OLYMPIC MEMORIES
Cheers, tears: Postmedia writers and photographers share some highlights
ED WILLES
Following their loss to Australia in the gold-medal game of the women’s rugby sevens, the gutted New Zealand team solemnly marched in front of their fans, formed a line and performed a version of the Haka, the traditional Maori war dance.
They were in tears. Their supporters were in tears. In the centre of the line stood Portia Woodman, the fierce star winger of the team whose father Kawhene and uncle Fred played for the All Blacks. As she danced, she wept openly.
The Olympics, which are so deeply flawed on so many levels, still produce scenes like this — scenes we remember, scenes that move us to the core of our being.
There is an Olympic ideal. Sometimes it’s harder to find than a black pearl, but when you see it, you know it — and you saw it in the women of New Zealand.
SCOTT STINSON
I’ve been in some loud buildings: the MTS Centre in Winnipeg for the first NHL playoff game since the return of the Jets, the United Center in Chicago in a Stanley Cup-winning game, the Rogers Centre in Toronto after Jose Bautista hit an ALDS rocket and disdainfully discarded his bat. But Rio’s Maracana Stadium on Saturday was something else entirely.
If soccer is the soul of Brazil, the men’s gold-medal game was something of an exorcism. A nation that had been humiliated in the 2014 World Cup, and suffered a series of calamities since, finally had the chance for a huge win. They got it and the place erupted. For a moment, everything about Rio 2016 was joyous and perfect.
TED WYMAN
It was the very first day of full Olympic competition and Canada was vying for a swimming medal in the women’s four-by-100 freestyle relay. Competing against the vaunted Australians and Americans, the Canadian team of Sandrine Mainville, Chantal Van Landeghem, Taylor Ruck and Penny Oleksiak had a great swim and won the bronze medal.
The best part was the photo of Van Landeghem, Mainville and Ruck showing their unbridled joy when they realized Oleksiak had touched the wall third, kicking off a tremendous Olympics for the Canadian swimmers.
STEVE SIMMONS
There were 50 metres to go and Penny Oleksiak was nowhere to be found. You don’t come back from seventh place at the turn in a swim race as short the 100 freestyle. You don’t — but somehow this 16-year-old from Toronto found a way to swim against history and even make some of her own.
She passed one swimmer, then another, and suddenly she was fighting for the lead when she touched the wall, not knowing where she finished. There was no immediate celebration or smiles, although there was an exchange between her and American Simone Manuel. Turns out Oleksiak and Manuel tied for gold.
ROB LONGLEY
Penny. Golden Penny, silver Penny, bronze Penny. The single most impressive series of medals I’ve had the good fortune of covering at my six Olympics. It was her winning smile contrasted by her lethal winning kick in each race she swam for a medal. As a father of a girl the same age, it was the contrast of the Snapchat teenager and the cutthroat Olympic champ. And it was awesome.
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
I had myriad favourite moments — they’d add up to an hour — while following Canada’s women’s football team around Brazil.
But the best of them came after Canada defeated the Brazilian women 2-1 for the bronze medal, and afterwards, veteran Rhian Wilkinson told reporters she’d personally had a tough tournament, not lived up to her own expectations in what was probably her last kick at the can.
But, she said, she’d been lifted by what another old hand, Melissa Tancredi, had told her: “Let us carry you across the finish line.”
Wilkinson was near tears as she told the story. The reporters were near tears hearing it.
MATTHEW FISHER
My favourite moment was the bedlam in the favela of Vidigal as Brazil’s men’s volleyball team wrapped up the Olympic Games on Sunday by winning the gold medal in a match against Italy.
Many impoverished Cariocas felt left out of the Games because they could not possibly afford the tickets. A common feeling was that the Olympics had been staged by and for the nation’s elites, with no consideration of the interests of the majority.
But over the past few days, Brazil’s Olympians finally drew their countrymen into the Games with some remarkable performances. The country stopped Saturday night when the men’s soccer team avenged a shocking 7-1 loss to Germany two years ago at the World Cup by defeating the Germans in a dramatic shootout.
By Sunday night, folks in Vidigal who had professed little interest in the Olympics were gathered in every bar watching the volleyball final. The skeptics had become the Rio Games’ greatest fans.
VICKI HALL
My most memorable moment of the Rio Games came in the mixed zone under the stands at Olympic Stadium. More than 200 reporters swarmed Usain Bolt that morning as he sauntered off the track after winning his 200-metre heat. Organizers even gave the champ a microphone so those way in the back could hear. Quietly, Andre De Grasse walked past the circus, through the windy fences, to the lone Canadian scribe waiting to talk to the next one.
I am too young to have watched the late Muhammad Ali fly like a butterfly in the ring. I am privileged to have witnessed the iconic Bolt rip up the track and cement his title as the fastest man on Earth. And as a Canadian, I’m excited for what the future holds for the kid from Markham, Ont. who introduced himself to the entire planet with his three track medals in Rio.
Something tells me I’ll never again be the only one in line to chat.
CAM COLE
The three medal-winning four-by-100 sprint relay teams — Jamaica, Japan and Canada — sat side by side on the dais, and all the questions had been for Usain Bolt, who was generous in his praise of the silver medal Japanese team’s discipline and precision in their baton exchanges. The U.S. team, ever-nervous about the baton, had been disqualified.
Finally someone asked how many times the Jamaicans had practised the relay in advance of Rio. “Once, with him,” Asafa Powell said, nodding at Bolt. “Twice, the rest of us.” The room erupted in laughter. It’s just that easy for the greatest sprinting nation on the planet.