Proud to be Canadian – 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics

I was amazed by the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies last night.  It was a truly incredible experience.  I watched the ceremonies last night just like many Canadians.  At the same time I was also watching the #olympics feed on Twitter.  This really changed the experience for me, as every couple of minutes you’d see more than 2000 tweets from around the world.  It was hard to keep track of them.  What I found fascinating was that I became even more engaged in the ceremony because I could see how others were reacting, in real time, to the events on my tv set.

Sure there were some things that didn’t quite work to plan, but that’s life.  The organizers and participants just kept going.  I was moved by the athletes entering the stadium and by the history and beauty of Canada as it unfolded for the world to see.

I got a kick out of the spoken word poet, Shane Koyczan.  I really liked what he had to say about our land and our people.  I couldn’t find his olympic performance on YouTube, but here he is in another venue with the same message.  Enjoy!

I do have to bring up a safety issue that I had some concern about.  The stage where many of the speeches and some of the performances occurred had an unguarded edge with a significant fall hazard – at least from what I could see.  I did notice that the edge was marked with lighting to raise the awareness of the fall hazard.  The dignitaries and performers were also probably advised of the use of control zone fall protection as well.  Here’s some information on Control Zone Fall Protection from an Alberta perspective.

We’re all saddened by the death of the Georgian luge athlete.  We know that there are risks in sport and that deaths and injuries do occur.  Athletes accept those risks, to a degree, and work their miracles.  Unfortunately, we know that speed thrills, but it also kills.  The investigators will be doing their best to identify contributing factors, causes and required corrective actions to minimize risks to the athletes.  The reality is that the athletes are the best at what they do in the world and their work places them at risk.  Their tireless training, skill, practice and physical conditioning allow them to perform the risky work that most of us would never even consider.  These efforts though will never reduce the risk to zero.  That is the reality that we experienced on Friday.

Good luck to all of the athletes over the next few weeks.  Cause safety to happen as you amaze yourselves and the world!

Andrew…a proud Canadian Safety Guy