Vancouver 2010

Jan Hudec (born August 19, 1981 in Sumperk, Czechoslovakia) is a Canadian alpine skier. On February 11, 2007, he won the silver medal in downhill at the 2007 World Championships in Åre, Sweden. In the November of the same year he won his first World cup victory, a downhill in Lake Louise.

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Updated Mon. Jan. 5 2009 11:00 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

Canadians will “fall in love” with the personalities of their 2010 Olympic athletes as they learn more about their drive, their passion and their commitment to sport, says the president of Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium (comprised of CTV Globemedia and Rogers Communications).

“Our athletes are poised for success, they’re so strong and we want to make them household names,” Keith Pelley, consortium president told CTV’s Canada AM on Monday, when describing the face of the new advertising campaign that seeks to introduce these athletes into Canadian households in the coming weeks and months.

“We want you fall in love with them way before February 2010.”

The BELIEVE ads, which are airing on CTV now, are narrated by veteran actor Donald Sutherland and are set to the music of Howard Shore — the Oscar-winning composer who wrote the music for the acclaimed Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Their theme is for Canadians to believe in their amateur athletes and the ads tell the stories of how these athletes build their lives around their Olympic dreams.

One of the new ads, which aired on Canada AM on Monday, tells the story of downhill skier Jan Hudec — a Czechoslovakian-born Canadian athlete who “trains eight hours a day, 11 months a year because no Canadian has ever won gold on Canadian soil.”

In the ad, Hudec, 27, speaks directly to viewers, telling them about what life Canada has brought him as well as his own Olympic dream.

“I believe in Vancouver, I could be the first,” Hudec says. “Do you believe?”

Hudec’s ad is one of the first to hit the airwaves, along with a profile of Mellisa Hollingsworth, who won bronze in skeleton in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino.

Next up will be spots on Canadian figure skating champion Patrick Chan as well as Team Canada forward Gillian Apps, a member of Canada’s top women’s hockey squad when it won gold in 2006.

At least a dozen ads will be broadcast.

Pelley said the ads are only the first step the consortium will take to promote Canada’s amateur athletes — and presumed future medal winners — prior to the start of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

“This is like phase one of six phases to really build the profile of the athletes, to really believe that these games can link the country together,” he told Canada AM.

Pelley predicted that “2010 is going to be the biggest thing that this country has seen.”

The BELIEVE campaign will also produce a number of short IDs that will highlight the names of 15 athletes along with their sport, in order to raise their individual profiles with viewers prior to the start of the games.

Speed skaters Jeremy Wotherspoon and Denny Morrison, figure skaters Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, alpine skiers Eric Guay and Britt Janyk, freestyle skier Jenn Heil, skeleton racer Jon Montgomery and snowboarder Maelle Ricker are among the athletes to be included in the BELIEVE IDs.

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games will be held in Vancouver from Feb. 12-28, 2010.

Video credit: CTV
No copyright infringement intended.

CTV and Rogers are the Official Canadian Broadcasters of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium invites Canadians to BELIEVE in the magic of the Olympic Games.

Duration : 0:1:2

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