The
2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the
XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter
Olympics, will be held February 12-28, 2010 in Vancouver
, British
Columbia
, Canada
, with some
events held in the resort town of Whistler
nearby. Both the Olympic and
Paralympic Games are being organized
by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC).
The 2010 Winter Olympics will be the third
Olympics hosted by Canada, and the first by
the province of British Columbia.
Previously, Canada was home to the
1976 Summer Olympics in
Montreal
and the
1988 Winter Olympics in
Calgary
.
These will also be the first games to be held in an
NHL market since the league allowed
its players to participate starting at the
1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano,
Japan.
Following
Olympic tradition, then Vancouver mayor Sam
Sullivan received the Olympic
flag during the closing ceremony of the
2006 Winter Olympics in Torino
, Italy
.
The flag
was raised on February 28, 2006, in a special ceremony, and will be
on display at Vancouver
City Hall
until the Olympic opening ceremony. The
event will be officially opened by
Governor General Michaëlle Jean.
Bid
The
Canadian Olympic Association chose Vancouver as the Canadian
candidate city over Calgary, which sought to re-host the games and
Quebec
City
, which had lost the 2002 Olympic bid in
1995. On the first round of voting on November 21, 1998,
Vancouver-Whistler had 26 votes, Quebec City with 25 and Calgary
21. On December 3, 1998, the second and final round of voting
occurred between the two leading contenders, which saw Vancouver
win with 40 votes compared to Quebec City's 32. The win allowed
Vancouver to prepare its bid and begin lobbying efforts
internationally.
After the
bid bribing scandal
that took place with the 2002
Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City
(which saw Quebec City asking for compensation
(CDN$8 million) for their failed 2002 bid), 1999 saw many of the
rules around the bidding process change. The IOC created the
Evaluation Commission which was appointed on October 24, 2002.
Prior to the bidding for the
2008
Summer Olympics, often host cities would fly members of the IOC
to their city where they toured the city and were provided with
gifts from the city. The lack of oversight and transparency often
led to allegations of money for votes. Afterward, changes brought
forth by the IOC bidding rules were tightened, and more focused on
technical aspects of candidate cities. The team analysed the
candidate city features and provided its input back to the IOC. The
bid books from the three candidate cities were submitted in January
2003 and inspections occurred before May 2003, when the final
report was submitted.
Vancouver
won the bidding process to host the Olympics by a vote of the
International Olympic
Committee
on July 2, 2003, at the 115th IOC Session held in
Prague
, Czech
Republic
. The
result was announced by IOC President
Jacques Rogge.
Vancouver faced two other finalists
shortlisted that same February: PyeongChang
, South
Korea
, and Salzburg
, Austria
. Pyeongchang had the most votes of the three
cities in the first round of voting, in which Salzburg was
eliminated. In the run-off, all but two of the members who had
voted for Salzburg voted for Vancouver. It was the closest vote by
the IOC since Sydney, Australia beat Beijing for the 2000 Summer
Olympics by 2 votes. Vancouver's victory came almost 2 years after
Toronto's 2008 Summer Olympic bid was defeated by Beijing in a
landslide vote.
Development and preparation
The Call for Volunteers program was launched on February 12, 2008,
to find 25,000 volunteers. Tickets for the event were first
available for purchase on October 3, 2008.
On February 12, 2009, the one year countdown to the beginning of
the games started. The torch and uniform were unveiled.
Jacques Rogge gave a brief speech from
Vancouver inviting the world to come to Vancouver in 2010 for the
21st
Winter Olympic games.The
security budget for the 2010 Winter Olympics has been set at $900
million, a number which is more than five times the original $175
million estimate.
Construction
The initial problem Vancouver faced in winning the bid for the 2010
Winter Olympics was fundraising for construction of venues. The Bid
Committee, and subsequently VANOC, arranged for commitments of
investment on a 50/50 basis by the federal and provincial
governments, primarily for amounts to cover venue construction
costs. It later began to achieve sponsorships and donations from
private corporations and institutions. Such commitments were made
enthusiastically as a chance to build on the world prestige and
real estate boom Vancouver already gained as host of
Expo '86.
The expansion was a pledge of the BC government, and not the
responsibility of VANOC.
Construction of the rapid transit link
between Richmond, the adjacent
international airport
and downtown Vancouver was completed in Summer 2009
and opened to the public August 17, 2009. The BC government
also indicated it would pay for a $600 million upgrade of the
Sea-to-Sky Highway to accommodate
increased traffic between Vancouver and Whistler, although this
highway upgrade has been overdue for more than a decade and will
still not meet the basic needs of the corridor.The three main
venues – constructed at a cost of $580 million, about 23 percent
above the 2003 bid forecasts – have already had their work largely
completed.
