2010 Vancouver Olympics

The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games, were an international multi-sport event held in the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia, between February 12 and 28, 2010. After the end of this event, Vancouver organized the X Winter Paralympic Games between March 12 and 21 of the same year.

The city of Vancouver was chosen by the International Olympic Committee over the nominations of South Korea's Pyeongchang and Austria's Salzburg. This was Vancouver's third bid for a Winter Olympics and the third time the Olympics had been held in Canada, after Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988.

The cost of these Games was estimated at about $1.4 billion Canadian dollars. Opening and closing ceremonies were held at BC Place Stadium, while sporting events were spread across venues in Vancouver and its suburbs and the slopes of Whistler Ski Resort, located 125 km to the north, and Cypress Mountain Ski Resort..

2,632 athletes initially registered for the Olympic Games, surpassing the mark set by its predecessor, Turin 2006.

On the other hand, two athletes who were part of this Olympics died tragically:

• Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luger, who was fatally impacted on the head against a steel pole, leaving the track with his sleigh at a speed of more than 143 kilometers per hour, during a training shortly before the start of the Games.
• Jeret Peterson, acrobatic ski jumper and American silver medalist, who committed suicide in July 2011.

Choice

Background

Vancouver, located on the Canadian Pacific coast, had a population of 578,041 in 2006 and over 2.1 million in its metropolitan area.

The Canadian province of British Columbia has a long tradition of bidding for the Olympic Games, dating back to an attempted bid for the eventual 1968 Grenoble Olympics. The Whistler winter resort submitted an Olympic bid winter of 1976, together with the city of Vancouver and the surroundings of Mount Garibaldi. The Vancouver-Garibaldi candidacy obtained 9 votes, being eliminated in the first round, in the May 12, 1970 election that the American city of Denver would finally win. However, a plebiscite held in that city on November 12, 1972 was rejected, preventing the delivery of about 5 million dollars to the organizing committee. Without funding, Denver refused to host the Games, whereupon the International Olympic Committee requested Whistler's support, but the new British Columbia government declined the offer due to the high costs involved; finally, the Austrian city of Innsbruck organized the event. Whistler would try to host the 1980 Winter Olympics again, but would ultimately resign weeks before the vote, giving way to the unanimous election of Lake Placid, in the United States.

Canada hosted the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games and later the city of Calgary, in Alberta, would be chosen to host the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. This succession of Olympic events stopped Vancouver's bid for more than two decades, but not that of other cities. The city of Toronto, for example, applied to host the 1996 Olympic Games (held in Atlanta), while Quebec City did so for the 2002 Winter Olympics (held in Salt Lake City). For the 2008 Olympic Games, a proposal to present a binational candidacy between Vancouver and Seattle arose, but the IOC rejected it; thus, Toronto was selected as the Canadian candidate for these games, becoming considered one of the favorites and of the best qualified among all the candidates- Despite this, on July 13, 2001, Toronto was soundly defeated by Beijing with 22 votes in favor against 55.

Following Toronto's loss, the Canadian Olympic Committee decided to bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Three cities submitted bids to the COC: Vancouver along with Whistler, Calgary and Quebec. Although Quebec was considered the favourite, it had against it political instability (less than four years after the independence plebiscite was defeated by a slight margin) and the low support aroused in the election of the headquarters of 2002. The pro-Vancouver committee, meanwhile, tried to focus the advantage of using Whistler, widely considered one of the best winter resorts on the continent, well over Québec's Mont-Tremblant. In a first round of voting on November 21, 1998, Vancouver-Whistler had 26 votes., followed by 25 for the Québec capital and 21 for Calgary. In the runoff between the two cities with the most votes, Vancouver's candidacy was victorious with 40 votes to Quebec's 32. Thus, Vancouver decided to present its third Olympic bid in history.

Technical evaluation

City candidate	Min	Max.
Andorra la Vieja(AND)	3	4
Bern(SUI)	4,5	6.5
Harbin(CHN)	5	6
Jaca(ESP)	5	6.5
Pyeongchang(KOR)	6	7.5
Salzburg(UT)	7	8
Sarajevo(BIH)	3	5
Vancouver(CAN)	7	9

Eight cities submitted their applications to the International Olympic Committee before the closing of the reception process, on February 4, 2002. Along with Vancouver, Andorra la Vella, Berne, Harbin, Jaca, Pyeongchang, Salzburg and Sarajevo.

Following the selection and evaluation system implemented in order to solve the corruption problems detected in the election of the venue for the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Games, the "aspiring cities" were subjected to a technical review by of the Working Group for the Acceptance of Candidatures, which would evaluate them and proceed to establish which of them did not meet the minimum requirements, so that the members of the International Olympic Committee could concentrate their choice on the remaining ones that did meet them.

