'With Glowing Hearts' is 2010 Olympics slogan

[smitty]

Did any of you received the latest on all the injuries in the skiing competitions of such variation to stupid racing four of them almost shoulder to shoulder?

That & some others will definately have to be changed over in Russia if it ever gets going only without all the jazz of Campbell of the B.C. Provincial liberals.

I have had to shake my head at Campbell from day one & especially his enthusiasm & waste of tax dollars to B.C. residents to tax payers at the Winter Games.

I honestly felt he acted like a child in so many cases especially with the cameras on him.

[yukon]

High speeds, inexperience and a variety of other factors all contributed to the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili at the 2010 Winter Olympics, B.C. Coroner Tom Pawlowski has found.

In a report that labels the 21-year-old’s death “accidental”, Pawlowski concluded that no one element contributed to the death of Kumaritashvili, and that instead “one must accept that it was a convergence of several factors, some more apparent than others and with various levels of involvement, that culminated in this fatality.”



http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Coro ... story.html


A perfect storm with the worst possible outcome. I agree they did not do enough to try to avoid this from happening. They ignored the warning from those that tested it before the death. They ignored the warning that faster speeds could happen. Sadly their "heads buried in the sand" attitude cost a man his life.

[smitty]

The crews that built that slide, made some errors & that was showen a day or so later with the changes for after that no injuries let alone deaths in the sport.

I had my mind the maze of skiers that were injured during the many sort of down hill crazy events that some of us have never heard before & good chance another country will eliminate them, due to the many injuries.

[CielOnTap]

Snow was trucked in for those hill events. If there were small objects in the snow or dirty snow, I can understand why times recorded could have been affected by the snow quality.

Crews build what they are told to build. I suspect the slide designer may have not realized something in his drawings and the reality was shown during the Georgian's slide runs. I don't know of a design school where the specialty is designing challenging athletic chutes?

[CielOnTap]

News of the athletes' village condos developer going into bankruptcy or is it receivership in the past week certainly contradicts the promise that the housing would pay for itself. The City of Vancouver provided $160M in land and over $700M in loan money to the developer. Hot topic of the housing legacy-- to be continued (slow Internet connection...)

Prices for the condos are in the $600,000 Cdn range to start. Plenty of units to choose from...

[CielOnTap]

While editing my Bookmarks on my browser, I noticed that there was a final report on the official languages used for the Games and discussion of successes and failures at the event. Only two days old, the report is online:
http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/html/stu_etu_122010_e.php

From the introduction alone, it seems that pressure by francophone interest groups was the main ramping up factor for ensuring that both official languages were used during the prestigious sporting event. The report indicates that two different organizations were not on the same page in understanding their duties under the language act.

One first observed with the Vancouver Games and Paralympic Games-our government is the first host nation to have had both events run bilingually. The IOC recognizes English and French as its official languages, though French does advance past English in the matter of disagreements in texts provided in both languages.

[CielOnTap]

The reference to the relay, which visited many communities during the winter, mentions how linguistic duality failed to appear as a regular part of the ceremonies, even in Ottawa (an officially bilingual city):

Municipalities had a major role to play in organizing the welcome ceremonies for the torch. While several municipalities participated in the efforts mentioned above, linguistic duality was not adequately reflected in all the welcome ceremonies for the torch. For example, no French was used in some municipalities in Nova Scotia. The French aspect was also virtually nonexistent in British Columbia, particularly in Coquitlam’s Maillardville, in Metro Vancouver, which has had a dynamic French-speaking community for 100 years. A federal MP also reported a similar problem in Moncton, New Brunswick. Tighter coordination with municipal authorities and stricter monitoring of operational details on the part of VANOC and Canadian Heritage would have prevented problems such as these.

For example, the masters of ceremonies, who in principle should have spoken both official languages, did not always do so. Interviewees said that in some places, they noticed that the percentage of French in the celebrations was proportional to the size of the French-speaking community in these localities; this interpretation is somewhat limited. Canadian Heritage representatives stated that they had had trouble convincing those in charge of the relay that it was necessary to give French proper representation.

Some incidents defied explanation: the absence of French was simply staggering at the welcome ceremony for the Olympic torch at City Hall in Ottawa, Ontario, on December 12, 2009, especially since the celebration was organized by a bilingual municipal administration and was scheduled to be bilingual.

http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/html/stu_etu_p6_122010_e.php

I think a practical issue with regards to having enough people of the language groups participate or appear has to do with the fact that while there may be a mass of residents reflecting one language group by residency, who knows if work or other commitments took them away during the time when their community was due to welcome the torch? Also, renumeration or lack of it probably made commitments to work or others a higher priority than giving up pay for a voluntary function that had lots of preparation time involved.

[CielOnTap]

I would have preferred that the economic impact story of the Games had been released on Wednesday, not on a Friday afternoon which is known as a time to bury or to visually reduce the impact of some stories/announcements. Tourism is an economic driver and yes, I too hope that the athletic village condos do sell-through by next year.

Vancouver Games gave C$2 billion economic boost: study

By Allan Dowd | Reuters – 54 minutes ago
VANCOUVER (Reuters) - The Winter Olympics provided an economic boost worth C$2 billion or more to the Vancouver area, according to an economic study released Friday.

The study for the provincial and federal governments was made public as the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) prepared to release its final budget report later in the day.

Pre-Games construction, tourism income and spending on Olympic operations during the February event provided an economic boost of between C$2 billion and C$2.5 billion, according to an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Olympic and Paralympic events were held in Vancouver, on Canada's Pacific coast, as well as at the nearby mountain ski resort of Whistler.Games' economic impact released today

[smitty]

I was noticing a bit on TV last evening of where one British & rest of three Cdns. Had been envited over to North Korea to kids in school that might be speaking English.

True they saw a few other things like a business of bottled water, to some others & so much was on the wall with indications of how it was run, to even farming terrain, but never a farmer at work. Also all the kids did was a polite smile & did evrything in the most uniform manner.

They also visited an outdoor stadiom that would handle 150,000 spectators. If could have been more, but leave it at that. All they saw was all the young perple with flags to plackered to do some interesting things.

For sure the CULTURE in North Korea is so different to that of most other countires in this world-----it was amazing. To think that I was going to possible see a soccar game, but not so. Could it be because in the world championship of last year Noth Korea was a looser all the way for the few times they played. Guess their culture is against a team with aim to win.

On yes on some childrens/adults powered merry-go around things were operated, but in some cases it would be considered unsafe as no strap for SAFETY.

[deja vu]

That slogan wouldn't have worked at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada. It's slogan was more along the lines of "come see the White Elephant" we paid for and is still a national joke. Now all these years later they are still trying to figure out what to do with that big, empty elephant.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Com ... story.html


More on the history of the "Big O"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_(Montreal)