2010 Winter Olympics

2010 Winter Olympics bidding results

City	Nation	Round 1	Round 2
Vancouver	Canada	40	56
Pyeongchang	South Korea	51	53
Salzburg	Austria	16	-

The Canadian Olympic Association chose Vancouver as the Canadian candidate city over Calgary, which sought to re-host the Games in 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 had 25 and Calgary had 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 votes. Vancouver had also previously bid for the 1976 games, which were first awarded to Denver, then to Innsbruck and the 1980 games, which were awarded to Lake Placid.

After the bribery scandal over the candidacy of the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics (which resulted in Quebec City asking for compensation (C$8 million) for its unsuccessful bid),[9] many of the rules of the bidding process were changed in 1999. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) created the Evaluation Commission, which was appointed on October 24, 2002. Prior to the bidding for the 2008 Summer Olympics, host cities would often fly members of the IOC to their city where they toured the city and were provided with gifts. 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 analyzed the candidate city features and provided its input back to the IOC.

Vancouver won the bid 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.[10] 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 two votes. Vancouver's victory came almost two years after Toronto's 2008 Summer Olympic bid was defeated by Beijing in a landslide vote.

The Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) spent C$16.6 million on upgrading facilities at Cypress Mountain, which hosted the freestyle (aerials, moguls, ski cross) and snowboarding events. With the opening in February 2009 of the C$40 million Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre at Hillcrest Park, which hosted curling, every sports venue for the 2010 Games was completed on time and at least one year prior to the Games.[11][12]

Olympic sites map

Richmond Olympic Oval: speed skating long track venue

Some venues, including the Richmond Olympic Oval, were at sea level, a rarity for the Winter Games.[18] The 2010 Games were also the first—Winter or Summer—to have had an Opening Ceremony held indoors.[19] Greater Vancouver was the most populous metropolitan area ever to hold the Winter Games.[20] In February, the month when the Games were held, Vancouver has an average temperature of 4.8 °C (40.6 °F).[21] The average temperature as measured at Vancouver International Airport was 7.1 °C (44.8 °F) for the month of February 2010.[22]

The opening and closing ceremonies were held at BC Place Stadium, which received over C$150 million in major renovations. Competition venues in Greater Vancouver included the Pacific Coliseum, the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre, the UBC Winter Sports Centre, the Richmond Olympic Oval and Cypress Mountain. GM Place, now known as Rogers Arena, played host to ice hockey events, being renamed Canada Hockey Place for the duration of the Games since corporate sponsorship is not allowed for an Olympic venue.[23] Renovations included the removal of advertising from the ice surface and conversion of some seating to accommodate the media.[23] The 2010 Winter Olympics marked the first time an Olympic hockey game was played on a rink sized according to NHL rules instead of international specifications. Competition venues in Whistler included Whistler Creekside at the Whistler Blackcomb ski resort, the Whistler Olympic Park, the Whistler Celebration Plaza and the Whistler Sliding Centre.

The 2010 Winter Games marked the first time that the energy consumption of the Olympic venues was tracked in real time and made available to the public. Energy data was collected from the metering and building automation systems of nine of the Olympic venues and was displayed online through the Venue Energy Tracker project.[24]

The Olympic Games in Vancouver were 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 were largely identical for both events.

The host broadcaster was Olympic Broadcasting Services Vancouver, a subsidiary of the IOC's new in-house broadcasting unit Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS). The 2010 Olympics marked the first Games where the host broadcasting facilities were provided solely by OBS.[25] The executive director of Olympic Broadcasting Services Vancouver was Nancy Lee, a former producer and executive for CBC Sports.[26]

In Canada, the Games were the first Olympic Games broadcast by a new Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium led by CTVglobemedia and Rogers Media, displacing previous broadcaster CBC Sports. Main English-language coverage was shown on the CTV Television Network, while supplementary programming was mainly shown on TSN and Rogers Sportsnet. Main French-language coverage was shown on V and RDS.[27]

In the United States, Associated Press (AP) announced that it would send 120 reporters, photographers, editors and videographers to cover the Games on behalf of the country's news media.[28] The cost of their Olympics coverage prompted AP to make a "real departure for the wire service's online coverage". Rather than simply providing content, it partnered with more than 900 newspapers and broadcasters who split the ad revenue generated from an AP-produced multi-media package of video, photos, statistics, stories and a daily Webcast.[28] AP's coverage included a microsite with web widgets facilitating integration with social networking and bookmarking services.[29] On NBC, Bob Costas hosted the primetime telecast, while Al Michaels did so during the day. Together they co-hosted NBC's coverage of the Closing Ceremony.

In France, the Games were covered by France Télévisions, which included continuous live coverage on its website.[30]

The official broadcast theme for the Olympic Broadcasting Services host broadcast was a piece called "City of Ice" composed by Rob May and Simon Hill.[31]

The clock counting down to the opening of the Olympic Games 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.[32] It then traveled from Greece, over the North Pole to Canada's High Arctic and on to the West Coast and Vancouver. The relay started its long Canada journey from the British Columbia capital of Victoria. In Canada, the torch traveled approximately 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi) over 106 days, making it the longest relay route within one country in Olympic history. The Olympic Torch was carried by approximately 12,000 Canadians and reached over 1,000 communities.[33][34]

Celebrity torchbearers included Arnold Schwarzenegger,[35] Steve Nash,[36] Matt Lauer,[37] Justin Morneau,[38] Michael Bublé,[39] Bob Costas,[40] Shania Twain,[41] and hockey greats including Sidney Crosby,[42] Wayne Gretzky,[43] and the captains of the two Vancouver Canucks teams that went to the Stanley Cup Finals: Trevor Linden (1994)[44] and Stan Smyl (1982).[45]

