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News (Media Awareness Project) - Canada: CBC The National transcripts on Ross Rebagliati
Title:Canada: CBC The National transcripts on Ross Rebagliati
Published On:1998-02-21
Source:CBC-TV, The National
Fetched On:2008-09-07 15:13:41
Title: Headlines.
Host: PETER MANSBRIDGE
Date: 980211

ANNOUNCER: From CBC News...

PETER MANSBRIDGE: Tonight: waiting for a decision.

UNIDENTIFIED: How are you doing Ross?

MANSBRIDGE: Ross Rebagliati fights to keep Olympic gold. The frustration at
home...

UNIDENTIFIED: Canada loses its medal. This puts a dark light on snowboarding.

MANSBRIDGE: How Whistler BC is reacting. The inside dope.

UNIDENTIFIED: If you weren't warned about this and you go to a party and
somebody's smoking, you could test positive.

MANSBRIDGE: The straight facts about marijuana.

HANA GARTNER: And on the Magazine: Board Games; it's the wild child of
skiing.

UNIDENTIFIED: Just going to cut down through these trees here. Try and keep
up your speed.

GARTNER: Thrills, chills and plenty of skills. And now, an Olympic scandal.

ANNOUNCER: The National, with Hana Gartner and Peter Mansbridge.

----
Date: 12 Feb 1998
Title: Final victory for Rebagliati.
Guest: IAN HANOMANSING, CBC Reporter
ROSS REBAGLIATI,Olympic Medalist
LORI GLAZIER, Cdn. Snowboarder
MARKFAWCETT, Canadian Snowboarder
COLIN BLAKE, SnowboardingCouncil
MICHELLE VERDIER, IOC
CAROLE ANNE LETHEREN,Canadian Olympic Association

PETER MANSBRIDGE: Good evening. It's been the kind of journey even a wild
ride on an Olympic snowboard can't match: an emotional journey that's taken
Ross Rebagliati up, down, and now up again. The Canadian snowboarder will
hold on to his gold medal, and his run into the record books as the sport's
first Olympic champion will stand. An appeals panel today overturned an IOC
decision to penalize Rebagliati after testing positive for marijuana. With
more on the ruling and the reaction, here's Ian Hanomansing in Nagano.

IAN HANOMANSING: (Final Victory) Victory then disqualification, then
victory again; it still seems a bit unreal to Ross Rebagliati.

ROSS REBAGLIATI / OLYMPIC MEDALIST: I won the medal. It was the best moment
of my life. I got the news that I tested positive, that was the worst
moment of my life. It all happened in a short amount of time. It was an
amazing feeling. I'll never really be able to tell exactly how it was, but
it was quite a ride.

UNIDENTIFIED: It's overturned.

UNIDENTIFIED: Overturned!

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes!

HANOMANSING: As the news got out Thursday night in Nagano, there was
jubilation in the Canadian camp. And nowhere has there been more support
than from his snowboard teammates. (Cheering)

LORI GLAZIER / CDN. SNOWBOARDER: He deserves the gold and that's how it's
going to stand. And I think that's awesome for Ross, because he totally
deserves it.

MARK FAWCETT / CANADIAN SNOWBOARDER: It's incredible. It's been the biggest
emotional roller coaster for all of us here and we're ecstatic.

HANOMANSING: But there is also resentment.

COLIN BLAKE / SNOWBOARDING COUNCIL: Ross has been treated like a cheater.
He's not a cheater. There is no cheating going on; why they decided to
pounce on him and use him as an example is beyond me. Maybe there are some
forces at work that are not too stoked at having snowboarding in the
Olympics, and it was a good way of blowing things up.

HANOMANSING: The arbitration panel concluded the International Olympic
Committee didn't have the authority to strip the medal because it hadn't
reached an agreement with the federation which governs snowboarding to make
marijuana a banned substance. Why wasn't all this sorted out before the
Games? Not surprisingly, the International Olympic Committee had little
comment.

