Vancouver Canada’s third Olympic host city - No prospects of a gold medal for the hosts
Vancouver (pps/July 1, 2009) As the third Canadian metropolis - after the 1976 Olympic Summer Games in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary - Vancouver will be the venue of Olympic Games on February 12-28, 2010. During the 115th Congress of the International Olympic Committee, IOC, in Prague on July 2, 2003, the largest city in the province of British Columbia was chosen to host the Games, winning on the second ballot with 56 of 53 votes ahead of Pyeongchang, South Korea.
On the first ballot – with 40 votes for Vancouver and 51 votes for Pyeongchang – Salzburg, Austria was ousted with 16 votes. Bern in Switzerland withdrew its bid after its population opposed the Games in a referendum with a majority of 80 per-cent. At an earlier stage the bids of Andorra la Vella, Andorra, Harbin in the People’s Republic of China, Jaca in Spain, and Sarajevo, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, were not admitted by the IOC.
In February 2003, a national referendum was held in Vancouver. The result: 64 per-cent approved to host Olympic Winter Games. In a national competition with Calgary and Québec the city of Vancouver then prevailed. Already in 1968 and 1976 Whistler had put forward a bid to host Olympic Winter Games, but without success.
Whistler, located about 125 kilometres north of Vancouver, now features the “Whistler Sliding Centre” for the luge, bobsleigh and skeleton decisions. Whistler additionally accommodates the competition venues for biathlon as well as Alpine and Nordic skiing. The Opening and Closing Ceremony will be carried out in the city of Vancouver, as well as the competitions in ice hockey, short track, curling and figure skating. Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, will host the speed skating competitions and West Vancouver will be the site for the freestyle skiing and snowboard competitions.
A total of 86 gold medals (46 men / 38 women) in seven different sports will be at stake at the XXI Olympic Winter Games. Additionally, the programme includes a mixed competition in figure skating.
By the way: neither at the 1976 Olympic Summer Games in Montreal nor twelve years later at the Winter Games in Calgary the hosts from Canada were able to grab a gold medal. Thus Canada is still waiting for its first Olympic champion at home. Even though Canadian Miroslav Zajonc, born in Czechoslovakia, grabbed a gold medal at the 1983 Worlds in Lake Placid, USA, Canada has not yet earned an Olympic medal in the sport of luge.
