1.
On the evening of February 8, 1992, I was racing my Renault Espace van up the mountain expressway from Lyons in order to make Opening Ceremonies. I had four nervous VIP magazine advertising clients in the back seats. I thought that they were nervous about the possibility of missing the ceremony, but later they confessed to have been nervous over the ride, steep road, and my speed.
The young ad execs, who had landed with the clients and who were supposed to accompany us, had abandoned us in favor of their own taxi for the 2-3 hour ride. They weren't going to miss anything, even if it meant losing a client or two. I'm betting they were a whole lot more scared by that ride than my passengers.
As we approached Albertville at dusk, I could see the new stadium on my left. We were running late, but we were going to be okay. As we approached the exit ramp, the road began to shake, the van seemed to let out a tremendous roar. We all held on tightly thinking that perhaps we were going to break down within sight of the event.
As I began to pull over, five French Air Force jets emerged overhead and to our left, heading full blast into the stadium. They had just passed directly over our van by a couple of hundred feet, shaking it and us to the core.
2.
The opening celebration was staged as if it were a medieval circus: the kind that may have visited Albertville annually hundreds of years before. Nobody can celebrate themselves like the French, and who has more gifts to celebrate?
Just after President Mitterrand's arrival, the celebrants cleared the middle of the icy stadium. Slowly, a small high-pitched voice could be heard, as if out of nowhere. The ice opened up, and, rising ever so slowly up from it came a small girl. She rode her pedestal singing La Marseillaise all the while. She kept rising, all alone up into the cold night high above everyone. Even Rumsfeld would have shed a tear at that sight.
3.
Later, gathered with the guests at the Hotel du Golf in Courchevel, I was amazed to hear the American reaction to the same ceremony. They all hated it. Their companies had paid big bucks for the ads in the magazine. Then the same companies had to pay extra for these Olympic packages. Then the same people who had committed to the ads thought it was completely ethical to attend the Games as "guests." For people like that, trashing what the French had spent years producing was all in a day's work.
I have seen several Opening Ceremonies in person since that night, but never saw a more beautiful spectacle that that jeune fille rising in the night. She gets the gold.
Next up in the Olympic Series: Gatorade Guy, the best meal I ever had alone, Henri's hotel loses my laundry, and the Famous Editor's ski accident, and more, if I can remember
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