The $40-million Hillcrest/Nat Bailey
Stadium
park, which will host curling, will be finished
later this year.
The
Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) spent $16.6 million on
upgrading facilities at Cypress Mountain
, which will host the freestyle (aerials, moguls,
ski cross) and snowboarding events. The athletes' villages
in Whistler and Vancouver are still under construction, as are the
main media centre in Coal Harbour and its Whistler
counterpart.
As of 2004, the operational cost of the 2010 Winter Olympics was
estimated to be $1.354 billion. As of mid-2009 it is projected to
be $1.76 billion, all raised from non-government sources, primarily
through sponsorships and the auction of national broadcasting
rights.
$580 million is the taxpayer-supported
budget to construct or renovate venues throughout Vancouver and
Whistler, $200 million is expected to be spent for security, of
which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) is the lead agency. That number was
later revealed to be in the region of $1 billion, an amount in
excess of 5 times what was originally estimated.
Venues
Some
venues, including the Richmond Olympic Oval
, are at sea level, a rarity for the Winter
Games. The 2010 Games will also be the first—Winter or
Summer—to have an Opening Ceremony held indoors. Vancouver, which
will be the most populous city ever to hold the Winter Games, will
also be the warmest: in February, when the Games will be held,
Vancouver has an average temperature of 4.8 °C (40.6 °F).
The
opening and closing ceremonies will be held at BC Place
Stadium
. Competition venues in Greater Vancouver
include Pacific
Coliseum
, Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic
Centre
, UBC Winter Sports Centre
, Richmond Olympic Oval and Cypress Mountain. GM
Place
will play host to ice
hockey events, but because corporate sponsorship is not allowed
for an Olympic venue, it will be renamed Canada Hockey Place for
the duration of the games. Competition venues in Whistler include
Whistler
Blackcomb
, Whistler Olympic Park
and Whistler Sliding Centre
.
Marketing
A statue of Ilanaaq, located on
Whistler Mountain
The 2010 Winter Olympics logo was unveiled on April 23, 2005 and is
named Ilanaaq the
Inunnguaq. Ilanaaq is
the
Inuktitut word for
friend. The logo is based on the
Inukshuk (stone landmark or cairn) built for the
Northwest Territories Pavilion at
Expo 86
and donated to the City of Vancouver after the event. It is now
used as a landmark on
English Bay
Beach.
The mascots for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games were
introduced on November 27, 2007.After the unveiling, many people
were displeased with the look of the new mascots because they
represented a minority population of Vancouver.Inspired by
traditional
First Nations creatures,
the mascots include:
Miga and Quatchi are mascots for the Olympic Games, while Sumi is
the mascot for the Paralympic Games.
The
Royal Canadian Mint is
producing a series of
commemorative
coins celebrating the 2010 games, and in partnership with
CTV - is also allowing users
to vote on the
Top 10 Canadian Olympic
Winter Moments; where designs honoring the top 3 will be
added to the series of coins.
Broadcasting
Vancouver 2010 will be broadcast worldwide by a number of
television broadcasters. As rights for the 2010 games have been
packaged with those for the
2012
Summer Olympics, broadcasters will be largely identical for
both events.
The host broadcaster will be Olympic Broadcasting Services
Vancouver, a subsidiary of the IOC's new in-house broadcasting unit
Olympic Broadcasting
Services. The 2010 Olympics marks the first games where the
host broadcasting facilities will be provided solely by OBS.
The executive director of Olympic Broadcasting Services Vancouver
is
Nancy Lee, a former producer
and executive for
CBC Sports.
Torch relay
The clock counting down to the opening
of the Olympics in downtown Vancouver
The
Olympic Torch Relay is the transfer of the Olympic flame from
Ancient Olympia,
Greece
— where the first Olympic Games were held thousands
of years ago — to the stadium of the city hosting the current
Olympic Games. The flame arrives just in time for the
Opening Ceremony.
For the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the flame was lit in
Olympia on October 22, 2009.
It will then travel from Greece
, over the
North
Pole
to Canada's High Arctic and on to the West Coast
and Vancouver. The relay will start its long Canada journey
from the British Columbia capital of Victoria
. The Olympic Torch will be carried by
thousands of Canadians of all ages and cultural backgrounds: on
foot, dog sled, snowmobile, horse, plane and virtually every means
of transport known to the people of Canada. The torch relay is said
to be the longest in winter Olympic history and will travel across
all of Canada on its journey to Vancouver.
