The people's games
From loveable underdogs to elite battles on ice, here's why the 1988 Calgary Olympics were so special
If you've ever felt jaded about the Olympics, there was one Games that truly embodied the Olympic Spirit, being the first to give the Games to the people while truly celebrating both the underdog together and elite competition — the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, Alberta.
The People's Games
Harry Hiller was there. In 1988, he was a professor of sociology at the University of Calgary, and he was captivated by the way the games transformed his city for the better. So much so, in fact, he made analyzing how host cities respond to the Olympic Games a research specialty.
"It was these Games that gave the city a central plaza downtown, a meeting place, and a happening space, that it didn't have before," says Hiller.
These days, the Olympic Plaza is a place where Stampede events are held, and where Calgarians can continue to gather and celebrate their city on a regular basis. But in 1988, Olympic Plaza was home to medal ceremonies every night that were free for everyone to attend.
"These Games were different in the way people from the city embraced them," says Hiller. "At that point in time, getting local people involved by creating a different kind of atmosphere with all kinds of free events in the centre of the city was something Calgary pioneered."
Embracing the Underdog
The same egalitarian spirit carried over to competitors in the Athletes Village. Devon Harris, a member of the famed Jamaican bobsleigh team (and the Jamaican military), remembers his life being forever transformed.
"I was a new military officer who was schooled in the art of war," he says. "At the time, it was the height of the Cold War and here I am in the game arcade, killing the Pac-Man game and to my left and right are athletes from behind The Iron Curtain. My training tells me that they are evil, but what I am seeing is a fellow human being who is there, just like me, to compete and be the best he can be for his country. I realized we shared the same hopes and aspirations, while my training was just an ideology someone else created."
Harris' Olympic experience was memorialized in the 1993 film Cool Runnings, and was one of a few exciting underdog stories to come out of Calgary.
"The people of Calgary were amazing," says Harris. "I remember how supportive they were from the very first time I got to Calgary in October 1987 to the time we arrived at the Olympics ... I remember when we crashed and as I was walking up the braking stretch rather dejected, people started to cheer and shout, 'We love you.' I remember one guy reached over to shake my hand. I shook his hand and soon I had to shake every other hand as I passed by."
No one personified Calgary's embrace of the underdog like Eddie the Eagle. Born Michael Edwards in Cheltenham, U.K., his story is so one-of-a-kind that Taron Eggerton played him in a 2016 biopic about his life. He was far from your typical Olympian. At 181 lbs, he was 20 lbs (9 kg) heavier than the next heaviest ski jumper. He was so far-sighted that he had to wear thick glasses under his goggles. Yet, despite finishing dead last in his event, Calgarians embraced him as a conquering hero.
"I think being named Eddie the Eagle was a big part of it," he said in an email interview. "They heard about my hardship in getting there and really took me to their hearts. My sense of humour helped too, or maybe it was because I was the best looking athlete there!"
For Hiller, the best answer to why the 1988 Calgary Olympics embraced underdogs as heroes lies in a song about Eddie the Eagle that the locals made up:
He made us see the Olympics for what they truly are,
That everyone can play the game,
That everyone's a star.
"It's a nice little ditty that's pretty funny, but what it says is exactly what The Olympics is not," he says. "The Olympics is not a game that everyone can play and everyone's a star. It's very high performance and elite athlete centred and focused, but Eddie the Eagle was a guy who had very little training and expertise in ski jumping, so he brought The Olympics down to the level of the people."
Battles on the Ice
But Calgary's underdogs weren't just loveable losers winning moral victories. One underdog went home with some hardware. Leading up to the Olympics, most observers felt that the women's figure skating event would be a heads up battle between East Germany's Katarina Witt and the American Debi Thomas. It was dubbed "The Battle of the Carmens," as both women independently chose to do their the long programs to music from Bizet's operan Carmen. But surprisingly strong performances in both the short program and compulsory figures rocketed Canadian Elizabeth Manley into medal contention.
Going into the long program, Manley — who came in 13th in 1984 — was in third place. Witt skated cleanly, if conservatively. But Thomas stumbled, while Manley was lights out, winning the free skate and moving into second place.
On the men's side, the duel was between Canada's Brian Orser and America's Brian Boitano, dubbed The Battle of the Brians.
"The media built the whole thing up into this battle between two exceptional skaters – America vs. Canada – and it was a winning combination that had everybody sitting on the edge of their seat," says Doug Leigh, Orser's coach at the time.
Tied at one round a piece, the consensus was whoever won the long program would win the gold medal. Boitano skated first, completing two triple axels and a prolonged spread eagle, while Orser skated next and at the last minute changed two triple axels into one. It came down to a split decision of 5-4 as the gold was awarded to Boitano in a heartbreaking tie-breaker.
"It's a flip of a coin," says Leigh. "Someone saw something one way and somebody saw something the other way. It's like you're talking about a blink."
It's that typical blue collar, roll-up-the-sleeves response to competition that made the Calgary Games so special, and for many years it left a legacy of Olympic-quality venues so that future athletes could write their own legend just as Brian Orser did.
Watch Back in Time for Winter Thursday nights at 8/8:30NT on CBC Television and CBC Gem.