Furlong on his Games

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Mark Baker / The Associated Press archives John Furlong speaks during the opening ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. (CP)

Grab some coffee and sit down, because I can't wait to tell you about my chat with John Furlong, the man who organized the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, widely regarded as the best Games of the modern era.

I jumped at the chance to interview Furlong when I learned he's coming here May 14 as keynote speaker for the Gold-Plated Evening, CancerCare Manitoba Foundation's fundraising dinner in support of prostate-cancer research.

It is impossible, using mere words, to describe how incredibly inspiring it is to speak with John Furlong, the former CEO of the organizing committee for the Vancouver Olympics, a man who helped change the way Canadians look at their country and themselves, but I'll give it a shot: It's incredibly inspiring!

When we finished talking on the phone, despite the fact I was still in my ratty green bathrobe, I felt the urge to run outside and do something so great that, when it was done, I would simply vanish in a blinding flash of total excellence.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I could thank him for his work, Furlong told me how passionate he is about our city.

"I love Winnipeg!" he declared in a way that left no doubt he was sincere. "It's one of my favourite places to go; I'm not even sure why. Every time I'm there I have a big smile on my face. The people are wonderful.

"The day we arrived with the Olympic flame, it was like -20. The torch was on the outskirts of the city and I drove in, and there were thousands of people lining the relay route. It didn't have an equivalent until it got to Vancouver."

Later, at The Forks, Furlong remembers being stunned by the passion.

"I was so cold I could have been mistaken for an iceberg," he joked. "I turned to the premier and said: 'Why didn't you put this in the arena, where people would be warm?' He looked at me and said: 'Around here, we crush winter!'

"Our team was so pumped up when we left Winnipeg. It's a city that doesn't flinch when it takes something on."

A hockey fanatic, Furlong said once he's read about his Canucks, he scours the paper for news about our Jets.

"They're going to be formidable," the Olympic hero said of our revived NHL team. "It's a city that has to have a team. The fans are the extra man. In some cities, the game has become corporate. In Winnipeg, it's much more personal."

During a rare pause in a wide-ranging conversation, Furlong asked: "So, are we going to talk about cancer?"

"Absolutely," I replied, then, thinking it was a light-hearted question one guy asks another, blurted: "How's your prostate?"

"My prostate is good," Furlong said, chuckling, then added: "But I lost my best friend, Jack Poole (chairman of the Vancouver Organizing Committee's board of directors), on the way to the Olympics."

Poole survived a battle with prostate cancer in 1993. In 2007, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

"He died the day after we lit the Olympic flame in Greece," Furlong recalled of his friend, a man who lobbied every guy he met to have his prostate checked. "He died when he knew we had it all under control.

"When I look back on the Olympics, I don't have a single memory without him in it."

The message John Furlong is bringing to Winnipeg is one he learned from the loss of his best friend and the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili before the Opening Ceremonies had even started.

It's a simple lesson about facing adversity together, defying the odds and emerging victorious.

"Cancer shouldn't be fought alone," he told me. "The thing about darkness is it comes when you don't want it or don't expect it... but you can build character and a culture so that when darkness comes, the defence will be so strong.

"We had the worst start to an Olympic Games in human history, but we got up and carried on with the entire planet looking at us. We knew bad things would happen, but we prepared for every kind of catastrophe.

"We knew the country expected our finest hour, and they were the wind at our back."

In the end, he said, Sidney Crosby's golden goal against the U.S. is the perfect symbol for how our country not only came together, but came of age, in the winter of 2010.

"The reason we talk about that goal every day is that, at that moment, the country wasn't just sitting in the stands; the country was on the ice, playing the game, putting a stick on the puck," said Furlong, now head of the Own the Podium advisory board preparing for the next two Olympic Games. "If the fans in the bleachers believe they have a role to play in the result, it's very special."

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Get inspired, fight cancer

WANT to be inspired by John Furlong, the driving force behind the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, and help fight prostate cancer at the same time?

Trust me, you do. All you'll need are tickets for CancerCare Manitoba Foundation's Gold-Plated Evening on May 14 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre.

You can get them by calling the foundation at 787-1800 or going online at cancercarefdn.mb.ca .

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 9, 2012 A2