Rod Mickleburgh in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail details outgoing Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan’s impressions on how China did hosting the Paralympics and what Vancouver should look to achieve when it’s turn to host them arrives in 2010.
“I’ve been banging the drum, saying we’ve got to do better for the Paralympics here, and the echo I’ve been getting back hasn’t been very good,” he said Tuesday. “People want to do good, and they’ve made good statements about what they’d like to do. But I feel that if it wasn’t for China setting this high standard, it would be a lot harder.”
Every time he turned on the TV in Beijing, the Paralympics were being shown, Mr. Sullivan said. “There was a complete embracing of the event. … They made disabled people human beings. That’s really what they’ve done. And not only human beings. They made them heroes.”
Read the full article here.