The sun, the fiery ball of hydrogen and other gasses that lights and warms the world and peoples' spirits, emerged Sunday in Vancouver, to everyone's surprise, at 11:43 a.m., startling visitors from around the world who did not yet know, from personal experience, that the sun shines in Canada's Olympic City. At least, they didn't know if they had arrived in the past five days.

At the downtown media centre where reporters work and file, hard on the flank of Coal Harbour and Burrard Inlet, people with credentials around their necks suddenly appeared outside in groups of two and three on the deck of the media centre. They looked up at the sky, blinking, like hermits who had emerged after a long, long, long snooze. They seemed surprised not to be getting wet.

It was a joyous moment for the Vancouver Games, which have so far been dampened by controversy, tragedy and, of course, rain.

Jorg Obergethmann, of the Deutsche Press Agency, was staring across Burrard Inlet while smoking a cigarette. A bank of huge pillowing white clouds were massed over the mountains on the northeast side of the inlet, clouds that were keeping everyone wet up at the Whistler Olympic Park, where the biathlon and Nordic Combined events were slushing along. But down in sunny Vancouver, at least for a few minutes, the mood lifted.

Don't you think so, a reporter asked Herr Obergethemann.

"Ja," he said. "Great."

Did he like it more than the rain, even the famous soft Vancouver rain that Vancouverites claim is not rain at all but a kind of face moisturizer?

"What kind of a question is that?" the German replied.

Further down the quay, Edward Hula, correspondent for Around the Rings Magazine, was taking the sun with his wife Sheila. They had seen it before.

"Actually," Mr Hula said, "the day we arrived in February 4th was a beautiful day."

Mrs. Hula agreed, and mentioned the view of the city they had from their hotel room of a sunrise, a rarely experienced event in recent weeks.

"Actually," Mr. Hula added, "there was a sunrise a couple of days ago. I think it was a space between the clouds and the horizon. But it was gone in 15 minutes."

The break in the steady grayness seemed to make an appreciable difference to the spirits of passersby and reporters alike, most of whom were sitting inside, writing about the men's sprint biathlon, when the astonishing natural event occurred. But not Frederic Wallois, a technician for Agence France Presse.

Mr. Wallois was already outside, and had his camera out - he was not alone - eager to snap a shot of the dazzling harbour while the light lasted. He was looking up at the sky. It was blue. It had not been seen in so long in Vancouver, where the rain has been dropping out of the sky with such regularity that it is possible to find oneself thinking that the sky has a grudge against Vancouver, that the bluishness actually came as a shock.

Sky is one thng, of course. But, a reporter asked, had Mr. Wallois ever seen the sun in Vancouver, prior to this moment?

"Yes," he said. "I came last year, to make plans for these Games."

Oh: last year. What about this year?

He thought for a moment. "Yes, I came January 21. A few times, I have seen it."

"Really?" someone said. "The sun, like this?"

"Oh, no. Not like this, with the sky."

"But you saw it."

"Yes." He paused, and gave a little laugh. "In January."

He made to leave, and then turned back. "But I have just been on the telephone to a Paris," Mr. Wallois said. "And it is snowing there, very cold. Perhaps we should hold the Olympics in Paris next time."