When passion moved out, entertainment moved in!
PASSION DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
There’s something creepy about staying at the forme Olympic Village in Torino. It was apparent upon arriva that something was very different than our stay eleven month ago during the Games. When the Olympics ended, I remembe thinking to myself ‘I’ll never be back here again.’ Sometime las week I emailed a friend about coming back to Torino and wrote ‘At least we don’t have to stay in that crappy village again.’ Well never say never, I guess, because here I am, in apartment #8, a 5:30am dealing with the usual effects of jet lag, wondering ho it is that we are here. Sure, I’ve raced in ovals of previou Olympics but staying the village….come on
Teammate Kristina Groves and I arrived yesterday at the gates of our home during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. Two hours at the airport with not an organizing committee car in sight, the American Team’s (that we arrived with) seemingly futile efforts of getting a pick-up came to fruition. After a hair-raising drive from the airport (it seems that most Italians have an innate desire to be a famous race-car driver that they let out each time the car is in drive, frighteningly lacking sense or skill), we reached the gates of the village.
Riding back to the village from the oval
A moveable gate in place to stop vehicles replaced the security screening and metal detectors of the Games. This marked our last stop in the car and from there we had to walk the 500m or so to the apartments. But first, we had to get through the crew of Italians men in their ‘University Games’ (the event that had finished only two days before) swag, having a group smoke and lacking of any believable authority. Three weeks worth of luggage, including bike, rollers and the usual skating gear became a heavy burden. The luxuries and necessities carefully packed back in Canada seemed frivolous after resorting to this packhorse mode of transport.
Eleven months ago, we were whizzed through check-ins, being cautious with each movement and not even a remote possibility of moving such heavy luggage and potentially wrecking my back. Yesterday, it was every person for him/her self, and not a luggage cart to be found. During the toil of dragging 50-60lb bags over what felt like the cobbles of Roubaix, I looked over at Kristina and noted the irony that here we were, less than a year after, Olympic medals won between the two of us, and there’s not even friggin’ luggage cart! The slogan ‘Passion Lives Here’ swayed in the wind on the odd banner left hanging, and it occurred to me that this passion, if it ever did exist in the village, extinguished with the Olympic flame.
I looked over at Kristina as she struggled with bike box and rollers, and in my most insincere seriousness muttered, ‘Passion doesn’t live here anymore, eh?’ We busted a gut, but at the same time realised that we were ordinary once again- no longer the athletes that made the Olympics roll around. So what the heck were we doing in the village?
I definitely don't understand curling but this seems like a really bizarre quote on the wall in the Village...
Though the buildings were brand new during the Games, the shoddy construction was evident after a few days of village living. Anyone with the most basic experience in do-it-yourself home projects could see there were some serious problems. Cracks in the drywall were already forming, gaps in the grout and uneven tile to name a few of the most obvious signs that the apartments were put up in a rush and without care. Now, eleven months later, it’s as if the buildings are decades old with these initial signs of constructional weakness now bursting at the seams.
Like a ghost town of Olympics past, it’s as if the Games happened and a few dissident volunteers refused to leave and let the village move on to its destiny: low-income housing. Where once there were fitness centres, stores and the bustle of the Games, now sit vacant, dusty rooms that hauntingly echo with the step of a foot. The Games are long over yet this place is still up-and-running, even if only at the most minimal of ways.
Because the cafeteria was yet to open for the slew of speed skaters here for the weekend’s races, our small team set out to the shopping mall for dinner. Our gang tromped across the same bridge spanning the railroad tracks that allowed for easy access to the Oval Lingotto during the Games. The memory of walking up those same steps to the bridge flashed through my head. The last time my feet clashed on the metal grated stairs, I was on my way to race at the Olympics. The last time I walked down those same steps, was when I returned from winning the Olympics. Wow.
As we walked, I noticed what looked like a skating oval on the right. In the distant night’s sky, a massive wall of windows allowed for a glimpse into the expanse and a perspective of the enormity of the facility. It was like watching the worlds biggest wall of Plasma TV’s tuned into the long track speed skating channel. My jet-lagged brain struggled to make sense of this. I knew it had to be the same Olympic oval we raced in, but for the life of me I could not remember having this view of the inside. Finally, I mustered the courage to ask the most obvious of questions, ‘Is that the oval?’ Luckily, nobody laughed at me, because all of us who were there for the Games felt the same sense of confusion. These windows were covered up during that time- of course!
A locked gate greeted us after the trek across the bridge. With no security in sight, we manoeuvred around the barrier by squeezing through a gap, teetering on a handrail and then jumping down to the stairs that would bring us to the other side of the blockage. There we were, a flock of athletes following one another in step with Canada glowing in gold stitching across the back of our team jackets, effectively breaking out of the Olympic Village to get some food.
My teammate Arne Dankers said it best last night, ‘It’s as if all of the memories we have here are being messed with. They should be left to rest.’ That’s exactly it. The things that we went through, that we all dreamed and lived just less than a year ago, should be what they are, distant memories. The passing of time allows for the good ones to prevail, and when one doesn’t have to re-visit a place in such a bizarre situation this happens naturally. This week is messing with this process.
I remain unsure if ‘Passion’ ever did live here, but nonetheless know that I found it, in my heart, and that the purest place that this fire can come from is from within. The ability to endure the pains of reaching the higher, stronger and faster that the athlete is supposed to strive for comes from within, not from a banner flapping in the wind marketing the Olympic slogan of a specific Games.
The Olympic Village, just like the Olympic Athlete, becomes quite ordinary after the flame travels on. And that’s just the way I like it.
