Patriot Hearts (11 page)

I went on to talk about everything Vancouver and Whistler had to offer, from a wonderful airport to world-class hotels and some of the most impressive sports venues a Winter Games had ever seen. I said ours was a worry-free plan based on stability and reliability.

Steve Podborski followed me and talked about how he was the first Canadian man to bring home an Olympic medal in downhill skiing. He said the facilities we planned to build for the athletes would be second to none. And then Steve introduced The Great One.

Wayne Gretzky talked about the magic of stepping onto the ice in Nagano, not knowing the impact it would have on him. “There is no greater honour than the Olympics because there is no greater movement than the Olympic movement.” Out in the audience I could see a big smile cross René Fasel’s face. He knew how powerful Gretzky’s statement was inside that room.

Catriona Le May Doan gave part of her speech in French while talking about catching the Olympic spirit as a child and how that transformed her life. She talked about the thousands of dreams that would be ignited in children in B.C. if we received the privilege of hosting the Games.

And then it was back to me to wrap up our presentation. “As a boy, I dreamed of becoming an Olympian,” I started. “It was all I could think about. While I never made it to the Olympics, this bid has given me and my colleagues a chance to be Olympians of a different kind. We share the values of the Olympic ideal as a powerful platform for building a better world through sport. And we very much want to be your partners in building that better world.”

I thanked our opponents for making the Vancouver bid a better project, for helping many people visualize a better future for our city and for the country. I promised we would be the best partners the
IOC
could possibly imagine, partners it wouldn’t have to worry about, that could be counted upon. I asked the
IOC
members to imagine a torch relay arriving in Canada above the Arctic Circle, farther north than it had ever been before, and then travelling from sea to sea to sea, unifying our vast country in the process.

“We are ready to be an Olympic city. . . We believe that for generations to come, these Games will be a catalyst for immense promise for Vancouver . . . We believe that through sport there can be a chance for peace. That we might distinguish ourselves in the greater cause of sport and humanity. In the end we hope that you might look back on the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games with great pride and affection. Our Olympic dream has transformed us and captivated our nation. Our dream is embedded in the heart of every Canadian athlete, every Canadian family, every Canadian child. Our dream, like your dream, is a dream forever.”

We had to reserve some time for questions from
IOC
members. We had a pretty good idea whom they would be coming from. All of them allowed us to accentuate positive aspects of our bid and address lingering concerns like the road to Whistler. No damage done.

WHEN I FINALLY
sat down in my seat I felt an enormous weight lift. My speech was the culmination of years of hard work by so many people. I honestly believed we had given the campaign everything we had. Coaches ask hockey players to leave everything they have on the ice. I believed that our team had left everything it could in Prague. I couldn’t have asked for more.

As our group began walking out of the conference hall, an elderly man with glasses approached me with an outstretched hand. “That was a wonderful speech, Mr. President.” It was the famous U.S. statesman Henry Kissinger, an honorary
IOC
member. “I wish you well.” Our team congregated outside the hall. Everyone was happy. Some people were planning to watch the other presentations. I had no interest. Why put myself through that just to worry even more. I needed to get away and clear my head so I went for a long walk along the river. Later in the afternoon, some of our team started assembling in my hotel room. All the presentations had been made by that point, and we were about to learn the results of the first vote by closed-circuit television. And soon enough Jacques Rogge was on the screen. My hotel room fell silent.

“After the first round of voting the City of Salzburg has been eliminated,” said Dr. Rogge.

And for a city that had the same Olympic dreams we had, that had poured thousands of hours into its bid and spent tens of millions of euros, it was over just like that.
See ya, goodbye.
I couldn’t fathom what that moment must have felt like for the members of the Salzburg team. Devastating for sure.

We knew that we were poised to gain most, if not all, of the votes that Austria received in the first round. But then, when you were dealing with the
IOC
you could never be absolutely sure about anything. Yes to your face could really mean no; it was like grabbing a handful of Jell-O.

The final announcement was going to be made at 5:30 local time. When we got to the hall, most of the Korean delegation was already there, looking supremely confident. A rumour started circulating that there was a report on the Internet that Pyeongchang had already won, and someone from the media asked me about it. “I don’t believe it for a second,” I said. “And no one will know until Jacques Rogge opens that envelope.”

The last minutes before the announcement were excruciating. My stomach was a mess. I was confident but the wait had a way of messing with a person’s head. At this point, all of the
IOC
members were onstage. A small girl in braids and traditional, brightly coloured Czech dress walked to the stage holding a pillow upon which lay the envelope that would seal our fate. Dr. Rogge walked toward the stage. The tension in the room was unbearable. The president opened the envelope and seemed to take a few seconds to digest the results. More tension. The entire
IOC
was standing behind him—rows of them.

“The International Olympic Committee has the honour of announcing that the 21st Winter Olympic Games are awarded to. . . the City of Vancouver,” he said.

There was a momentary delay in my response. The way Dr. Rogge had pronounced
Vancouver
sounded like “Pyeoncouver,” but that confusion lasted only a second before I realized we had won. The place went crazy. I was standing beside one of the two Mounties in red serge who had escorted our delegation in for our morning presentation. Constable Chantal Jung turned to me and put me in a bear hug that nearly broke my ribs. “We did it,” she screamed. The next several minutes were just chaos. I was hugging and shaking the hands of everybody on our team.

“Today we moved a mountain,” I said to Jack Poole. Jean Chrétien, the exhausted warrior, looked 10 years younger. I thanked him for flying through the night to give a guarantee to the
IOC
that I felt had been vital to the bid.

It was a coming-of-age moment for me. I had been second-guessed a thousand times along the way and now, it seemed, I had been vindicated. It was as if my whole belief system had been validated. I suddenly could relate to every athlete who was part of a big win—a Stanley Cup, the
FIFA
World Cup, an
NBA
championship. Plus there was an immediate, palpable feeling of relief.

