james richardson returns to hometown to celebrate 50th anniversary of lighting olympic flame
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james richardson, who'll attend the upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations of the olympic yachting competition in kingston, couldn't tell his family he had been picked to anchor the torch relay for the lighting of the olympic flame. bill baird's photo reproduced here appeared in the july 19, 1976 edition of the kingston whig-standard.
sail canada circulated to media outlets this week the schedule for its 50th anniversary of the olympic yachting competition in kingston, which didn’t just evoke memories for james richardson but drew a smile when he considered the irony.
richardson was in the spotlight back in the summer of 1976 as the anchor of the torch relay and lit the flame at the site in the village of portsmouth.
“they can tell people i’m coming and i’m free to talk about it,” he said last week in a phone interview from his home north of san diego, california.
in contrast to sail canada’s promotion of the celebration, richardson couldn’t tell a soul that the organizing committee had selected him for the honor. this is a long-standing tradition–up to the day of the ceremonies, secrecy surrounds the identity of those who light the olympic flames and it becomes one of the favourite guessing games in advance of the games.
“there was a round of interviews [with potential candidates] and a walk-through of what the ceremony would look like,” richardson said. “but when i was selected, there were security concerns about the event and the committee told me i couldn’t tell anybody, not even my parents. and i didn’t. i didn’t understand why i wasn’t allowed to talk about it, but it wasn’t that hard. i didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
as it turned out, richardson was at no risk of tipping his news at home—his parents john and berniez were out of town at a sailing event with friends from the kingston yacht club and his siblings were not around either. he was living at home on bath road in what was then the township and had the house to himself.
though the olympics seem like a big production these days, events on richardson’s big day sound like they were a seat-of-the-pants operation as he tells it a half century after the fact. in retrospect, a lot was left to chance.
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“i remember waking up that morning and making myself breakfast and then driving [to portsmouth],” he said. “i had a hard time finding parking.”
the search for an open spot might have delayed his entry, but it could have gone very wrong when he tried to enter the venue: organizers hadn’t given him the necessary pass for the site and hadn’t left his name with the staff working the entrance. thus, he had to talk his way in.
“i don’t know how i got through the security,” richardson said. “it might have been my red shorts and white t-shirt and white running shoes that had all been supplied [by the organizers]. for whatever reason, [the security personnel] believed my story that i was going to be the torchbearer.”
just as he looked the part, richardson checked a lot of boxes for the organizing committee that selected the person to anchor the torch relay and light the flame at the yachting site.
“i was a kingston boy, just graduated from frontenac secondary and heading to queen’s for first year,” richardson said. “i was an athlete and had sailed in the olympic trials. and an athlete. i was looking to compete at the national and international level down the line.”
harry jemmett, a then 39-year-old veteran sailor with extensive international experience and successes, had tapped richardson to crew for him in the tempest class in the trials in june. “harry plucked me out because i was tall and i had to wear 40 pounds worth of weight out on the wire of a tempest to keep it stable,” richardson said. “i was big, but not as big as [other crew in the class]. i was 6-foot-3, but others were taller and heavier.”
jemmett and richardson had hoped that local knowledge might give them the inside track in qualifying for the canadian team. “these were my home waters and i’d be sailing them since i was 10,” he said. “i had a lot of experience with the way the winds were and there was a comfort level competing there. i didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary as opposed to when we travelled to regattas in florida or maine or connecticut.”
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the hometown pair wound up finishing fifth in the canadian trials. “harry and i were under-sized and ultimately outgunned from an equipment perspective,” richardson said.
the leibels, cousins allan and lorne, won the tempest class and earned the olympic berth, a battle down to the last stage against a boat helmed by peter nygaard of montreal. (nygaard, now 85, became a titan of the fashion industry and was convicted of sexual assault in a quebec court last month.)
when the whig-standard interviewed richardson in the summer of 1976, he didn’t disguise his disappointment about the trials. “we did lousy,” he told a reporter.
fifty years later richardson’s outlook about the trials is sanguine and nostalgic. “i sailed in events for two years leading up to the ’76 trials and again for the trials in 1980 when there was a boycott,” richardson said. “though we failed to qualify both times, i look back at it as quite an honour to race with all these sailors who went on to incredible careers. and it was a foundation of the successes i had sailing for the queen’s team, winning the north american sloop championships against u.s. colleges.”
fond memories flooded back for richardson about the opening ceremonies for the event in kingston. when he was handed the torch, he was “energized,” but his ears were ringing, with his friends and competitors from the canadian trials taking their shots.
“the canadian team didn’t know who [was going to light the flame] either, so they were heckling me,” he said. “they were yelling, ‘hey it’s richardson! it’s jamie!’ right out of high school i had been the baby at the trials. but when i went out on the barge to the monument and went up the stairs to light the flame, it was just an exhilarating feeling.”
many of the souvenirs and photos that richardson collected from the day were lost to water damage from the flooding of a beach house, but he’s tried to replace them and in kingston next week for the sail canada event he’ll be reviving memories of 1976.
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on tuesday, august 11, sail canada will be staging a torch parade from kingston yacht club at 5:45 p.m. if all goes according to plan, the torch will arrive at confederation park at 6:15, before the start of the sail canada youth fest and youth championship (club 420). the organization expects more than 250 athletes to compete in the event that runs from wednesday through the weekend.
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