MICHELLE VERDIER / IOC: The IOC has taken note of the award rendered by
court of arbitration for sport, and we'll be abiding by this decision.
That's all we can say.

CAROLE ANNE LETHEREN / CANADIAN OLYMPIC ASSOCIATION: There's absolutely a
requirement here for this to receive real clarification. It's very
confusing for the athletes, there's a lot of mixed messages in it, and
there's no question it does need clarification.

HANOMANSING: Rebagliati has said he hasn't smoked marijuana in almost a
year, but is often at parties where there is a lot of second-hand smoke.
How will he deal with that in the future?

REBAGLIATI: Unfortunately, I'm not going to change my friends for you. I
don't know, I don't care what you think about that. I think my friends are
real, and I'm going to stand behind them. I support them; I'll never
deviate from that. I may have to wear a gas mask from now on, but whatever.

HANOMANSING: Rebagliati's return home may be delayed again. He was planning
to leave later today, but the men's hockey team has asked him to stay for
their first game -- for good luck. Ian Hanomansing, CBC News, Nagano.

Date: 980217

Title: Rebagliati's journey home.
Guest: TERRY MILEWSKI, CBC Reporter
ROSS REBAGLIATI,Olympic Gold Medalist (Clip, Last Night)
JAY LENO, TalkShow Host

PETER MANSBRIDGE: The last time snowboarder Ross Rebagliati was at a party
in Whistler BC, he says he inhaled second-hand marijuana smoke. That was
before Nagano; before he won, lost, then won back his Olympic gold medal.
Well tonight Rebagliati returned to Whistler, and another party. Here's
Terry Milewski on the journey home.

TERRY MILEWSKI: So what if he joked about wearing a gas mask around his
pot-smoking friends? There were thousands of friends, and no gas masks,
when Ross Rebagliati returned in triumph to Whistler.

ROSS REBAGLIATI / OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: You guys rule! (Cheers)

MILEWSKI: If he plays his cards right, he could be rich as well as happy.
Sponsors are said to be all the more interested in him after the worldwide
publicity over that tiny trace of marijuana in his system.

(Clip, Last Night) JAY LENO / TALK SHOW HOST: Well you've had quite a week!

MILEWSKI: It won't hurt his recognition factor that he stopped in Hollywood
on the way home and handled the media big-time with aplomb.

(Clip, Last Night) REBAGLIATI: They told me it was marijuana. And I was
like holy smokes, this isn't good!

LENO: Holy smokes?

REBAGLIATI: Yeah. (Applause)

MILEWSKI: But long before Rebagliati got to hug his mother at Vancouver
airport, he may have figured out there's no glittering future in being a
poster boy for the pot lobby, so he's staying away from the politics of
marijuana.

REBAGLIATI: You know as far as the legal debate whether or not it should be
legalized or not, I think that's up to the politicians and the lawmakers of
Canada and I'm not gonna get involved.

MILEWSKI: Yes, but would he smoke pot again?

REBAGLIATI: No!

MILEWSKI: It was 24 hours later that Rebagliati began his umpteenth news
conference by confessing that eventually even a hero starts to sag.

REBAGLIATI: I haven't slept at all actually in the last eight days. I'm
drinking a lot of water because of the adrenaline.

MILEWSKI: Even so, he's decided to sign up with IMG -- the big sports
management agency, and he has no problem with questions about all the
offers he's getting.

MILEWSKI: What are your expectations, realistically, in terms of making
money on this?

REBAGLIATI: I don't see a problem. (Laughter)

MILEWSKI: His star power is obviously appreciated by the town of Whistler,
which depends utterly on tourism and feels that Rebagliati has put this
resort on the map. Ross Rebagliati, of course, has already done a lot for
Whistler in terms of free publicity. Just imagine what it's worth to have
Jay Leno ask -- as he did last night -- whether Whistler is like Aspen, and
to get the reply "yes, but better." You can't buy advertising like that.
Terry Milewski, CBC News, Whistler, BC.
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