The Adventure of a Lifetime

The Adventure of a Lifetime

By  Coach Dee Falks

“Ladies and gentlemen, dear athletes, in a few moments the Olympic Flame will be extinguished, marking the close of these games.  But, this is not the end.  It is in fact only the beginning.  May the spirit of the games, and all that it symbolizes, live on in each and every one of you”.

Those four short sentences began a three-minute concert of tsuri-daiko drums, orchestra, flames, spotlights and fireworks that culminated in the mournful notes of a flugelhorn and the extinguishing of the Youth Olympic Flame.

We had started the journey to this place over year before.  At the World Youth Archery Championships in Ogden, UT in July 2009, I stood behind Miranda Leek as she earned the USA a girl’s position in the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) archery event.  At that time, no one was even sure that USA would field an archery team for the YOG and all anyone could do was speculate about what the YOG really was.  As the months passed thoughts of the games had drifted farther and farther into the back of my mind as more immediate matters took precident.

In June 2010, while at the Gold Cup in NJ, I got a short email that yanked those thoughts back to the front, “Dee-I am contacting you to see if you have an interest and your schedule is open for a staff position at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, Aug. 13-27.  Thanks, Sheri.” As I typed my acceptance note the enormity of the moment began to dawn on me, but I wouldn’t fully realize just how much this meant for another two months.  Maybe the mountain of personal history forms; medical releases; background checks; and uniform sizing charts I had to fill out should have been a clue.

Every conference call and communiqué from the US Olympic Committee (USOC) was punctuated by the comment that the YOG was not about winning as much as it was about a cultural exchange between the athletes of all of the Olympic nations.  The games were to first embody the Olympic ideals of excellence, friendship and respect.  I had always thought that the Olympics were about winning as many medals as possible for your country, but with some research I found the following on the International Olympic Committee web site:

The values of excellence, friendship and respect are the foundation upon which the Olympic Movement brings together sport, culture and education for the betterment of human beings.  The three core values of the Olympic Movement, which are an inspiration both at individual and organizational levels, can be defined as follows:

Excellence

To give one’s best, on the field of play or in life. It is not only about winning, but also about participating, making progress against personal goals, striving to be and to do our best in our daily lives.

Friendship

To build a peaceful and better world thanks to sport, through solidarity, team spirit, joy and optimism.  To consider sport as a tool for mutual understanding among individuals and people from all over the world, despite the differences.

Respect

To respect oneself, one’s body, to respect others, as well as rules and regulations, to respect the environment.  In relation to sport, respect stands for fair play and for the fight against doping or any other unethical behavior.

These three core values are conveyed through the Olympic symbols.  The motto embodies excellence by encouraging athletes to strive to do their best.  The flame symbolizes friendship between peoples with the torch relay usually travelling through different countries in the world.  The rings represent respect, bringing all nations and all five continents together without discrimination. The principles shown are universality and humanism.

These symbols are much more than emblems and people should immediately be able to associate them with fundamental values for sport and life in general.

Having read this, my view of the Olympics changed.  This was all more than “citius-altius-fortius”, I was accompanying two great archery athletes who were already champions.  They had won the right to participate in the Youth Olympic Games.  My role as their coach now was to support them and assist them in whatever way possible to help them perform at their peak so that they could express and experience the values of the Olympic Games.

The USOC was emphasizing the cultural exchange aspects of the YOG more than anything else.  While athletes were supposed to compete at their peak, they

Ben Chu and Miranda Lee Participate in Activities at YOG

were also encouraged, and required in some cases, to attend as many cultural exchange activities as possible.  There was a World Culture Village set up in the Youth Olympic Village where athletes could visit booths representing countries from the five Olympic Continents and earn points that could be redeemed for memorabilia items and souvenirs.  There were adventure trips and ecological excursions where the athletes worked as teams with members of other countries and other sports to experience the Friendship value.  During the mixed team events the IOC grouped athletes from different countries together into teams so that they could experience and enjoy all three of the Olympic Values during competition.

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games was about allowing the Youth Athletes of the World to experience the Olympic Games without the pressure of having to win to be a success.  The message was, “you are here to learn about Olympic competition, to experience and interact with other cultures in a safe and non-threatening environment, and to make new friends from all over the world.”  The medal count was posted on the wall outside the USOC office, but it wasn’t there to celebrate athletic dominance, it was there so we could congratulate athletes who had competed at their best.

This was no cake-walk.  Everything about the event was BIG!  From the 30hr trip to Singapore, to the 20min trip to the dining facility, if you caught the bus on time, to the 40min bus ride to the venue, if you caught the bus on time, to the security precautions that make airport security look lame, things took time.  It was a 2 hour trip from the USA dorm to the archery venue each morning, counting breakfast.  The trip back was about an hour and a half; unless we ate dinner then it was two hours.  We hauled bow cases for miles, literally, each day for the first week until we secured storage near the transportation mall.  You had to plan travel in advance and the USOC needed to have pin-point locations for each member of the delegation 24/7 for security purposes.

The competition was fun and we all traded all of our pins and made many new friends, but one archery competition is much the same as another so I’ll just say that the team shot a double 70 ranking round, mixed team round (using match play), and 3-arrow set elimination matches.  It was fun.

So, now I sat amongst almost 50,000 spectators, while 3,500 athletes stood on the Float at Marina Bay with an orchestra playing while tsuri-daiko drums deafend the audience.  204 country flags stood along the top of the backdrop illuminated by soft footlights.  The columns of shooting flames were extinguished one by one in a countdown as the floodlights dimmed until all was dark except the footlights illuminating the country flags and a lone spotlight on the flugelmeister who had been lifted to the cauldron of the Youth Olympic Flame.  The flames, orchestra, and drums stopped as one and an almost deafening silence was broken by the mournful notes of the flugelhorn.  On cue, as the final note faded into the night, the Youth Olympic Flame disappeared back into the cauldron from which it had exploded twelve short days before.

As quickly as that, the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG I) came to a close.  The memories of the fun, laughter, celebrations, tears, adventures and new friendships we made will last a lifetime.  Even more important are the lessons learned from the adventure.  I spent twenty days traveling, training, competing and sharing adventure with two great archery athletes, Ben Chu and Miranda Leek.  I have a different point of view of the Olympic experience and a better understanding of what it will take for USA Junior Archers to be successful at the highest levels.  I am a better coach and a better person for the experience.

IOC President Jacques Rogge closed the Youth Olympic Games with the following, “These were truly inspirational games.  Dear athletes, you have now earned the title ‘Young Olympian’.  And when years from now you reflect on your sports career, you will be able to say, ‘I was in Singapore where it all began.’  The Olympic flame will go out tonight, but the spirit of Singapore will remain…you, the athletes, will keep this Singapore spirit alive by returning to your countries as true role models.  I now declare the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore closed, and in according with tradition I call upon the youth of the world to assemble in four years time in Nanjing, China for the second Youth Olympic Games.”

My only hope is that whoever follows in our footsteps finds the same treasure of adventure and wealth of experience that we did.

Laval D. Falks

Coach / Team Leader, USA Archery

Inaugural Youth Olympic Games