Olympic Spirit
Published Monday November 23rd, 2009
Sports: Flame arrives in province as torch relay begins 1,400-kilometre trek across New Brunswick
It has already blazed through the Far North, becoming the first torch relay to bring the Olympic flame within 817 kilometres of the North Pole by stopping in Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut,
The relay has already made it to North America's easternmost tip at Cape Spear in St. John's, N.L.
Last week, it was carried by Cole Harbour native and National Hockey League star Sidney Crosby in Nova Scotia on what is now a westward cross-Canada journey to Vancouver.
For five days this week it will make New Brunswick the focus of the world.
Step by step it will traverse over 1,400 kilometres of New Brunswick by land and sea, carried by 630 torchbearers through 58 communities.
The Olympic flame will arrive in Port Elgin from Prince Edward Island early today when it will be handed off first to 14-year-old Bianca Hunter.
"It's so exciting to just be a part of it, and then to be the first New Brunswicker, it's like getting the first slice of cake," Hunter said. "It's pretty sweet."
In the rural farming town of Aulac, near Sackville, Hunter has spent the last few weeks practising for the big day.
"We have a treadmill at my house and my dad has been setting it for me at 300 metres - the distance I have to run," Hunter said. "Just to get the feel of it.
"We have also taken the car out to see what 300 metres is like on the road. It's not very far at all."
An aspiring Olympian herself, Hunter is a sharp shooter in the sport of rifle and pistol shooting; her favourite Winter Olympic sport is the biathlon, a discipline that combines cross-country skiing and target shooting.
Two others members of the target shooting club she belongs to in Sackville will also run in the relay - which is a 106-day nationwide event.
Hunter was selected after applying online through a kids Coca-Cola competition.
"It was an amazing feeling when I found out," she said. "It was a shock."
Today, the flame will ride on a Can-Am Spyder three-wheeled motorcycle in Port Elgin, cross through the lobster capital of the world in Shediac and go past the Memramcook Monument Lefebvre national historic site.
It will also be carried through Cap-Pelé, Sackville and Dieppe with the help of 127 torchbearers throughout the day, arriving in Moncton in the evening where an estimated crowd of 10,000 people is expected at l'Université de Moncton's new stadium.
"My uniform is hanging up nicely so it won't have any wrinkles in it for the big day," said Kim Kirkpatrick, a Riverview resident who will carry the torch in Sackville today. "Of course, I tried it on as soon as it arrived.
"This whole thing is pretty amazing."
Like all of the torchbearers who will help carry the flame that was handed over to Canada 25 days ago in Athens, Greece, Kirkpatrick has a story. A major fan of the Olympics as long as she can remember, Kirkpatrick was glued to the television as a child, watching the Olympic Games in Montreal and becoming fascinated with the athletics competitions.
It eventually spurred her to take up running - most recently completing five- and 10-kilometre races and a half marathon.
She also led a group of women who wanted to learn to run.
But earlier this year, Kirkpatrick suffered a major leg injury while training to run yet another half marathon. Complications with a posterior tendon have ended her ability to run long distances for good, she said.
After four long months of rehab and training, with the torch relay in mind, Kirkpatrick will do her part in making sure the Olympic flame makes it to Vancouver.
"I'm able to run short distances, but to be able to train for another half marathon at this point is not going to be in the near future," she said. "I could barely walk at the time, but I can walk fine now and I will be able to run for the torch relay."
Her husband, who she watched run with the flame in 1988 on its way to Calgary, and her two children will watch her carry the torch today.
"I couldn't be more excited," Kirkpatrick said. "It is going to be one amazing memory." The Olympic flame will shine a light on New Brunswick's greatest features over the coming week - its national parks, its scenic views and more importantly, its people.
It will also welcome others from around the world.
The world's highest tides are set to recede Tuesday morning in time to allow Brazil's César Cielo, an Olympic gold medallist and current world record holder in 100-metre freestyle swimming, to carry the torch along the ocean's floor at Hopewell Rocks.
