The Olympics don’t always deliver the experience you’re expecting.
That’s what St. Albert’s Geoff Edgar discovered after winning a contest to cover the Vancouver Games for The Globe and Mail. As planned, Edgar spent 10 days soaking in the experience and competition. But unlike the original plan, he did little writing for the paper.
“The work requirement sort of got downgraded as I was there because there became so much to write about for the regular newspaper people,” said Edgar, 37.
As the winner of the national newspaper’s Journalism Dream Contest, Edgar got a free trip to the Games. Originally, Edgar was to write five stories about the Games from the fans’ perspective. After he arrived in Vancouver on Feb. 18 the concept shifted to a running travel log, then a single 1,000-word story. In the end, Edgar wrote one 500-word story — an assessment of the patriotism that emerged during the latter half of the Games.
The story appeared in a special edition published last Sunday in the Lower Mainland. It’s also available online at http://eedition.globeinvestor.com/olympicEdition.php (Globe British Columbia section, page S2-S3)
“I’m not complaining,” said the affable lawyer. “They know far better than me how to properly run a newspaper so I’m not complaining at all. It was a great experience.”
Edgar arrived about five days into the Games, just as sunshine finally appeared, both literally and figuratively. He noted how the city embraced its role as host and a palpable patriotic fervour developed, overshadowing earlier problems like breakdowns to the ice resurfacing machines at the speed skating oval, bad weather on Cypress Mountain and the pall cast by the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.
On his Facebook page, Edgar described the atmosphere as “New Year’s Eve and Mardi Gras and a Stanley Cup parade all rolled into one.”
“It was great. The whole city really, really got behind the Games,” he said.
His Globe and Mail prize afforded him tickets to numerous events, including the gold medal games in women’s hockey and curling. He also watched the long program in men’s figure skating, women’s super-G skiing and saw the Canadian women get silver in the 3,000-metre relay in short-track speed skating.
“I’ve got to find out where you can see short-track speed skating locally. It is an absolute gas to see live,” he said.
With access to daily press events at one of the media areas in Robson Square, Edgar found himself just feet away from Canadian Olympians Patrick Chan, Clara Hughes and Jon Montgomery. He was able to see one medal ceremony and got a kick out of the enthusiasm people throughout the Lower Mainland displayed for the Games.
“A total stranger would holler out at the top of his lungs on the Skytrain, ‘so and so finished fifth’ in whatever the event was and everybody would start clapping,” he said.
Edgar was already home by the time the men’s hockey team faced off against the U.S. in the gold medal final.
“I was physically tired and patriotically charged up,” he said.
At one time, before he decided to become a lawyer, Edgar had considered going into journalism. His experience at the Games didn’t convince him to give up his career for the life of a sports writer.
“I’m going to stick with law,” he said. “It was lots of fun but I don’t know that I could live out of a suitcase and eat at greasy spoons all the time.”
