Ex-Vancouver mayor confident Olympics cost is worth it

February 21, 2010Posted inIn the NewsNo Comments

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

On the eve of the Olympics, the man who was this city’s face of the Winter Games was holding court on a universe of social causes, from homelessness and drug addiction to more rights for the disabled.

Throughout the afternoon event, timed to the screening of a film about his life as a quadriplegic, there was barely a reference to anything Olympic.

In fact, Sam Sullivan, the former Vancouver mayor who in 2006 appeared in his wheelchair for the ceremonial handoff of the Olympic flag in Torino, says he doesn’t have much interest in the sporting events.

Sam Sullivan to welcome torch to his old neighbourhood

February 11, 2010Posted inIn the NewsNo Comments

By Kristen Thompson, Metro Vancouver

Sam Sullivan has waited a long time for the Olympics to come to his hometown, and tomorrow the former mayor gets to carry the torch through the neighbourhood where he grew up — Commercial Drive.

“It’s a real (sense of) completing the circle,” Sullivan said. “(Having) to leave my neighbourhood because of my disability, and then to be able to come back and have this ability to connect with my past — it’s really quite amazing.”

Joel Epstein: Exploring Vancouver With A True Olympian

February 3, 2010Posted inIn the NewsNo Comments

Source: Huffington Post

Next week when the Winter Olympics get underway in Vancouver, BC, many will recall the iconic image of Sam Sullivan waving a massive Olympic flag at the 2006 winter games in Turin, Italy. Were Sullivan just another athlete or Olympic official the image he cut would be long forgotten. But Sullivan is no ordinary gifted athlete or business of sports bureaucrat.

As the former mayor of Vancouver and a quadriplegic who worked tirelessly to ready the city and British Columbia for the games, Sullivan is an inspiring figure who will tower over the buff six and a half foot tall athletes at the games from his permanent perch in a wheelchair. Though he will never ski or ice skate again, as a living legend and champion of Vancouver — and particularly its poor and dispossessed — Sullivan deserves the Gold as much as any of the athletes who will be competing in this year’s winter games.

NY Times: Vancouver’s Former Mayor Remains Face of the Games

NY Times: Vancouver’s Former Mayor Remains Face of the Games

January 30, 2010Posted inIn the NewsNo Comments

By Greg Bishop, NY Times (published Jan. 30, 2010)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Millions watched four years ago as Vancouver’s mayor, Sam Sullivan, rolled onto the Olympic stage in Italy. Spasms shot through his legs. The blinding lights felt warm.

The crowd at the closing ceremony in Turin gasped as Sullivan turned a tradition into an improbable and stirring moment. Sullivan is a quadriplegic in a wheelchair, yet on that stage he waved the Olympic flag.

At City Hall, thousands of letters poured in from all over the world, from Russia and China and Italy, from the disabled and the able-bodied. The Vancouver Olympics, still four years away, had established an enduring image: the mayor and his Turin twirl.

“People tell me all the time, even now, how tears came when he did that,” said Lynn Zanatta, Sullivan’s fiancée.

Sullivan, 50, will not perform an encore when the Winter Games begin here next month. He lost his party’s nomination for re-election in 2008. He lost his place at the Olympic table. He lost his mentor, Abraham Rogatnick, who died last August, and went to seven other funerals.

The Olympic mayor who never was says he has no regrets

January 24, 2010Posted inIn the News

Sam Sullivan - Province photo
Former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan at the Plaza of Nations, where he is helping develop closer business relations to China. Sullivan says he has no regrets about his tenure, and was proud to represent the city at the Turin and Beijing Olympics. Photograph by: Jon Murray, PNG, The Province

‘I was only one person among thousands . . . who did so much work’

By Lena Sin, The Province

Former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan was the international media darling four years ago when he famously did the "Turin Twirl" at the 2006 Winter Games.

But now, as the world descends on Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Sullivan has been left out of the spotlight.

And he has no regrets about it.

"It was a wonderful experience to be mayor of the city for three years, it was a tremendous experience. And to represent the city to the world, both in Beijing and in Torino, was a great honour but I don’t have any regrets," he tells The Province.

Vancouver’s mayor from 2005 to 2008 played a key role in shaping the city in the lead-up to the Olympics.

Businessman with close ties to Sam Sullivan detained in Chinese jail

November 10, 2009Posted inIn the News

Simon Chu, a Taiwanese-Canadian businessman with Vancouver ties, has been held without charge for nearly six months in China as result of a commercial dispute he was trying to resolve.

His family says Chu (also known as Chih-Lin Chu) hasn’t been allowed to speak with a lawyer since he was detained by police on May 17. His brother, Yow-Lin of Vancouver, is the only family member who has been able to visit — a brief, police-supervised encounter in September that came about only after Yow-Lin’s third trip to the city of Baoding, 190 km south of Beijing.

Former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, a close friend who is known as “Uncle Sam” to children in Chu’s extended family, travelled to China three weeks ago to meet with the Minister for Overseas Chinese, Li Haifeng. There he vouched for Chu’s reputation and pleaded for fair and expeditious resolution of the matter.