On May 16, 2008, over $150 million in major renovations to the
stadium were announced, including seat replacement, renovations to
washrooms and concessions, and the replacement of the Teflon
covering with a new retractable roof. These major renovations will
be done in two phases. The first phase which includes upgrades to
seating, washrooms and concessions and luxury suites is scheduled
to be completed prior to the 2010 Olympic Games. The proposed
retractable roof is being planned for after the games in 2011;
however, upgrades are planned for the existing roof prior to the
Olympics opening.
The Games
Participating nations
The number of
National
Olympic Committees that will enter teams in the 2010 Winter
Olympics is still unknown, but projected to be over 80. The nations
listed here have already qualified athletes to the games. Nations
will be added as they qualify at least one athlete or team.
Fifty-seven nations have qualified as of November 12, 2009.
Of those
Ghana
, Bahamas
and the Cayman Islands
will make their winter Olympic débuts.
Tonga has also expressed its
hope to make its Winter Olympic début.
Sports
Eighty-six winter sports events have been announced as part of the
2010 Winter Olympics. The eight sports categorized as ice sports
are:
bobsled,
luge,
skeleton,
ice
hockey,
figure skating,
speed skating,
short track speed skating and
curling. The three sports categorized as
alpine, skiing and snowboarding events are:
alpine,
freestyle and
snowboarding. The four sports categorized as
Nordic events are:
biathlon,
cross country skiing,
ski jumping and
nordic combined.
The opening and closing ceremonies and the events categorized as
ice sports (excluding bobsleigh, luge and skeleton) will be held in
Vancouver and Richmond. The sports categorized as "Nordic events"
will be held in the Callaghan Valley located just to the west of
Whistler.
All alpine skiing events will be held on
Whistler
Mountain
(Creekside) and sliding events (bobsleigh, luge and
skeleton) will be held on Blackcomb Mountain. Cypress Mountain (located in Cypress Provincial Park
in West
Vancouver
) will host
the 2010 freestyle skiing (aerials, moguls, and ski cross), and all
2010 snowboard events (half-pipe, parallel giant slalom, snowboard
cross).
Vancouver 2010 will also be the first winter Olympics in which both
men's and women's hockey will be played on a narrower,
NHL-sized ice rink, measuring 200 ft × 85 ft
(61 m × 26 m), instead of the international size of 200 ft ×
98.5 ft (61 m × 30 m).
The games will be played at General
Motors Place
, home of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks and which will be
temporarily renamed Canada Hockey Place for the duration of the
Olympics. This change is expected to save $10 million (CAD)
in construction costs and allow an additional 35,000 spectators to
attend Olympic hockey games. The Canucks themselves will be
affected by the Olympics, having to undergo the longest road trip
in NHL history, with 14 games over 6 weeks, from January 27 to
March 13, 2010 to allow GM Place to be used for the games.
There were a number of events proposed to be included in the 2010
Winter Olympics.
On November 28, 2006, the IOC Executive
Board at their meeting in Kuwait
voted to
include skicross in the official
program. The Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC)
subsequently approved the event to be officially part of the Games
program.
Events up for inclusion but were ultimately rejected included:
The issue
over women's ski jumping being excluded ended up in the Supreme Court of British
Columbia in Vancouver during April 21-24, 2009 with a verdict
on 10 July 2009 excluding women's ski jumping from the 2010 Games
though there is now effort to include the games for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi
, Russia
. To
alleviate the exclusion, VANOC organizers invited women from all
over Canada to participate at Whistler Olympic Park, including
Continential Cup in January 2009.
Calendar
In the following calendar for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, each
blue box represents an event competition, such as a qualification
round, on that day. The yellow boxes represent days during which
medal-awarding finals for a sport are held. Each bullet in these
boxes is an event final, the number of bullets per box representing
the number of finals that will be contested on that day.
| ● |
Opening ceremony |
|
Event competitions |
● |
Event finals |
|
Exhibition gala |
● |
Closing ceremony |
Concerns and controversies
2009 H1N1 pandemic
There have been concerns that the H1N1 virus could spread among
spectators, staff, and athletes during the games. Organizers are
stockpiling vaccine and placing a high priority on vaccinating all
volunteers. While each country is responsible for the vaccination
of its' own athletic delegation, Vancouver health officials have
strongly recommended all athletes, spectators, and other visitors
be vaccinated. Some Olympic Committees are requiring their
delegations to be vaccinated against the
H1N1 flu.
Women's ski jumping
The IOC voted in 2006 not to include women's ski jumping in the
2010 Games, on the grounds that the sport was not yet developed
enough and did not meet basic criteria for inclusion. The members
of the Canadian Women Ski Jumping Team filed a grievance with the
Canadian Human Rights Board citing gender discrimination. So far
the IOC has yet to comment or change its decision.
