Filipino Journal: 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic fever is on!

2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic fever is on!

The days are bitterly cold but that arctic weather does not deter Manitobans to carry the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic torch and to watch this pageantry as one in a life time event! It is the Olympic fever of enthusiasm and dedication prevail! A shining brand of nationalism is on indeed!

Thousands of Olympic torch bearers who walk, run and hike on the road to the 21010 Vancouver Winter Olympic which  will start on Feb. 12, 2010. Many Canadians, mostly ordinary people plus young and old Olympians and politicians, experience the winter Olympic fever. Never before this kind of excitement had captured the hearts of the Canadians. And wherever the Olympic torch travels, many enthusiastic Canadians line up along the streets, the highways, and the paths where the torch would pass.

In Manitoba, the Olympic Torch is an inspiration for an Olympic dream. Even most of those torch bearers are not able to go to Vancouver to attend and watch the game. The experience that they have as a torch bearer would be considered an active participants in the Vancouver Winter Olympic. “ It is a amazing. It is an unbelievable and once in a lifetime opportunity and it is a real honour and privilege to be one of those torch bearers to celebrate in one of the most popular sporting event in the world”, a smiling Aileen Madden, a mother of two girls, and daughter of  Arsenio & Antonia Huypungco, the kababayan of Manny Paquiao in Kiamba.  “It’s a real honour to be selected by  Deloitte and I did not feel how cold was that day when i ran. It was minus 36? What I felt was the Olympic fever,” she added.

The Winnipeg Olympic run ended at the Forks where the Brakada was selected to perform together with some popular Winnipeg entertainers. “ It is awesome to be a part of the Vancouver Winter Olympic event…”, Brakada said. Noah Palansky, 13, was named by Mayor Sam Katz as Winnipeg’s official Olympic torchbearer. Lourice Capili, an 18-year old University One of U of M, ran at Rimouski, Quebec last November 29, 2001 as a winner of the Coca-Cola promotion, one of the major sponsors of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic. Her mother, Arlene Bugtong and another daughter went to  Quebec to witness her run. At the Forks, Rod E. Cantiveros, Filipino Journal publisher, met Ryan Heckert of Winnipeg who ran last December 31, 2009 in Rouyin-Noranda Quebec. Ryan, a University of Manitoba student, selected through the Coke promotion. “I never thought that I would be selected. It is so amazing and I will never forget this opportunity given to me,” Ryan said with a wider smile.

And the Olympic Torch begins its Western run. And the Olympic fever is getting hotter and hotter!

Rod E. Cantiveros, FJ publisher, got a chance to meet and to pose with Ryan Heckert, a Winnipegger who carried the olympic torch in Rouyin-Noranda, Quebec last December 31, 2009. Ryan is a college of science student at the University of Manitoba. He won to carry the torch when Coke, 2010 Olympic Sponsor, selected him as one of the many torch bearers to promote the 2010 Olympic in Vancouver B.C. which will start on Feb. 12, 2010.
Lourice Capili – Torch relay in Rimouski, PQ