The 2010 Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony

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MTV News dispatched a team to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and not only got the inside scoop from some of the top athletes at the games but also made some friends along the way. We asked dancer and Canadian radio personality Rachel David to blog about her experience performing at the closing ceremony, which featured performances by Michael Bublé, Neil Young, William Shatner and a host of other Canadian luminaries.

By Rachel David

Sunday night (February 28) marked the conclusion of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games here in Vancouver. But what does almost every closing to every big event have? A crazy-a-- party!

Being a hip-hop dancer for the closing ceremonies has been a party throughout every rehearsal, but Sunday was especially crazy. The entire day was such a surreal experience. From the moment I walked through security, I was greeted by happy smiling faces and those smiles continued on throughout the day.

Not only was it the last day of the 2010 Winter Olympics, but it was also the gold medal hockey match between rivals U.S.A. and Canada. I have never seen such an intense game in my life! To be backstage with hundreds of Canada's finest performers and watch them patriotically cheer on their sport was an experience in itself.

The actual closing ceremony was fascinating to watch. As a dancer, I had met all the other dancers and had seen their costumes but I didn't actually know what any of them actually did (everything was so top secret that no one was allowed to tell anyone what their actual roles were). I didn't see what everyone had been learning over the past seven months until I was backstage watching this extraordinary party.

I felt my biggest rush of adrenaline when I actually got into the stadium as I was running past artists such as Michael Bublé and Nickleback on my way to my pre-set position. It was then that everything started to really sink in. I remember standing seconds away from bursting out on stage and just feeling my heart pumping through my neon pink hoodie. As Kos started singing all I could think of was how proud I was to be performing because this was the first Olympics to ever have hip-hop and break dancing in it.

When I was on stage, I felt as light as a feather (thanks to my adrenaline) and when I got off my high continued. As I look back on this experience, all I can say is "Wow, I was just a part of one of the biggest shows ever put on in the entire world!" I can truly say dancing at the closing ceremonies was the icing on the cake and the perfect way to close my Olympic experience.

Source: http://newsroom.mtv.com/2010/03/01/winter-olympics-closing-ceremony/

Canada's pot of goldCanada's pot of gold

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It was Vancouver, then Vonncouver, then even Vancuso for a while, I think. But mostly it was rainy. And mild. It was kind of like having the Winter Olympics in Seattle, only with not as much flannel.

Unless you count the pattern on the American snowboard uniforms.

What started out tragically as an Olympics defined by the death of an athlete, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, ended as an Olympics defined by Canada's gold medal in men's hockey.

And if you don't believe that, then you didn't see the ninety-year-old grandmother sitting in her wheelchair on the curb, waiving a Canadian flag at the honking traffic. You weren't on Robson Street six hours after the overtime win against the United States, the only Yankee idiot who dared walk into the belly of the beast that late.

The hockey win gave Canada a Winter Olympics-record 14 gold medals in Vancouver. The silver won by the U.S. also set a record: Americans won 37 medals here, more than any country ever has before at the Winter Games.

It was a good 16 days for North America. (What about Mexico, you say? Well, they had Hubertus von Hohenlohe, the 51-year-old alpine skier who is descended from German royalty. He's also a photographer. And a businessman. And a pop singer called "Andy Himalaya." All true.)

About that medal count: It was being tallied everywhere here. On the way to Cypress Mountain there was even a billboard on the front lawn of a private residence that was keeping track. Only problem: They hadn't updated it. The counter said 001 and Canada had won its second medal earlier in the day, a bronze by Kristina Groves in the women's 3,000-meter speedskating race.

Also about that counter: There were three spots for numbers. Three spots? Really optimistic considering no one's ever won more Winter Olympics medals than the 37 the Americans captured here.

The counter was also wrong at Yaletown Brewing Co. last Monday night. It hadn't updated to include the gold medal won by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir in ice dance.

Which was surprising, since the one thing you can be sure of is that Canadians love their gold medals. After each one of them, the Heritage Horn on top of the main press center -- that building with sails for a roof -- played the opening four bars of "O Canada."

At 115 decibels.

It's how Vancouverites know when it's lunchtime. No kidding.

We didn't hear much about the medal count until the Canadians started winning golds. But once they started, ooh boy, you couldn't get away from it. Even the volunteers got in on the act.

Suddenly, the front page of a major city paper read: "CANADA LEADS THE GAMES IN GOLD."

It was certainly an accomplishment. Before Alexandre Bilodeau won the men's moguls on Feb. 14, Canada had never captured an Olympic gold medal on home soil. The celebration that night had been building since Montreal in 1976. It was carried over from Calgary in 1988.

"Our kids are crying they're so excited," one woman, Suzanne Rose, 36, of Quilchena, British Columbia, told me.

Another woman walking to her bus that night screamed into her phone: "Dude, we won gold! And I was there!"

The Olympics were held in a big city again, and it looks like that's mostly how it will be from now on. The Summer and Winter Games have just become too big. One thing you miss: The kind of intimacy you get from a place like Lillehammer, Norway, which Olympic writers are always talking about. One thing you gain: Paragraphs like these next two.

One night British Columbia turned, well, downright British when particularly daft fellow whistling the "Superman" theme smacked us in the face with a wet British flag. He was wearing it like a cape and sprinting down the sidewalk near the trendy Yaletown neighborhood.

Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/01/1780228/canadas-pot-of-gold.html