The flame for the Vancouver Olympics has bee lit in a traditional ceremony in Olympia, Greece. On Oct. 30 it will arrive at UVic, one of the first stops in the 106-day long Olympic Torch Relay across Canada.
The relay will cover 45,000 kilometers and will involve 12,000 torch bearers, culminating in the lighting of the cauldron at B.C. Place in Vancouver on Feb. 12 to mark the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
To celebrate the arrival of the torch, UVic is hosting “Olympic Torch Day,” a celebration of UVic’s tradition of excellence in athletics and of the Vikes’ representation at past Olympic Games.
The festivities will be held in parking lot 4 of Centennial Stadium on Friday, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
The torch is expected to arrive on campus via McGill Road around 5 p.m. It will continue around Ring Road to Henderson Road, where it will exit campus and head downtown to a subsequent torch ceremony on the lawn of the legislature.
The event will include a barbecue, where students and community members are invited to learn about campus sports clubs, including UVic Snow. UVic Snow will be setting up a mini mountain, including a 10-foot drop-in from scaffolding. The demonstration requires a fair amount of skill as a skier or snowboarder, so participation is by invitation only, but spectators are more than welcome to watch, said UVic Snow president Adrian White.
The barbecue will also provide students and community members with an opportunity to meet current and former UVic student athletes.
“The Olympic torch relay represents an opportunity for communities across Canada to share in the celebration of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games” said Clint Hamilton, UVic’s Athletics and Recreation Director. “We are fortunate that UVic is one of the first destinations of the 106-day tour, and [we] find it appropriate given the rich tradition of Vikes athletes’ participation in the Olympic Games.”
The Vikes have had tremendous representation at the Olympic Games. A total of 156 Vikes athletes, coaches and alumni have represented Canada at various Olympics throughout the years. Those representatives have won a total of 10 gold, six silver and five bronze medals. An additional 26 medals have been won by Vikes at the Paralympics. Mike Tucker, Vikes Athletics Communications Officer, says these numbers are unrivalled in Canadian university sports.
Mark Laidlaw was a member of the UVic rowing team from 2003 to 2007, and is currently training to compete at the 2010 London Olympics. He believes that, in addition to funding and a strong coaching staff, it is the Vikes’ consistent performance that distinguishes them.
“UVic teams have won 64 national championships and 95 Canada West championships so Canadian athletes know that UVic has successful teams they want to be a part of,” he said. “Good results are the best way to attract good athletes, so it becomes a cycle.”
Hamilton hopes that having UVic host the Torch will help perpetuate that cycle.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “The Olympics represents the highest level of sporting competition in the world. For our Vikes student athletes I hope that seeing the Torch in person, on our campus, will provide the inspiration to dream big and achieve their best. But, most of all, this is an opportunity to connect our communities through sport.”
The Nazi tradition continues...
Uvic has spent well over $27,000 on this 2-hour disaster. A large chunk of this cost is a VIP $45/plate luncheon for Uvic president David Turpin and elite guests, while Turpin already makes over $479,000 a year on the backs of impoverished students.
Apart from Uvic supporting a tradition that was started by the Nazis in 1936 to promote fascism throught Europe, and apart from Uvic supporting a hollow corporate spectacle that heamorrhages money from social services, it is inexcusable that UVic hold a 2-hour party of this price when there are students eating from food banks because they cannot afford the education that is theirs by right.
Uvic obviously doesn't care about students, healthy communities, or human decency.
Show up to show your dissent at Uvic, or come to the anti-Olympics community festival at Centennial Square at 2:00 Friday October 30. It's followed by a Zombie March!
There is something fundamentally flawed with an argument that states "Nazis made this up, therefore it is bad." There's actually a term for that - it's called "argumentum ad hominem".
As for post secondary education being a "right", that's patently ridiculous. People throw out words like "rights" too casually these days. The sense of entitlement is astounding.
I couldn't agree more B. Personally, I found the protest to be one of the most disrespectful demonstrations I have ever seen in my life - and I Speak of the one downtown that later carried on to disrupt the torch relay. You stole a precious memory from a lot of people, and the chance of a lifetime from 10 others. Congrats - I hope you realize you did little to endear anyone to your various causes.
