Vancouver (pps) All venues have successfully passed their first crucial tests, tickets sold like hotcakes, and even the Oscar awards ceremony will be postponed for this mega event. On April 17, 2009, it will be exactly 300 days to go until the opening ceremony of the XXI. Olympic Winter Games. Already now, in favor of the mega event in Canada, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences postponed the 82nd Oscar awards ceremony from February to March 7, 2010.
From 1943 to 2003, Oscars were always awarded in March or April. Since then, with the exception of 2006, when the Oscars were awarded in March because of the Olympic Winter Games in Turin (ITA), the ceremony was always held in February.
In contrast to Turin, ten months before the beginning of the Games, Vancouver is already well prepared. „The Games could already begin tomorrow“, stated the President of the International Luge Federation (FIL), Josef Fendt from Berchtesgaden, Germany, after the successful Olympic test at „Whistler Sliding Center“. The speed record achieved by World Champion Felix Loch (GER), who recorded a speed of 153.98 kilometers per hour, however did not obstruct the FIL officials’ view to further safety measures. They include special training opportunities for weaker nations that are being planned together with the Organizing Committee VANOC, and two modifications to the track.
Apart from this, there are no more obstacles in the way to glamorous Games in Vancouver. The more so as there will be awards ceremonies at the centre of the ski resort Whistler. In December, due to financial reasons it had been decided that that medals would be awarded at the venues instead of staging evening events with medals ceremonies and concerts. The organizing committee gave in after substantial resistance from athletes and media. In Whistler, celebrations will be staged at `Celebration Plaza´.
