WHISTLER – The 2010 Paralympics, breaking new records in attendance and visibility around the world, closed out in a flash of colour and patriotism Sunday night as athletes from around the world gathered under a basketball court-sized Canadian flag and wished the Games goodbye.
It may be more accurate, however, to say that many of the 506 athletes here wished not to say goodbye at all to the Games, which for 10 days of competition had been the focus of so many hopes and dreams.
For some, like Canada’s Lauren Woolstencroft and Germany’s Verena Bentele, who each won five gold medals, these were Games of remarkable achievements.
For others, like the Canadian sledge hockey team, which came in expecting to win gold again and instead finished a disappointing fourth, these may be less memorable Games.
But under that massive Canadian flag at the open-air Whistler celebration site none of that seemed to matter, as athletes watched a ceremony that paid homage to their efforts and invited them back for more in four years’ time.
Clouds that earlier in the day had parted to let the sun brightly shine through at one point and at another drenched Whistler thoroughly, held back during the ceremony. And yet the 6,000 spectators, athletes, officials and dignitaries had all come prepared, wearing an assortment of hats, plastic ponchos and rainwear.
There was a sweet historical irony at play Sunday. This was the 25th anniversary of the start of Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion tour, an event that helped change the world’s view of people who live with a disability. Hansen, a key part of the opening ceremony, wasn’t involved in the closing.
The audience watched on huge screens as 125 skiers of all ages and abilities carried red torches down Whistler Mountain, and they listened to the voices of 185 people in the Sea to Sky Chorus as they were led in the singing of O Canada by 19-year-old Ali Milner.
Seated at the front were Prince Edward, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Gordon Campbell. Around them stood thousands of cheering, clapping spectators.
Threaded throughout the closing ceremony was the theme from the anthem, "With Glowing Hearts," marking what organizers hoped would be a festive celebration rather than sadness at seeing one of the most successful Paralympics in history come to a close.
"What a blast we’ve had," Sir Phil Craven, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, shouted out to the cheering crowds. "The best Paralympic Winter Games ever!"
He was effusive in his praise of the Vancouver Organizing Committee and its legion of blue-jacketed volunteers. He said they were had created a wonderful community spirit for the athletes.
"We have seen great feats of daring, of endurance and of skill. But the Paralympic Winter Games are not only about supreme athletic performance," he said. "They are about a community, about a far reaching and extending family."
John Furlong, the president of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, left the ceremony halfway through to catch a flight to Georgia, where he is attending a memorial for Nodar Kumaritashvili, the luge athlete killed Feb. 12 in a training accident.
But before he left, he told the cheering crowds that the Paralympic and Olympic Games had ignited a country.
"We now know that sport success is in our nation’s highest interest; that through sport we are a stronger nation, a better nation," he said. "We found something special here in British Columbia. And while the world noticed our patriotic celebration and excitement, we at Vancouver 2010 felt it."
Produced by Patrick Roberge, the 90-minute ceremony included a short "we’re next" passage by the organizers of the 2014 Sochi Paralympics.
The ceremony was a feast of Canadian musical and artistic talent. The athletes came into the plaza to the foot-stomping music of Quebec folk band La Bottine Souriante, and left at the end of a fireworks display preceded by dances by Whistler’s Soul Funktion Studio. In between, there was a hoop dance by Lil’Wat Nation member Alex Wells, a self-described "Lord of the Rings," throat singing by Inuit artist Tanya Tagaq and a traditional Inuit blanket toss.
As Andrew Allen sang the ballad Amazing, the Paralympic torches in Whistler and Vancouver were extinguished.
These were, as far as the IPC and Vanoc are concerned, benchmark Games in many respects. They drew larger television audiences than ever before. Even CTV, the Canadian broadcaster, bent to public pressure and agreed to televise the closing ceremony live across the nation in both English and French.
The Paralympics do not draw the crowds or the media of the Olympics, which opened a month before. But these Paralympics were a success in terms of attendance; more than 230,000 tickets, or 85 per cent of those available, were sold, making it by those standards the most successful Winter Games ever for the IPC.
In the past, Games organizers have struggled to sell tickets, to entice corporate sponsors and to encourage the world’s media to give even a fraction of the attention they give to the Olympics. That’s the downside. The upside is the Paralympics, as Craven once said, still has the same neighbourly feel as the Olympics did 30 years ago, before it discovered corporate sponsorships.
That feeling of closeness and familiarity was present in Whistler in spades Sunday night. The Paralympics had opened under Vancouver’s big dome, the 60,000-seat BC Place stadium. But organizers wanted a much more cozy closing, and chose the celebration plaza where they could cram in just 10 per cent of the number that attended the opening.
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