Tonight is the Opening Ceremonies celebration for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. The Games are sure to be a wonderful display of athletic excellence, competition, and sharing. And when it comes to sharing, one athlete is looking to extend the legacy of the Games all throughout Canada.

Rob Fagan, a snowboardcross participant from the host country, is aiming to share his winnings with KidSport, an organization that provides grants for for children whose families are in financial need a chance to participate in sport programs. Some 50,000 children a year get their registration fees paid for by KidSport. KidSport has 175 chapters across Canada.

This is similar to what U.S. speedskating champion Joey Cheek did in Torino, when he donated his winnings to Right to Play, challenged others to match his donation and proceeded to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the organization and spurred Joey’s own effort to launching Team Darfur.

So many of these athletes sacrifice so much in terms of time and money to get to this stage, pushing themselves on a daily basis for years just to make the Olympics. Sure they are competing against others but so much of it is seeing how far they have come in their own development. That type of sacrifice often carries over to other parts of their life and we applaud Rob’s pledge and the efforts of all the Olympians over the next 2 weeks.