn’t have a price. That has to count for something.