At the Olympics, the taboos get tossed out the window. People never save the last sugary treat. And journalists clap. Sometimes they come precariously close to hooting and hollering for their team. National pride is at stake at the Olympics, and the international press openly picks sides. Tribalism trumps objectivity here.
WHISTLER, B.C. -- There are several taboos in the life of a sportswriter. For instance, if your editor likes the chocolate glazed Timbits, don't eat the last chocolate glazed Timbit. It is not a smart move, professionally speaking.
Another taboo, a biggie, involves clapping at games. You never clap for the home team or for an individual athlete. Cheering is for the cheerleaders and the fans. Just stand up for the national anthem, then sit down and do your job, which involves being objective and suspending all sense of sweater loyalty no matter how deep your ties to a particular place or player might be.
At the Olympics, the taboos get tossed out the window. People never save the last sugary treat. And journalists clap. Sometimes they come precariously close to hooting and hollering for their team. National pride is at stake at the Olympics, and the international press openly picks sides. Tribalism trumps objectivity here, especially at medallists' news conferences, and especially, it seems, with the Italians. They truly are an expressive bunch. (So is the French writer seated a few rows behind me as I type this. He just hissed, "yes," in English, at his computer screen, followed by a "c'est fantastique!" The French, surprise, surprise, also like cheering against Germans.)
Even Canadian sports journalists, a typically reserved and professional lot, are prone to the clapping disease. Maybe it is contagious. Maybe, sometimes, it is the appropriate thing to do. Mellisa Hollingsworth, the country's crestfallen skeleton racer, spent the day after her event bawling her eyes out. Two days after finishing fifth she was still an emotional wreck, breaking down twice at a news conference where she spoke about how much she loved her country. Hollingsworth had a broken heart. That was obvious. About half the room clapped for her after she spoke. One television guy even gave her a hug.
These are some of the things you learn covering your first Olympics. Journalists clap. Athletes cry. It is an impossibly sad thing to see an athlete cry. For us, the Winter Olympics roll around every four years and then we go back to our normal lives and forget about the people who train all their lives for this one shining moment. For the Olympians, the Olympics is it, the Big Time, and having the Games at home made it even bigger than it normally would have been.
Even those Canadian athletes nobody has ever heard of, and were never expected to win or come close to getting a medal, cared about doing their best just as much as the rest. Jason Myslicki, a Nordic combined competitor (ski jumping plus a cross-country race) finished last and second last in his two events.
After a brutal jump, Myslicki leaned his head against his skis and sobbed. It was awful to witness. The kid needed a hug. But there were no TV people around to give it to him because nobody cares about a guy who finishes last. We should care. We should never forget about the heartbreak that comes along with the highs of owning the podium. That is something I learned.
It was not all tears in these here mountains. Jon Montgomery, the Hoser King with the huge personality, deserves the Order of Canada for winning gold in the skeleton and parading through Whistler Village chugging a pitcher of beer. And seeing four Canadian women -- gold medallists Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse and silver medallists Helen Upperton and Shelley-Ann Brown -- draped in two Canadian flags on the top two steps of a podium at the Whistler Sliding Centre, sent a breeze through the maple leaf in an objective heart.
Whistler is another thing I learned about. I learned that taking public transportation is always a better, faster, and cheaper idea than taking a taxi, that Australians basically run this place, that finding a person from Whistler in Whistler is like looking for Waldo. It also rains -- a lot -- for days on end.
The rain and mists shroud the mountains in a ghostly veil. But wet as it is, there is a strange and beautiful quality to this place. There is a sense of permanence. The mountains, you see, will be here long after the Olympics pull up stakes and skedaddle.
The Games were always just passing through town. And no matter what, the Games would go on. Bruised in the beginning by crappy weather, a lack of results for the Canadians and the horrific death of Nodar Kumaritashvili on the sliding track, the initial black eye was later bedazzled by all the shiny gold medals Canada has collected. That is how tribalism works. It is hard not to be happy when your country is hauling in medals hand over fist. People like to clap.
What started with tragedy ended on a dreary Sunday in a haunted place, surrounded by misty mountains, papered in trees. And dreary or not, if there is a heaven it might not be too far from these here hills. If there is a heaven, I hope Kumaritashvili found it. That is not something I learned covering my first Olympics.
But that is my parting wish.
