Johnny Lyall – the snowboarder who jumped through the Olympic rings at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games – was on the Sunshine Coast as a guest speaker for the Gibsons Rotary Club on Nov. 12.
Lyall is a backcountry freestyle snowboarder, which he said is not a competitive sport. It involves snowboarding through the backcountry with a cinematographer and a still photographer to shoot for videos and magazines.
“This made me realize that the Olympics were not in the cards for me,” Lyall said. “In the back of my mind I was a little bit disappointed because I knew other riders from Whistler who were going to be a part of the Olympics and that was something I wouldn’t be able to experience. That’s what I thought, until I got a phone call in March 2009.”
The call came from a friend of Lyall’s who tipped him off to an audition for a snowboarding commercial being produced by Warren Miller, a prolific name in the world of skiing and snowboarding videos.
There were eight other snowboarders at the audition. They were all immediately required to sign confidentiality waivers.
“Right off the bat, I knew this was something different,” Lyall said. “They proceeded to tell us this commercial would be part of the Olympics, but that was all they could tell us.”
Lyall found out a week later that he was one of three selected to be in the commercial.
“I was ecstatic,” Lyall said. “I didn’t know exactly what I was ecstatic to be doing, since they didn’t tell us, but I was excited because they chose me.”
After signing more confidentiality waivers, Lyall and two other riders – Shin Campos and Kevin Sansalone – were brought in to meet the director, David Atkins.
“This guy is kind of a big deal, but I didn’t know that at the time,” Lyall said. “I did get a sense that he was important when I saw him. David is a short Australian man with a huge presence. As soon as he walked in the room I instantly felt intimidated by this guy.”
They were joined by producer Jeff Bennett along with a design team and engineers who finally revealed what the commercial entailed.
“They showed us a computer generated edit of a snowboarder dropping off a peak, riding deep powder, going off jumps, flying off cliffs, down a huge slope, through a flaming maple leaf, into BC Place, down the ramp, through the exploding Olympic Rings, onto the stage and welcoming the world to the Vancouver Olympic Games,” Lyall said.
“We were baffled,” he said. “We kept waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and tell us we just got punk’d.”
Lyall said the three weren’t instantly on board with the project. Often, he explained, when a big commercial industry gets involved in a video for something like snowboarding or skateboarding, there’s a risk that the finished video could turn out looking ridiculous.
The three riders got together and discussed how the video could affect their images as professional snowboarders, then returned to Atkins with their concerns.
“They were absolutely shocked that we would even consider not doing it. They said they’d never experienced anyone not wanting to be a part of the opening ceremonies,” Lyall said.
Atkins assured them that they wanted the video done right and agreed to give them creative control over the final edits of the commercial.
“I tossed and turned thinking of the pros and cons. Then I thought, if we care enough about snowboarding, why don’t we take this task on and make sure it’s done right,” Lyall said. “If we pass it up it could go to some other snowboarder who makes it look bad and doesn’t care.”
The three agreed, although they were warned that if any of them leaked any information about the project, it would be cut from the opening ceremonies instantly.
The video was filmed in Blue River, B.C., at Mike Wiegele’s HeliSki Operation. They used all three snowboarders but cut the video to look like one person. This left only one problem: Out of the three of them, only one would make the jump through the Olympic rings into BC Place.
An accident narrowed the director’s options on the first rehearsal day of the stunt. Sansalone barely missed his landing, causing him to lose balance. He caught the edge of his board on the bottom of the ramp where it met the stage and wiped out.
“He smoked the stage hard and fast. He was lying there breathless and I thought he had broken his back,” Lyall said.
In fact, Sansalone had broken his collarbone and four ribs, so he was out of the running.
The opening ceremonies were on a Friday, but Lyall and Campos didn’t know who would be chosen until the day before when they ran through their last rehearsal jump.
“We both stood there knowing perfectly well that this whole thing we had been working towards for the past year was going to be decided right then and there,” Lyall said. “Atkins looked at us and said, ‘Mates, I can’t decide.’”
Atkins told them he was going to make the decision in the most fair and Canadian way possible.
“He flipped a toonie,” Lyall said.
“It was me who jumped through the rings, but it was just as much Campos’ moment as it was mine,” he said. “We both got involved and worked as a team to make what seemed impossible a reality.”