I WAS SURPRISED
at how close the final vote was. Three votes. We were behind after round one but grabbed all of Austria’s 16 votes to sneak by the Koreans 56–53. Scary close. Only a couple of other decisions in
IOC
history had been closer than ours—both of those determined by one vote.

There would be a lot of talk about the role geopolitics played in our victory. How European countries wanted the 2012 Summer Games, so were not going to vote for a European city to win the 2010 Games. I never put much stock in that theory. I thought we won because of the quality of our bid, pure and simple. The
IOC
trusted us and liked us. Sure, there may have been a few people who voted for other reasons, but overall I think that if Salzburg had had a superior plan and strategy, it would have prevailed. Same with Pyeongchang. Honestly, though, after the way the Koreans played the margins I was happy they were going home empty-handed. With the help of Samsung, they had probably spent over $100 million on their bid to our $35 million, but in the end it didn’t matter. That outcome made me feel better about the
IOC
and the way it operated.

As I was walking out of the hall, the Prince of Orange approached me with a big smile. “Are we good now?” he asked, a reference to my threat to leak the story about his ripped pants if we didn’t get the Games.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re good.”

We attended a reception hosted by the
IOC
at the Hilton before we joined a bigger party for all the hundreds of Canadians who had made the trip. Dr. Rogge and his wife, Anne, were in a greeting line. When Jack and I got to the president, he reached out to shake our hands. “So,” he said, “are you going to be another one of those cities that make a whole bunch of glowing promises you don’t plan on keeping?”

Humour aside, I was a bit taken aback by the remark. “No,” I said. “You won’t have a problem there, I can assure you. The Canadian public will insist that the promises we made here will be kept.”

A little later on, I headed over to our victory celebration, where I was greeted by a lovely ovation when I walked through the door. I felt embarrassed and quickly slunk into a corner to banter with some guys from
NBC
. Among them was Dick Ebersol, the charismatic chair of
NBC
Universal Sports and the network’s longtime Olympic guru. The network had paid an astounding
US
$2.2 billion for the rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics, and Ebersol told me part of the equation was the assumption Vancouver would win the bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. He had bet the farm on us.

Ebersol was wearing the biggest smile. “It’s a goddamn good thing you won,” he said. “Or I would have been living in exile in a house floating on an iceberg in the North Atlantic for the rest of my days.”

I didn’t have a hard time sleeping that night. I was completely spent. Most of the team was heading home the day following the vote. I felt that too much of the attention had been on me in Prague. I wanted Jack to get the accolades he deserved. He had empowered this effort with such class. I told him I wanted him to return to Vancouver a hero for everything he’d done. I also needed to thank every
IOC
member for trusting us, so I stayed behind an extra day. Jack and the premier and others landed in Vancouver and received a star’s welcome.

Along with a few other members of the team and the media, I flew home a day later aboard an Air Canada flight. I was on a complete high, still not quite believing what we had just accomplished. The last 48 hours had been emotional for everyone. It was difficult not to think about how life-changing the result was going to be for many of us.

I took my seat on the plane, feeling more relaxed than I had in months, maybe years. Everyone in the delegation got an upgrade. As we began to taxi over to the main runway the captain came on the intercom. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Welcome aboard Air Canada flight 2010 to Vancouver.”

The words gave me the shivers.

4

Employee
No. 1

I
GOT A TASTE
of the euphoria surrounding our win when our plane landed at Vancouver International Airport. We had been told by our pilot that there was a mob waiting for us, but to see the thousands gathered in the international arrivals area when we got through customs was still a shock. People had signs. Many were outfitted in red and white. My eight-year-old daughter Molly sprinted past everyone to greet her dad, still not sure what all the fuss was about. But she was not about to be left out. There was media everywhere. Dozens of friends showed up as well. I was flabbergasted.

It was one thing to pick up the phone to say thank you, or write a card, but to make the trip to the airport to say it in person meant a great deal to me. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. I was asked by the media about my future and whether I was interested in being
CEO
of the Vancouver Organizing Committee that would put on the Games. I said I was but that if Prague was my last day working for the 2010 Olympics, I was good with that too. Others were going to decide my future.

A number of events were held over the next few days in recognition of the honour that had been bestowed on Vancouver. It was impossible to walk down the street without being stopped by someone who wanted to say thank you for what our group had achieved.

Shortly after returning home I received a phone call from Brian Burke’s office looking for a meeting. Brian was the president and general manager of the Vancouver Canucks at the time and one of the most recognizable personalities in town. When I showed up at the boardroom at
GM
Place, I was met by Brian and his chief operating officer, Dave Cobb. I sat down to hear what this was all about. “John, I just wanted to thank you personally for an extraordinary performance in Prague,” Brian began. “I wanted to thank you for doing incredible good for the country and just wanted to say it was a genuine delight to see you guys win.”

He told me how he and Dave had been in
GM
Place for the announcement at 5
AM
and were a little miffed that the cheer that went up inside the stadium was louder than any he had heard at a hockey game. Before I left he said that if there was anything he could do to help us out, all I had to do was call. It was an offer he lived up to often in the years that followed. Many like Brian were already stepping up to say “Well done” and “Count me in if you need any help.”

While it was fun basking in the glow of our victory for a few days, there was also work to be done. There was a huge transition to make between being a bid city and a host city. The Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Bid Corporation would now make way for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, or as it would eventually be known,
VANOC
. It would mean a new board would have to be chosen and the jockeying to be on it would be fierce. While it was understood that Jack would be chair of that board, at least initially, what wasn’t known was who the
CEO
would be. That was the big job, the ringmaster of everything that would happen over the next seven years.