The Working Group presented the report on July 11, 2002. To prepare it, it examined the candidates in ten areas (government support and public opinion, general infrastructure, sports infrastructure, Olympic village, environmental conditions and impact, accommodation, transport, security, previous experience and finances) and made a table of "general concept" in order to discard those that were not in a position to host the Olympics in 2008. To this end, the Working Group considered that, in a rating of 0 to 10, a city with a rating of less than 6 should not be chosen..

Vancouver was among the best qualified cities in almost all the topics analyzed by the Working Group and its final score was the best among the eight candidatures. His candidacy received the following ratings by category, in descending order according to the minimum:

1. Olympic Villa: 80-93
2. Sport infrastructure: 76-85
3. Experience: 70-83
4. Accommodation: 70-85
5. Transport: 69-81
6. Security: 68-78
7. Environmental conditions: 67-85
8. Financing: 64-76
9. Government and population support: 60-81
10. General infrastructure: 55-70

Vancouver scored its lowest overall infrastructure due to the long distance of the road, over 100 kilometers, connecting Vancouver to Whistler and its state, while its highest scores were related to sports infrastructure and experience. Salzburg, the main competitor, surpassed Vancouver on several points, reaching scores close to perfect but had a mediocre rating compared to the Olympic village. According to the evaluation, Vancouver and Salzburg were above the minimum required conditions, while Bern and Pyeongchang were just under the minimum conditions. The rest of the candidatures were below the minimum conditions and were subsequently rejected by the IOC.

Voting

115.a Session of the International Olympic Committee 2 July 2003, Prague, Czech Republic
City	Voting
Vancouver(CAN)	40	56
Pyeongchang(KOR)	51	53
Salzburg(UT)	16	-

Once the four candidate cities were selected, on August 28, 2002, they began final preparations for the election. The cities of Berne and Vancouver decided to hold plebiscites to confirm their candidacies; while in Vancouver the results were favorable (with 63.9% support and a participation of 46% of the electorate, on February 22, 2003), Bern had to withdraw from the process after nearly 80% of its population rejected the candidacy in the referendum of September 27, 2002.

Vancouver and Salzburg were favorites among the three candidate cities, especially due to their impeccable presentation before the Task Force. However, the geopolitical influence was extremely strong. Salzburg suffered from the choice of the nearby Italian city of Turin for the 2006 Winter Olympics and it was virtually unlikely that, given the rotation patterns between the continents, Western Europe would host two games in a row. Added to this was the pressure from other European countries that had Olympic ambitions for the 2012 Olympic Games, whose election would take place once the 2010 Games had finished (and in which Paris, Madrid, Moscow and London finally applied, with the British capital obtaining the victory). Vancouver was considered by many too soon after Calgary 1988, just 24 years apart; Added to that was the fact that many Canadians expected Toronto to run in 2012, which would be impossible in the event of a win. However, Toronto's own loss to Beijing served as a bit of an incentive for Vancouver, using the "consolation prize" before some members of the IOC. Pyeongchang, meanwhile, established a strong pressure group appealing to the lack of events on the Korean peninsula, which despite having an important Olympic development, had only held the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

The election was held within the framework of the 115th session of the International Olympic Committee, held on July 2, 2003, in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. In the first ballot, the lobbying carried out by Pyeongchang was successful and gathered 51 votes, only four votes less than the number needed to win in the first round. Vancouver obtained 41 and Salzburg was eliminated with 16 votes, marking a great surprise for the specialists who considered the Austrian city as the favorite. Despite Pyeongchang's high turnout, it failed to charm Salzburg voters who turned out massively for Vancouver. Thus, the Canadian city was chosen by 56 votes against 53 for the South Korean town, in one of the closest results of the Olympic voting.

Organization

In 2004, the cost of the Games was estimated at 1,354 million Canadian dollars; This figure has been strongly questioned and already in mid-2009 it was estimated that the cost amounted to $1,760 million. Of these, $647 million were delivered by the provincial government, mainly to renovate and build the headquarters between Vancouver and Whistler and to event security, run by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, suffered one of the largest increases, from the original $200 million to over $900 million. As the Games approached, the estimated cost for the holding of the Games was once again estimated, reaching an amount close to 6 billion Canadian dollars, while the benefits of the Games initially projected above 10 billion were reduced to close to 1 billion, causing a significant decrease in the support of the citizens to carry out the Games.

Sports venues and facilities

The BC Place Stadium, host of the opening and closing ceremonies, which were first performed under roof.

The Olympic Oval, seat of the speed skating, is located in the suburb of Richmond.

Access to the Olympic Whistler Villa.

The city of Vancouver had four venues that hosted competitions in figure skating, ice hockey, curling and short track speed skating, in addition to the stadium where the opening, closing and medal ceremonies were held. In the southern Vancouver suburb of Richmond, figure skating competitions were held, while in the West Vancouver district, 30 km to the west, snowboarding and freestyle skiing events took place at the Cypress Mountain winter resort, located at an altitude of 900 meters above sea level.