One comment on the times colonist summed it up perfectly - look for Dan's comment on http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/2010wintergames/Pride+protest+Readers+sound+about+Olympic+torch+relay+events/2168340/story.html
From the above linked article, I believe this is the comment being referred to, for those who can't find it:
"Ignorance. Pure ignorance. Not everyone grows up yearning to be a bearded vigilante - he who exploits the virtues of a democracy in the name of unemployed renegades everywhere. There's something to be said for activism - but what the hell happened the eloquence of men like Martin Luther King? I have the privilege of living and working in the downtown area, and I'm often asked how disruptive the homeless problem is, i am usually driven to point out how sick i am of being berated by the young prosthetizers wearing the coloured vest of the day. Be it red, green or yellow, they spread the condescending gospel of all that that should be right with the world. They hold a binder.....I do real work in the service of my Province to make it a better place to live. What happened to service? Speak loud, make sure you're heard, but any serious activist (and ironicaly -Terrorists) knows that momentous battles are won with the public on your side. I'm too often sickened by the lengths and methods (not the positions) these activists go to - as long as they fit into the anarchist vogue. They believe themselves to be the quintessential North American martyr, (at least until about the age of 25). When one tries to actually engage them in meaningful dialog, you are quickly impaled with hanging questions, aversion of the real topic at hand, and are branded as being a corporate fascist (ok, i have made that last one up). Before you go to far down the road picturing your author as a jaded fellow of 60, gently reminscing about 'the good ol days' please keep this in mind. I'm a 24 year old single father, who has every interest in making sure my son's world is fair and just, but robbing a child of the flickering glimpse of an olympic dream is disgusting and i'll go heads -up against anyone who feels otherwise. "
Hold on a minute here. For the last three years Uvic students have freaked out at any (false) semblance of an attack on freedom of speech.
You call it free speech when the military takes up a multi-million dollar recruitment campaign. You call it free speech when a pro-life zealot compares abortion to the Holocaust.
So free speech is only free speech when it travels DOWN the power hierarchy, according to you. Not when grassroots movements try to speak truth to government, police, and corporations. What planet are you living on? Grassroots free speech is the TRUE free speech.
The dissent expressed Friday night was the most empowering show of public spirit (versus corporate spirit) that Victoria has seen in decades.
And hey, at least we have everyone talking about the costs of the Olympics now. $6 billion spent on parties instead of on housing, healthcare, land claims, and the environment. Shame on BC.
If we can't prioritize exposing the mismanagement of this province (that is literally costing people their lives) over risking spoiling the evening of a few people privileged enough not to have felt the impact of the Olympics, there's something gravely gravely wrong.
At least our side has taken to the streets. To those anonymous gripers, the class war won't be fought on a message board you know.
And to person "B", if I have a sense of entitlement for thinking that poor people have as much right to education as rich people, so be it. You've obviously picked your side of the battle.
Everybody see that beautiful Olympic Torch©? Did it change your life? Did it make you want a Coca-Cola, so you could open happiness?
And here we have the same person throwing out words like "rights" now using the defense of "free speech" to justify the protestors' actions. Why am I not surprised by that?
"Free speech" is a two-way street Shannon. It means listening to what the other side has to say as opposed to attempting to ram-rod your opinions down someone's unwilling throat. "The most empowering show of public spirit that Victoria has seen in decades"? Yeah I'm sure those protestors felt real empowered preventing the poor guy with cerebral palsy from participating in the torch relay. I'm sure they're very proud indeed of the fact they've "raised awareness". But just what awareness have they really raised by this? By all accounts, the awareness that they're a bunch of self-centered jerks who revel in pissing on people's parades.
It might surprise you to learn that I'm as much against the massive Olympics spending as you are, Shannon. But going about things the way you are engenders you to nobody and only serves to alienate your cause. If that's what you were after, then mission accomplished.
As for this comment about poor having as much right to education as rich, you'll get no argument with me on that score. But you've set up a strawman there. Your original statement was a claim that students (any by extension, anybody) had a right to post-secondary education, NOT that the poor had as much rights to one as the rich. Nice try though.
The Martlet also reserves the right to use comments in the newspaper.