The Paris Summer Olympics begin on Friday, July 26. And I’m very much looking forward to it.
I covered the Toronto bid for the 1996 Summer Games (I seem to recall we lost to Atlanta) for the Toronto Star, and then the city’s (again) unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Olympics, which went to Beijing. It was a tad depressing, but then I handled the Star’s coverage of Vancouver’s winning bid (it was close, but they got it) for the 2010 Winter Games.
Covering the bids, as well as the International Olympics Committee voting scandal in the early 2000’s, allowed me to visit some wondrous places, including Athens, Moscow, Puerto Rico, Istanbul, Prague and Dakar, Senegal. Not to mention many a trip to Lausanne, Switzerland, where the IOC has its headquarters.
But the best part was covering the Games themselves. I was in Sydney in 2000, and then, in order, Salt Lake in 2002, Athens in 2004, Turin in 2006, Beijing in 2008 and Vancouver in 2010. I didn’t see much the first few times as I was busy filing deadline stories for the Star’s website (we kicked butt, by the way), but I was in the thick of things and helped the Star get a few scoops during the Salt Lake City ice skating scandal, where the Canadians lost due to a judge being pressured by the Russians and later got the gold medal they had been robbed of.
L to R: Toronto Star reporters Randy Starkman, Jim Byers, Doug Smith, Dave Perkins and Dave Feschuk on the Great Wall of China after the 2008 Games.
In 2008, I saw Usain Bolt win both the 100 and 200-meter races, and saw Michael Phelps win his record eighth gold medal in swimming. In Vancouver, I was ten rows from the ice when Sidney Crosby scored the goal to give Canada its euphoric gold medal in hockey at the 2010 Games, and got to party in the streets with my fellow, celebratory Canadians.
Just as fun was taking part in the party surrounding the games. In Sydney, the crowds were raucous and the people hugely welcoming. Salt Lake City had better beer than I expected, and the facilities were fine. Athens was a bit of a last-minute mess, but I got to parade around the city with Toronto Star Mitch Potter on the back of a moped, and a few Star sports folks snuck in a half-day visit to the island of Hydra the day after the games ended. The highlight from a purely personal and journalistic standpoint may have been at the wrap-up press conference. Vancouver had been awarded the 2010 Winter Games the year before that, and the International Olympic Committee was worried that Canadians wouldn’t do well on home soil. They really wanted Canada to invest in its sports program prior to hosting the Games, so my first question to the IOC bigwigs on the stage was, “Canada failed to win a gold medal when it hosted the Olympics in Montreal and Calgary, and is not really a winter sports power. Are you concerned that Canadians will perform poorly in Vancouver, and do you think the Canadian government and Canadian sporting institutions need to invest more in Canadian athletes?” Well, it was something like that. It was also like shooting fish in a barrel. I knew exactly what the IOC would say, and they came down pretty hard, insisting Canada do more to prepare for Vancouver. The headlines in Canada the next day were huge, as I expected. That was fun.
In Turin I had coffee with melted chocolate with columnist Rosie DiManno at legendary Caffe Al Bicerin, and made a drunken toast at dinner one night to one of the Olympic skaters, who looked at me the way Donald Trump looks at Kamala Harris. In Beijing, I felt sorry for locals who didn’t seem to get a chance to enjoy the games, but the opening ceremony was amazing, and I enjoyed an afternoon on the Great Wall of China with some of my colleagues when it was all over. And then came Vancouver, which started with the tragic death of a luge athlete from and a “no-snow” scandal, but finished hard and strong with great Canadian performances and the aforementioned hockey medal. The city was alive every morning and every night, and I’ll never forget the energy.
My view from press row after Canada won the gold medal in hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. JIM BYERS PHOTO
I have to give tremendous thanks to the people who helped me during my Olympics career, including my ultimate boss, the late and always supportive John Honderich, sports editors like Phil Bingley, Garth Woolsey, Steve Tustin, Graham Parley and Mike Simpson, as well as the tremendously hard-working members of the Star’s web team at the 1 Yonge St. office and the gang on the sports desk back in Toronto, including Rob Grant, Neil McKay, and the late Marc Atchison. Thank you also to my fellow reporters and photographers at the Games; people like Dave Perkins, Paul Hunter, Dave Feschuk, Doug Smith, Rosie DiManno, Royson James, Damien Cox, Peg “I’ll go get us some McNuggets” Fong, Chris Young, Dale Brazao, Mitch Potter, Richard Lautens, Steve Russell, Rick Madonik, Rene Johnston, Scott Simmie, Randy Risling, Bernie Weil, Tim Finlan, and the late and amazingly great and warm and talented Randy Starkman. And a huge thank you to my very patient and supportive wife, Barbara, who did all the work while I was typing away 5,000 miles from home. There are certainly many more that I apologize for omitting.
I also want to thank the hard-working International Olympic committee media folks that put up with me for years, and my Olympic Games reporting friends, including Alan Abrahamson, Steve Wilson, Stratos Safioleas, Ed Hula, Gianni Merlo, Linda Barnard, Bert Roughton Jr., Karen Rosen, and Jeff Lee. Oh, and Olympic bid and organizing people like John Bitove Jr., Paul Henderson, Bob Richardson, James Villeneuve, Phyllis Berck, John Furlong, Renee Smith-Valade, and so many others.
It’s a wild ride when you bid for the Olympics, and I was there for the highs and lows of three Canadian bids. I also spent a lot of time watching International Olympic Committee members in action. Some were very helpful, including Canada’s Dick Pound (sharpest wit in the IOC), Australia’s Kevan Gosper, who recently passed away, and former IOC president Jacques Rogge. Others were ne’er do wells in it for the perks and fancy hotel rooms and, judging by the Olympic bidding scandals, perhaps free visits from geishas and free college scholarships for their relatives. The athletes were marvellous, but the IOC members played a game of their own that was quite interesting to watch.
Yours truly with antler headgear at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Unknown photographer (who probably thought I was nuts).
I worked my you-know-what off at the Olympics, often with 12 or even 16-hour days, but I loved being at the centre of the biggest story in the world. And I’ll miss that when the curtain goes up in Paris on Friday.
Someday I’ll post a longer piece with more Olympics stories. For now, I just hope everything goes smoothly for the host nation and for the thousands of athletes who will be giving it their all. The Olympics has its share of problems, but at its heart it remains a magnificent tableau for human and sporting endeavour.