That day, the flame will also light the way through Fundy National Park.
On Wednesday, it will set out from the Carleton Martello Tower in Saint John, one of only nine remaining Martello towers in Canada and the only remaining tower in Atlantic Canada.
The flame will also ride atop a buffalo mine clearing vehicle at CFB Gagetown and pause in the middle of the Pedway Bridge spanning the St. John River before it will pass along the tree-lined riverfront avenues of the capital city in Fredericton.
It will then spend its last New Brunswick days in the northern half of the province, with highlights crossing the Centennial Bridge in Miramichi, pausing to honour the Boys in Red memorial in Bathurst, getting its picture taken with Restigouche Sam, the giant salmon statue in Campbellton, as well as visiting Grand Falls, home to the largest waterfall in New Brunswick. The flame will pass within a one-hour drive of 92 per cent of the province's population.
"It's emotionally overwhelming at times," said Kirsten Mihailides, a member of the Coca-Cola Vancouver 2010 Olympic project team who has been at the torch's side for nearly the entire Canadian leg thus far. "You spend a lot of your days crying, happy tears, because you are blown away by the excitement and the power of it, the magnitude of it."
The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay route, when completed, will be the longest domestic torch relay in Olympic history, stretching 45,000 kilometres within Canada.
Upon its conclusion, the Olympic flame will have been welcomed in 1,020 communities and places of interest.
The Torch Relay is an Olympic symbol of peace, brotherhood and enlightenment and represents a summons to the Olympic Games.
Carl Diem, an Olympic historian and philosopher, initiated the first modern-day Olympic Torch Relay for the Berlin 1936 Olympic Summer Games. Since that time, the torch relay has been a significant part of the Games, with each relay reflecting the culture of its host country.
"This is about the people who have been selected, the kids, just the emotion, and this sounds silly, but the smiles," Mihailides said. "Everybody is smiling.
"You can't help but smile when you see the torch. It's just a spectacular time across Canada."
Vancouver 2010 Olympic torch relay
Monday, Nov. 23
Summerside, P.E.I., to Moncton
The flame arrives:
Port Elgin at 10:25 a.m.
Cap-Pelé at 11:34 a.m.
Shediac at 12:03 p.m.
Memramcook at 2:32 p.m.
Sackville at 3:14 p.m.
Dieppe at 5:08 p.m.
Moncton at 5:35 p.m.
9:22 a.m. - Olympic torch leaves Borden, P.E.I., to travel over the Confederation Bridge to New Brunswick
10:25 a.m. - Torch arrives in Port Elgin. It will then be carried through Port Elgin from Shemogue Road to Main Street to Moore Road on a Can-Am Spyder three-wheeled motorcycle.
11:30 a.m. to 11:42 a.m. - The torch travels along Highway 133 through Cap-Pele.
12:03 p.m. - The torch arrives in Shediac traveling down Main Street starting at Parlee Beach Road reaching Festival Arena at 12:30 p.m. for a community celebration with a showcase of Acadian music and culture.
1:47 p.m. - The torch is expected to pass in front of the World's Largest Lobster monument in Shediac.
2:30 p.m. to 2:49 p.m. - The torch will be carried along Centrale Street, then turning onto Saint Thomas Street in Memramcook.
3:15 p.m. to 4:22 p.m. - The torch travels in Sackville along Main Street to York Street to Lansdowne Street, circling Mount Allison University before travel through the downtown to Bridge Street.
5:07 p.m. to 5:35 p.m. - The torch will be carried along Champlain Street in Dieppe, from Industriel Street, near Mathieu-Martin High School, past Champlain Place to the Wheeler Boulevard intersection.
5:35 p.m. - The Moncton torch run will travel along Main Street beginning near the Chateau Moncton hotel and running through the downtown. It will turn onto Vaughan Harvey Boulevard, then back along St. George Street to Botsford Street and then west onto Mountain Road turning right on Connaught Street to the Université de Moncton campus.
7 p.m. - The torch will arrive at the new Moncton stadium at Université de Moncton.
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