VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- VANOC chief John Furlong scolded the media Thursday for trying to spoil the movie by betraying the end. "I would think no one would want to ruin that for anybody," he said sternly. "The show is a precious thing."
The "show" is Friday night's opening ceremony, an extravaganza that has the ambitious goal of uniting Canada and showing its best face to the world. The long-simmering question of who will take the anchor leg in the Olympic torch relay exploded in the Canadian media this week. Polls have shown that most Canadians want the honor to go to one of two people: hockey icon Wayne Gretzky, or Betty Fox, whose son Terry united this vast, fragmented country when he undertook a cross-country run to raise awareness for cancer research 30 years ago.
Gretzky fueled the fire (sorry) by ducking the media at an appearance he made for a corporate sponsor this week. As Canada's most prominent athlete and a former Olympic player and executive director for Team Canada, he lobbied hard for Vancouver's bid.
Terry Fox, who lost one leg to a rare form of bone cancer, began his quest in the spring of 1980 in obscurity, but the "Marathon of Hope" gathered momentum as Canadians became aware of his mission. Their collective affection became grief when he cut the run short after four months and 3,339 miles that had taken him from Newfoundland to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and revealed that cancer had spread to his lungs. Fox died the following June.
A story in the Vancouver Sun this week suggested that Betty Fox should carry the torch alongside a hologram of her son, who had intended his ultramarathon to end in British Columbia.
Gretzky's father, Walter, carried the torch in Vancouver on Friday morning, as did Fox's father, Rolly. Asked by a CTV reporter whether his wife would indeed be the last torchbearer, Rolly Fox replied, "I've been told to keep it a secret."
The other lingering question is how organizers will handle the keeping of the flame itself -- whether it will be left burning in the empty BC Place arena or transferred to a second cauldron, which has never been done.
