Five years until we host the world!
2010 is Coming! Are you ready?
I didn't realize this until I read the front page of the Vancouver Sun this morning, but it's exactly five years to the day until Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics!
I know plenty of people up here - the tightwad conservatives or the tree-huggers and the general lot of whiny BCers (of which there are many) don't like the idea of such a costly two-week venture, but I'm excited. Besides, after seeing the success of recent winter games (most notably Calgary in 1988, Lillehammer in 1994, and Salt Lake in 2002), I think that Vancouver, the biggest city to date to hold the winter games, should be able to manage. Our World's Fair in '86 made us an internationally renowned city, and this would only further that idea.
Besides, if all goes well, it'll be the first Winter Olympics to be held in a virtually snowless city. Hell, we have palm trees and flowers in bloom this time every year. :p
I just hope we don't have another Montreal Olympics on our hands - what a glorious catastrophe that was. :p Ah well, the winter trumps the summer games any day of the week - there's a lot more novelty for many of the events that you'd normally never see otherwise. Really, the only "normal" sports are hockey, figure skating, and skiing. Very rarely do you see (or care for) speed-skating, the biatholon (skiing and using a firearm!), the luge/bobsled/skeleton, and such outside of the Olympics. I'm slowly being drawn to curling, though.
Anyway...yeah. Five years of preparing. Should be fun.
I wonder who's getting the games in 2012. Anyone care to make any bets? Paris? London? Madrid? Moscow? New York?
(My bet is Paris, with London as the next closest and the NYC.)
-Tim
I didn't realize this until I read the front page of the Vancouver Sun this morning, but it's exactly five years to the day until Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics!
I know plenty of people up here - the tightwad conservatives or the tree-huggers and the general lot of whiny BCers (of which there are many) don't like the idea of such a costly two-week venture, but I'm excited. Besides, after seeing the success of recent winter games (most notably Calgary in 1988, Lillehammer in 1994, and Salt Lake in 2002), I think that Vancouver, the biggest city to date to hold the winter games, should be able to manage. Our World's Fair in '86 made us an internationally renowned city, and this would only further that idea.
Besides, if all goes well, it'll be the first Winter Olympics to be held in a virtually snowless city. Hell, we have palm trees and flowers in bloom this time every year. :p
I just hope we don't have another Montreal Olympics on our hands - what a glorious catastrophe that was. :p Ah well, the winter trumps the summer games any day of the week - there's a lot more novelty for many of the events that you'd normally never see otherwise. Really, the only "normal" sports are hockey, figure skating, and skiing. Very rarely do you see (or care for) speed-skating, the biatholon (skiing and using a firearm!), the luge/bobsled/skeleton, and such outside of the Olympics. I'm slowly being drawn to curling, though.
Anyway...yeah. Five years of preparing. Should be fun.
I wonder who's getting the games in 2012. Anyone care to make any bets? Paris? London? Madrid? Moscow? New York?
(My bet is Paris, with London as the next closest and the NYC.)
-Tim