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Despite luge death, opening ceremony goes on
In time-honored tradition, the show went on.
About 2,500 athletes from a record 82 countries are
participating in the games, vying for medals in 86 events -
including the newly added ski-cross competition. First-time
Winter Olympic participants include the Cayman Islands,
Columbia, Ghana, Montenegro, Pakistan, Peru and Serbia.
The overall favorites include Germany and the United
States - which finished first and second four years ago in
Turin - and also Canada, a best-ever third in 2006 and now
brashly proclaiming its intention to finish atop the medals
table on its home turf.
"We`re still going to be nice, but we`re going to be nice
in winning," said Michael Chambers, president of the Canadian
Olympic Committee.
The Canadian team was scheduled to be the last contingent
in the parade of nations at Friday`s ceremony, marching behind
flagbearer Clara Hughes, defending gold medalist in the
5,000-meter speedskating race.
Just ahead in the parade will be the Americans. Their
flagbearer is Mark Grimmette, 39, of Muskegon, Michigan,
competing in his fifth Olympics as a doubles luge competitor.
US team officials said Grimmette was expected to wear a
Georgian pin in honor of Kumaritashvili, who would have been
his Olympic rival.
The cultural segment of ceremony featured many of
Canada`s best-known musical stars - including Bryan Adams,
Nelly Furtado, Sarah McLachlan and k.d. lang.
It also highlighted performers and traditions from
Canada`s aboriginal communities.
And the highest-ranking official delegation at the
ceremony - amid dignitaries from around the world - was to
include the four chiefs of the First Nations whose traditional
native territory overlaps the Olympic region.
Several well-known Canadians received the honor of
carrying the Olympic flag at a high-profile moment near the
end of the ceremony. Among them were hockey Hall of Famer
Bobby Orr, singer Anne Murray, race car driver Jacques
Villeneuve and Betty Fox, mother of national hero Terry Fox.
Terry Fox lost a leg to bone cancer as a youngster, then
set off in 1980 on a fundraising trek across Canada. He had to
give up after covering more than 3,000 miles, and died in 1981
at age 22, but remains revered by his compatriots as a symbol
of courage and perseverance.
The flame reached the stadium after a 106-day torch relay
across Canada, passing through more than 1,000 communities in
every province and territory.
The relay was the occasional target for protesters, and
yesterday was no exception.
Activists espousing a variety of causes prompted the
relay to change course twice as it passed near Vancouver`s
skid-row neighborhood, the Downtown Eastside.
"The Olympics have done more damage than good," protest
leader Lauren Gill said. "But one positive is the world
getting to see what Vancouver really is. Downtown Eastside is
an international model of disaster."
PTI