According to lobby group Women's Ski Jumping USA, a group composed
of "some of the top women ski jumpers", filed a Statement of Claim
with the Supreme Court of British Columbia suing the Vancouver
Olympic Organizing Committee for excluding women ski jumpers from
the Vancouver games claiming that their rights were violated
according to the
Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. However, on June 10, 2009, the Supreme
Court ruled against the group, stating that though the women were
being discriminated against, the issue is an International Olympic
Committee responsibility, and thus is not governed by the Charter,
and finally, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not
apply to VANOC.
Vancouver Athlete's Village
The
athlete's
village
located at Southeast False Creek was originally
planned to be a model sustainable community, with state of the art
energy efficiency provisions, and a mix of market and social
housing, at one third market, one third social housing and one
third subsidized middle income housing. The City of
Vancouver would break even through the sale of market housing.
However, a new city council in 2005 dropped the provisions for
subsidized middle income housing and then sold the lands to a
private developer for 193 million dollars. Further controversy
erupted when the private developer and its associated investment
company backed out of the project, forcing the City of Vancouver to
bear the liability, which resulted in the resignation of a city
planner in protest and saw the city seek special legislation making
changes to its charter to allow it to borrow money to finance
completion of the project.
Opening ceremonies content
On August 22, 2008
The Globe and Mail reported that the
Harper government intended to tie funding to the opening ceremonies
to control over content. This was widely criticized as reflecting
policies of interfering with the arts and exercising ideological
control. However, the vice-president of communications for the
Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, Renée Smith-Valade, said
the government was not bringing politics into the 2010 games and
will not have veto power over any part of the Olympic ceremonies.
Use of O Canada lyrics
VANOC controversially
trademarked lines
from the
Canadian national anthem to serve
as the slogan for the 2010 games, and also began protecting its
brand as contractually obligated by the International Olympic
Committee and its marketing partners, filing lawsuits against
residents attempting to register domain names related to the games.
The VANOC also sued local businesses for using "olympic" in their
names, including already-extant establishments. The
Canadian House of Commons also
granted protection for various terms surrounding the games.
However, VANOC made a statement regarding the trademark, stating
that they would only challenge usage of the lines if they are
attempting to "create a specific, unauthorized commercial
association with the 2010 Winter Games," dubbed '
ambush marketing'. In addition, the anthem
is also in the
public domain, meaning
it can be generally used by anyone.
Security and civil rights
In June 2009, the Olympics Resistance Network accused the Vancouver
2010 Integrated Security Unit's (VISU) Joint Intelligence Group of
"abusive and unlawful conduct" after allegedly harassing VANOC
opposition activists. Concerns over policing methods have also been
raised because of the head of Olympic security, RCMP Asst.
Commissioner Gary Russell "Bud" Mercer, was
part of the RCMP forces that blew up a truck in course of the
Gustafsen
Lake Standoff
. Mercer was also among the RCMP who
pepper-sprayed protests at the 1997
APEC
conference at UBC, personally spraying a
CBC cameraman and his
camera, and also was part of the "War in the Woods" against
tree-sit protestors in the
Elaho Valley.
In
October 2009, the Legislative Assembly of British
Columbia
through the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment
Act, 2009, gave host municipalities (Richmond
, Vancouver & Whistler) the power to enter residences and other private
property to seize signs that are deemed to be "anti-olympic",
between February 1 and March 31, 2010.Another amendment
changed the
Vancouver Charter to
allow for fines of up to $10,000 and imprisonment for up to 6
months for sign and bylaw violations.
Opposition
Opposition to holding the 2010 Olympic Games in
Vancouver
Watch-dog websites:
- has
been expressed by hundreds of activists and politicians, including
Lower
Mainland
Mayors Derek Corrigan
and Richard Walton
. Many of the public Olympic events held to
date in Vancouver have been attended by protesters. Environmental protests at Eagleridge Bluffs
in West
Vancouver resulted in
the arrest of over 20 people, and jail time for two local women,
Betty Krawczyk and Harriet Nahanee. Protesters have also
vandalized branches of the Royal Bank of Canada, an Olympic
sponsor, in Ottawa, Vancouver and Victoria.
There are several reasons for the opposition, some of which are
outlined in the
documentary film
Five Ring Circus. These issues include:
- The large expense to taxpayers, estimated in 2007 to be CAN$580
million. After the stock market crash of 2008, there are increasing
concerns that Games-related projects will not meet their economic
targets. The Olympic Village development, for example, was
originally intended to make a profit, but one critic estimates it
will be millions in debt. Olympic organizers have not confirmed
that this estimate is accurate.
