Well its been an action packed first week at the Athletes Village. The Team Welcome Ceremonies have been going very well. We run them in conjunction with welcome ceremonies in Vancouver. Basically how it works is the teams show up in Vancouver or Whistler respectfully and the Village Mayors (Anne Fraser- Sproule and I) welcome the Chef de Missions from each country on stage for a gift exchange, the raising of their flag and the playing of the national anthem. At the end Quatchi and Miga two of the mascots arrive to the venue- you wouldn’t believe the reaction of the athletes!
Today we welcomed Senegal, Morocco, Bermuda and Monaco. Other flag raisings in Whistler have included Mongolia, South Africa, Algeria, Ireland, Albania, Moldova and Tajikistan. It has been a thrill to be involved- the athletes look so young!!
Last night and had the thrill of attending the Opening Ceremony final dress rehearsal as a strand in athlete. It was nice of VANOC to invite past Olympians and a guest to be part of the parade of athletes. We were Team Poland. What a thrill for my mom to walk into BC Place with 40,000 people cheering. The organization of that many athletes is incredible. They stage you by country in Canada Hockey Place first. They had the camermen working the HD big screen to help past the time for the athletes which was fun. From there you assemble alphabetically by team (Greece always goes first and the host country last) and from there you march over to BC Place where you are untited with your countries flag and name bearer. Then its into the stadium you go! I’ll I can say is the opening ceremony was unbelievable. They have created a great show and BC Place looked amazing.
Let the games begin!
Alan welcoming Team Mongolia
Team South Africa- 1 athlete!
View from Vancouver's Athlete Welcome Cermony
Team Bermuda welcome ceremony
Team Monaco Welcome Ceremony
Tags: 2010, athletes, opening ceremonies, Vancouver 2010