Olympic Memories

The Olympics get me soooo excited. I can’t wait for Sochi in February. To get everyone else as excited as I am, here are some of my favourite Olympic moments:

• Calgary 1988 - I don't know if I actually remember this or not but I think I remember sitting in a bobsled simulator. Earliest Olympic memory.

• Atlanta 1996 - Donovan Bailey wins the 100m gold with a time of world record time of 9.84 seconds to become the world’s fastest man. Later on in the 4x100 relay, Canada wins the gold and beats the Americans for the first time ever. If you look closely at Robert Esmie who was the lead off runner, he shaved "BLAST OFF" into his hair....Awesome.

• Atlanta 1996 - "Who is going to light the torch for the opening ceremony?" was the big question at the time. I remember watching the opening ceremonies lying down on the floor in front of the TV like I always did when Dad says "It will be Muhammad Ali". It was that moment when Muhammad Ali walked on stage that I knew my Dad knew everything.

• Salt Lake 2002 - I was in Japan on my mission. While the Olympics were on, we carried around pictures of the Salt Lake temple and asked people if they had seen the temple on TV. The amount of doors we got into increased slightly which made missionary work that much more fun.  I also hear the Hockey team did well.

• Turin 2006 - The first "freestyle" snowboarding event to enter the Olympics was the half pipe in 2006. I woke up at 4:00 am to watch it live on my 13" TV. All I wanted was for Shawn White to win...and he did. I can remember feeling my heart pounding when he dropped in.  He then later won in Vancouver.  To 3-peat in Sochi would be insane. This year slopestyle (jumps and rails) joins half pipe in the freestyle snowboarding category and the favourite to win is Saskatchewan born Mark McMorris.  He has been on fire lately and is the best in the world at "triple corks". Also watch for Quebec born Sebastien Toutant (Seb Toots) who has a great chance at a medal for Canada. With these Canadians there is a chance to go 1 and 2 in slopestyle.

• Beijing 2008 - I vaguely remember Simon Whitfield winning gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In Sydney he crashed in the bike portion and still set the Olympic record (which stood until 2012) by passing numerous runners at the end of the race...amazing. I do however remember his silver medal in Beijing very well. Heading into the final kilometer, Whitfield was fourth and far behind the lead group. He was like a machine for the next 800 meters where he caught up to the lead group and took the lead with 200 meters to go. His determination was truly amazing to watch. He ended up with silver but that didn't dampen the accomplishment for me. Perhaps my favourite Olympic moment. I was very disappointed that he crashed and broke his collarbone in London 2012. I was looking forward to him once again passing everyone at the end of the race.

• Vancouver 2010 - Watching women's downhill skiing was hilarious.  The amount of crashes became comical as it seemed almost every skier would crash. Enter French skier Marion Rolland. A lifetime of training and dreaming all for this moment. A couple pushes to get speed and 3 seconds later she was on the ground. I could not stop laughing. I can't blame her though, seeing all those other skiers airlifted out by helicopter I would be looking for a way out too. It's on youtube of course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7l2zakMbg

• Vancouver 2010 - The gold medal men's hockey game.  With 24 seconds left in the third USA scores to make it 2-2. This was heartbreaking as it looked like it was over and also because the USA goalie Ryan Miller was playing incredible that whole tournament, scoring again seemed impossible. Overtime was the most intense hockey I have ever seen and  Crosby’s golden goal had me on my feet.

I hope everyone gets the chance to watch some Olympics coming up in February. Heres to some more Olympic memories.

Matty