- The destruction of the natural
environment, particularly at Eagleridge Bluffs.
- The loss of affordable
housing in Vancouver. The Anti-Poverty Committee has promised
that they would target VANOC officials in their homes and
businesses, and on May 22, 2007, "evicted" the British Columbia
Cabinet and VANOC officials by trashing their offices in
downtown Vancouver.
- Use by the provincial government of the Olympics to force
through a $2 billion private-public partnership-funded rapid
transit link from Downtown Vancouver to the Vancouver International
Airport, over other transit options.
There is opposition to the Olympics amongst
indigenous people and their supporters.
Although the
Lil'wat branch of the St'at'imc
Nation is a co-host of the games, a splinter group from the
Seton band known as the
St’at’imc of Sutikalh, who have also opposed the Cayoosh Ski
Resort, fear the Olympics will once again bring unwanted tourism
and real estate sales to their territory.
On another front,
local First Nations people as well as
Canadian Inuit expressed concern over the
choice of an inukshuk as the symbol of the
Games, with some Inuit leaders such as former Nunavut
Commissioner Peter Irniq
stating that the inukshuk is a culturally important symbol to
them. He said that the "Inuit never build inuksuit with
head, legs and arms. I have seen inuksuit build [sic] more
recently, 100 years maybe by non-Inuit in Nunavut, with head, legs
and arms. These are not called inuksuit. These are called inunguat,
imitation of man." Local First Peoples also expressed annoyance
that the design did not reflect the
Coast
Salish and
Interior Salish
native culture from the region the Games are being held in, but
rather that of the Inuit, who are indigenous to the Arctic far from
Vancouver. One chief,
Stewart
Phillip, President of the
Union of British
Columbia Indian Chiefs, also said that the design lacked
dignity, comparing it to
Pac-Man.
Edward John, Grand Chief of the
First Nations Summit, said some native
leaders were so upset about the issue they were prepared to walk
out of the unveiling ceremony. The First Nations governments of the
Squamish,
Musqueam,
Lil'wat and
Tsleil-Waututh (the "Four Host
Nations"), on whose traditional territory the games will be held,
signed a protocol in 2004 in support of the games.
See also
Footnotes and references
- “14 circulating coins included in 2010 Olympic program”, Bret
Evans, Canadian Coin News, January 23 to February 5, 2007 issue of
Canadian Coin News
- OBSV Introduction
- "Nancy Lee leaving CBC Sports", cbc.ca, October 10, 2006.
- "Wanted: strong, athletic, Tongan, looking for an
icy challenge", Matangi Tonga, November 17, 2008
- "Even cooler runnings as Tonga take up luge",
Sydney Morning Herald, November 21, 2008.
- http://www.thestar.com/sports/olympics/article/648265
- http://www.mongolia-web.com/sports
-
http://nocnsf.nl/nocnsf.nl/olympische-droom/olympische-spelen/genomineerden/genomineerden
- Vancouver2010.com 10 July 2009 article on the
exclusion of women's ski jumping from the 2010 Games. -
accessed 11 July 2009.
- http://www.gamesbids.com/eng/other_news/1216134522.html
-
http://www.king5.com/health/Vancouver-2010---Preparing-for-H1N1-69243187.html
-
http://www.sports-city.org/news_details.php?news_id=9850&idCategory=40
- http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=8956791
-
http://www.ctvolympics.ca/ski-jumping/news/newsid=12739.html#no+female+flight+2010?cid=rssctv
CTV Olympics - No female flight in 2010: B.C. court rejects ski
jump bid
-
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/07/10/bc-olympic-women-ski-jump-decision.html
CBC - NFemale ski jumpers lose Olympic battle
- Kear, M. 2007, Spaces of transtion spaces of tomorrow: Making a
sustainable future in Southeast False Creek In Vancouver Cities
Vol. 24, No. 4, 324–334
- Vancouver releases secret Olympic Village
documents, Bob Mackin, The Tyee, June 19,
2009
- Olympics' Top Cop Helped Blow up Truck at
Gustafsen Stand-off, Geoff Dembicki and Bob Mackin, Vancouver
24 Hours, Today, TheTyee.ca. October 19, 2009
- Mercer Blasted APEC Protesters with Pepper
Spray, Bob Mackin, Vancouver 24 hours and Geoff
Dembicki, The Tyee, October 22, 2009
- MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2009
- BCCLA condemns unlucky B.C. Government Bill
13
- 4HN_Protocol_Final_Nov 24.pub
- Four Host First Nations Society - Vancouver 2010 - About
Us
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