Canada is off to a fast start at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing with four medals after two days of competition. That includes a gold won Sunday by Quebec native Max Parrot in snowboarding.
A gold should also go to veteran sportswriter Allen Able for the stirring video he presented over the weekend on CBC. Identified as “The flame that burns so brightly in so many hearts,” the positive 12-minute video celebrates many past Olympic medal winners but also some of the rogue characters that have stood out in Games’ past.
Follow this link to watch the video in its entirety.
Among those interviewed are Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, the first ski jumper from The UK since the 1920s. An unabashed amateur who scraped together money for his own training, his last place leap of 71 meters in the Calgary games stood as the British record until 2001.
Another colourful character profiled by Abel is Chris Stokes, a founding member of the Jamaican bobsled team. John Candy later starred in a feature film inspired by the bobsled team and their coach called “Cool Runnings.” Debuting, like Edwards, at the Calgary Games, Stokes stuck with the sport, competing in five Winter Olympics with Jamaica racing to a 14th place finish in four man bobsledding in 1994.
As Stokes says, “When you see the flame, it inspires joy and hope in you.”
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There are also interviews with past Canadian heroes such as Kerrin Lee-Gartner, as well as Robyn Perry, who lit the torch as a 10-year-old back in 1988 in Calgary.
Take 12 minutes and watch. It will lift your Olympic spirits.