150 km north of the city of Vancouver, in the heart of the Coastal Range, is the town of Whistler, which was the headquarters of the sports of skiing, biathlon and bobsleigh. Two Olympic villages were built, one in the False Creek neighborhood of Vancouver and one in Whistler, while the media center was located at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Center.

Vancouver

• BC Place Stadium – opening ceremonies, closing and medal delivery
• Canada Hockey Place – Ice Hockey
• UBC Winter Sports Center – Ice Hockey
• Pacific Colosseum – Artistic Skating and Short Track Speed Skating
• Vancouver Olympic Centre – curling

Richmond

• Richmond Olympics – Speed Skating

West Vancouver

• Cypress Mountain – acrobatic skiing and snowboarding

Whistler

• Whistler Creekside – Alpine skiing
• Whistler Olympic Park – biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combination and ski jumps
• Whistler Sliding Centre – bobsleigh, luge and skeleton

Olympic Torch

Olympic torch being transferred

From October 22, 2009 to February 12, 2010, more than 12,000 relays carried the Olympic torch on a journey of more than 45,000 kilometers that began in Olympia, Greece, and then went to Athens before crossing Canadian soil. In Canada, the route was (roughly) the following:

Victoria - Whitehorse - Yellowknife - Churchill - Iqaluit - St. Johns - Halifax - Quebec - Montreal - Ottawa - Toronto - Winnipeg - Calgary - Prince George - Vancouver

Sports

Fifteen winter sports were included in the schedule for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. Of these, eight were classified as "ice sports": bobsleigh, luge, skeleton, ice hockey, figure skating, speed skating, short track speed skating and curling; three sports as "alpine": alpine skiing, freestyle skiing and snowboarding and the last four as "nordic": biathlon, Nordic combined, cross-country skiing and ski jumping.

The following list shows the 15 sports disciplines participating in the Vancouver Olympic Games, with a total of 86 events (in brackets the number of each one):

Participants

Countries

Countries participating in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.

For the Vancouver Olympic Games, 82 National Olympic Committees managed to field athletes, surpassing the mark set in 2006, with 80 countries. In these Games, Colombia, Ghana, the Cayman Islands, Pakistan and Peru participated for the first time, while Montenegro and Serbia sent their first teams as independent nations after the end of their unified team. Teams Jamaica, Morocco and Mexico return after missing out on the 2006 Turin Olympics. Tonga attempted to make their Winter Games debut with a luge competitor, but he crashed in the final qualifying round, missing out of the Olympic tournament.

On the other hand, seven countries that participated in Turin 2006 did not participate in Vancouver 2010: Costa Rica, Kenya, the US Virgin Islands, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Thailand and Venezuela. The most important case was from Luxembourg, a country with a long Olympic tradition, and that despite classifying two athletes in alpine skiing, had to withdraw because one did not meet the requirements established by the local committee, while the other suffered a injury.

Athletes

The following table shows the countries participating in the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games and the number of athlete representatives:

Number of people

Development

View of the opening ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.

Calendar

The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games saw 86 competitions in 15 sports disciplines. The following table details the days on which the competitions for each sport were held. The cells in blue correspond to the days on which said discipline was played and the cells in yellow correspond to the dates on which the finals of the respective events for that discipline were played, and the number indicates the number of finals played on that date. The opening ceremony began on the 12th at 18:00 (UTC-7 Vancouver time).

Medal table

The medal winners in the Super G female test: Tina Maze (plata), Andrea Fischbacher (gold) and Lindsey Vonn (bronce).

Organizing country (Canada)

No.	Country				Total
1	Canada	14	7	5	26
2	Germany	10	13	7	30
3	United States	9	15	13	37
4	Norway	9	8	6	23
5	South Korea	6	6	2	14
6	Switzerland	6	0	3	9
7	China	5	2	4	11
7	Sweden	5	2	4	11
9	Austria	4	6	6	16
10	Netherlands	4	1	3	8

Stars

• Didier Defago (Switzerland) and Lindsay Vonn (United States); ski drop winners.
• Simon Ammann (Switzerland); gold in ski jumps.
• Canadian hockey teams, gold in their respective categories.

Death of Nodar Kumaritashvili

Partial view of the Whistler slide track, where Kumaritashvili died.

The Winter Olympics began in mourning for a death that occurred hours before the opening.

Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili died on February 12 after suffering a horrific accident while training for the men's luge event at the Whistler track, believed to be going over 145 km/h, IOC sources reported, shooting out of the lane. The 21-year-old athlete underwent resuscitation maneuvers at the same scene of the accident and was later transferred to a medical center, where he died.

Kumaritashvili had competed in five World Cup luge races this season and was ranked 44th in the world.