Some in the foreign press, including London 2012 organizers, had criticized the lack of city decorations to acknowledge that Vancouver was the host of the Games. The original plans to decorate the city in Olympic colours, a tradition followed by other recent Games host cities, were canceled for several reasons. Anti-Games activists repeatedly vandalized the existing 2010 Olympics monuments such as the countdown clock, forcing the city to install CCTV cameras, and adding more Games decorations would have inevitably required more security presence to deter protesters, so VANOC opted to minimize these symbols to avoid making the city a police state. Besides local opposition, budget cutbacks also forced the organizers to scale back on the elaborate plans.[61]

VANOC initially benefited from an economic boom and was able to secure lucrative and record domestic sponsorships, but this boom also resulted in rapidly rising construction and labour costs. Due to these factors, as well as the late 2000s financial crisis and economic recession, VANOC built minimalistic functional venues with little aesthetic appeal though they were well-designed for post-Games usage. This approach, as well as the fact that most of the infrastructure already existed, meant that the direct costs of the Vancouver Games were much lower than recent Olympic games.[61]

Before the Games began and as they commenced, a number of concerns and controversies surfaced and received media attention. Hours before the opening ceremony, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed during a training run, intensifying questions about the safety of the course and prompting[62] organizers to implement quick modifications. Officials concluded that it was an athlete error rather than a track deficiency.[63] The International Luge Federation called an emergency meeting after the accident, and all other training runs were cancelled for the day.[64] The President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, thanked the hosts for the way that they handled Kumaritashvili's death which included a moment of silence and a tribute to Kumaritashvili at the opening ceremony.[65]

One critic[66] questioned the choice of Cypress Mountain as a venue because of its potential lack of snow due to the 2009-10 El Niño. Because of this possibility, organizers had a contingency plan to truck in snow from Manning Park, about 250 kilometres (160 mi) to the east of the city. This allowed events to proceed as planned.[67]

Political decisions involving cancellation of promised low-income housing and the creation of a community of mixed economic backgrounds for post-Games use of the athletes' village was criticized.[68]

Opening ceremonies were stalled while organizers dealt with mechanical problems during the cauldron lighting ceremony.[69] Speed skating events were delayed due to breakdowns of the ice resurfacers supplied by Olympia, an official sponsor of the Games.[70]

Thousands of tickets were voided by organizers when weather conditions made standing-room-only areas unsafe.[71] Visitors were also upset that, as in past Olympics, medal ceremonies required separate admission[71] and blocks of VIP tickets reserved for sponsors and dignitaries were unused at events.[72] Other glitches and complaints have included confusion by officials at the start of the February 16 men's and women's biathlon pursuit races, and restricted access to the Olympic flame cauldron on the Vancouver waterfront.[73][74]

Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper and Governor General of Canada Michaelle Jean at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games Heads of State Reception

The massive celebratory crowds in downtown Vancouver were highly praised by the IOC. Jacques Rogge, the president of IOC, indicated that "the way Vancouver embraced these Games was extraordinary. This is really something unique and has given a great atmosphere for these Games."[97][98] The atmosphere surrounding the Olympics, and its inclusion of foreign delegates and guests, was also praised, with many seasoned Winter Olympic observers putting the games at, or near, the top of the list of best ever Winter Olympics.[99] They were also the best watched Winter Olympics since the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer.[100] They are also mentioned alongside the Sydney 2000 Summer games in regards to the best atmosphere. A large part is credited to the citizens of Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada.[101]

Some members of the media (mostly, and particularly the British media) criticized the Own the Podium and criticized the celebrations as having been somewhat nationalistic,[102][103] but this was not an opinion shared by many. Some suggested that the British media were making these criticisms in order to make the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics more appealing.[104] Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the 2012 London Olympic Games Organizing Committee, attended the Vancouver Olympics to see how the city coped with the challenges of hosting. Lord Coe noted the Games had "gradually recovered from its tumultuous start" and queried that he "never thought the British would find rivals in their preoccupation with the weather which is almost elevated to an Olympic event" as he credited VANOC for meeting unforeseen challenges such as the unseasonably warm weather of Cypress Mountain. Coe added "Rarely have I seen a host city so passionate and so ready to embrace the Games".[65][105]

The Vancouver Olympics also organized and hosted the first Pride House for LGBT athletes in the history of the event.[106][107][108]

• 2010 Winter Paralympics
• Olympic Games celebrated in Canada
  • 1976 Summer Olympics – Montreal
  • 1988 Winter Olympics – Calgary
  • 2010 Winter Olympics – Vancouver

• Olympic Games
• International Olympic Committee
• List of IOC country codes
• 2010 Winter Olympics victory ceremonies

A. Miga and Quatchi were mascots for the Olympic Games, while Sumi was the mascot for the Paralympic Games. Mukmuk is considered a sidekick, not a full mascot.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 2010 Winter Olympics.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Vancouver 2010.

Wikinews has news related to: Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games

• "Vancouver 2010". Olympic.org. International Olympic Committee.
• Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, official website
• Vancouver Olympic Committee's channel on YouTube
• The official Whistler website of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games

• David Wallechinsky; David Wallechinsky & Jaime Loucky (October 9, 2009). The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics (8th ed.). D&M Publishers Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-55365-502-2. Retrieved January 28, 2012.