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Veni, vidi, vici

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Depending on your definition of success, Canada did what it said it was going to do five years before the 2010 Games in Vancouver: Own the Podium.

Specifically, alumnus Roger Jackson, BA'63, along with $110 million in seed money from corporations and the federal government, established the Own The Podium (OTP) program in 2005, when John Furlong and the organizers of the 2010 Vancouver games realized that staging an excellent Games and placing well just wasn't good enough. They wanted to win. So they brought in Jackson, past president of the Canadian Olympic Committee and gold medalist in rowing at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. 

The results? Canada set two records: most gold medals ever by a country in the Winter Olympics, and most gold medals by a host country in the Winter Olympics. Not a bad result considering Canada didn't achieve a single gold medal hosting either the 1976 Montreal Olympics or the 1988 Calgary Winter Games. Going from zero to 14 golds was quite a medal haul. Twenty-six medals in total for Canada, third behind the U.S. and Germany.

Despite the success of the Vancouver Games, the future of the Own the Podium program remained in doubt immediately following the Olympics. Jackson said the program needs an additional $22-million annually from the federal government to make up for funding that ends now that the Olympics are over.

Recent polls suggest Canadians support the program, and Jackson hopes politicians will respond. About half of OTP's budget comes from the federal government, with the remainder from provinces and corporations. The federal government has committed to keeping up its share, but most of the provinces and corporations have not.

Jackson also defended the name Own the Podium in various media outlets during the Olympics, saying it was not an attempt to present Canadians as arrogant or unwelcoming at the Games.

"It was a bold statement of what we should strive to do," said Jackson.

Other Western connections to the Vancouver Games include Carol Stephenson, Dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business, who spent the past few years focused on the intimate details of hosting the Olympic Games. Stephenson was a member of the Vancouver Organizing Committee and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC ) Board of Directors. She blogged about her experience at http://blogs.ivey.ca/olympics.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Olympic Games from the inside and to see the enormous work and see this project come to fruition does give you a great sense of accomplishment," she says.

"Every detail from designing of a torch to planning the torch relay run, to figuring out and building all of the venues for the athletes, the colours they wear, and opening and closing ceremonies -  it's probably one of the most complex project-management projects I've ever seen in my entire life."

Other members of the Western community at the games included varsity men's golf coach Jim Waite who headed west to serve as the coach of the Canadian men's curling team. They went in as a medal-favourite and didn't disappoint, coming home with gold.

Getting in on the action, Faculty of Health Sciences Dean Jim Weese volunteered with the men's hockey events in Vancouver during the nail-biters, tense times and finally to the top of the podium with gold. Kinesiology student Katrina Krawec also volunteered during the Olympics in Whistler.

Earth Sciences professor Wayne Nesbitt's daughter, Christine, competed in long track speed skating and kept viewers from London on the edge of their seats with her medal-winning performance: a gold in the 1,000-metre race.

Alma Moir, the head coach of the varsity figure skating team, was at the Olympics to watch her son, Scott, compete in the figure skating - ice dance competition, along with long-time partner Tessa Virtue in three dance programs that captured gold - and the hearts of Canadians. It was a first-ever gold for Canada in ice dance.

Duff Gibson, BA'89, a Western alumnus, has been coaching the skeleton team at a national level and has worked with Olympians, including those in Vancouver. He provided commentating to CTV during the Games. Gibson used to slide headfirst down some of the fastest skeleton courses in the world and won Olympic gold in 2006, capping his sixth year on the national team in style. He helped coach the vivacious Jon Montgomery to a gold in skeleton, Canada's fourth at the Vancouver Games.

Campus Community Police Service Manager Michael Mics was in Vancouver helping with security. 

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