Today the dream of the Olympics just got one day closer as it ignited the spirit of Fort McMurray.Steven Jani, who ran the Torch Relay in the 1988 Calgary Olympics, dropped to his knees as he handed the flame to 92-year-old Elsie Yanik, with tears dripping down his cheeks.
The thundersticks and little red Canadian flags stopped, the crowd of thousands actually stopped chattering as tiny Elsie carried the flame the last stretch where she lit the cauldron.
“My heart was pounding, my knees were jelly,’ she confessed backstage. “I was so nervous. But so proud. And I felt so privileged.
“Little me, who was born on a trapline and learned to walk on long portages,” said the town hero. “Could there be a finer moment in a life. Not in mine.”
Gathered in front of the new Suncor Community Leisure Centre the red-mittened crowd stayed to listen to the Nicely Put
Together group. Moms with strollers. Grandads with kids on their backs. Teenagers snapping pics on their cell phones. No one wanted to leave. And so as the sun slips through the spindly trees on this island the talk is of Paul Brandt and Aaron Lines who played earlier. Of Elsie and Steven, Maureen and all the other torchbearers who shone today.And of Fort Mac, “which glowed with Olympic spirit,” said Elsie. “If I have a message for everyone today it’s you’ve got lots of room. Lots of time. The sky’s the limit.”
