2010 Vancouver Olympic & Paralympic Super-Thread

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Yume-sama

Wait until the real events like Mens Hockey start

Wait until Colbert Nation gets here on Wed

[Delirium]

i don't think i;ve seen so many postponed/cancelled runs as i have today.
is anyone watching moguls right now at cypress? what a joke! PISSING RAIN!

[Yume-sama]

Originally Posted by Delirium

i don't think i;ve seen so many postponed/cancelled runs as i have today.
is anyone watching moguls right now at cypress? what a joke! PISSING RAIN!

Nobody is. Apolo Ohno is going for gold!

But yes, there is a weather warning for 70mm of rain by tomorrow morning for Metro Vancouver, and very high winds.

In Nagano and previous Olympics some events have been delayed for as much as 1 week.

[Yume-sama]

Unbelievable!!! The Koreans were 1, 2, and 3 in the final corner with the podium clinched, two of them crash... and Ohno finishes 2nd.

[nova9]

Originally Posted by Delirium

i don't think i;ve seen so many postponed/cancelled runs as i have today.
is anyone watching moguls right now at cypress? what a joke! PISSING RAIN!

You really can't go 'What a joke!' for something that no one has control over. There is no one to blame.

[Yume-sama]

The event is still going quite well, and there are a ton of fans out there.

Canada currently in 1st... not for long

[Yume-sama]

Canada in 1st place with 1 competitor to go. Could THIS be our first gold??

[Ayreonaut]

Jenn Heil is such a sweetheart. She just took the lead with one skier remaining.

[Ayreonaut]

Damn.

[Yume-sama]

And the Americans steal our thunder and take the gold. How rude.

[dreambrother808]

Awesome competition though! Sadly, that Hannah girl was on fire, but at least she has an interesting "rising from the ashes of Torino" story.

[SpongeG]

NBC just said the conditions at cypress have been SPECTACULAR compared to what they have been dealing with yes they said it so stop whining

[SpongeG]

• Video Link

[satishreddy]

I just came back from Cypress. I saw the Ladies Moguls preliminaries, but did not stay for the finals. Some comments

(1) From what I saw, our public transit system is doing a decent job. I took skytrain and #145 to the SFU bus hub. On the way back, I took the Seabus back to Vancouver. Thing were running smoothly.

(2) The transportation to Cypress was not well organized. My bus pass was for a 13:40 departure. I arrived around 13:00 because the pass says to arrive 30 minutes early. I did not leave until about 14:50. The preliminaries started at about 16:30 and I finally go to the stadium at around 16:15. When I left there were A LOT of people still in line waiting for event buses, which were not coming frequently.

(3) The course at Cypress looked beautiful. I am not in a position to say it was too hard or soft or icy.

(4) The moguls stadium was packed. The way out has souvenir shops and food stands on either side. That area was PACKED right after the preliminaries when I left.

(5) The weather was not bad. There was some rain (I left around 18:00), but it was not a lot. For me the cold was more of an irritant than the rain.

[SpongeG]

at least you got there - i was listening to the radio and some guy with 10 minutes to get to the venue before the event was still at a pick up point and he had been waiting 90 minutes already

anyway some news about the luge

LugeHomeAthletesScheduleResultsMedalsPhotos

Probe: track didn’t cause luger’s death

By TIM REYNOLDS AND TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writers

WHISTLER, British Columbia (AP)—Fast and frightening, yes. Responsible for the death of a luger, no.

Olympic officials decided late Friday night against any major changes in the track or any delays in competition and even doubled up on the schedule in the wake of the horrifying accident that claimed the life of a 21-year-old luger from the republic of Georgia.

They said they would raise the wall where the slider flew off the track and make an unspecified “change in the ice profile”—but only as a preventative measure “to avoid that such an extremely exceptional accident could occur again.”


...

fullarticle at the source: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/luge/news?slug=ap-lug-lugerdies&prov=ap&type=lgns

[GeeCee]

It's fantastic to see the city come alive like this.. especially down near waterfront and the exterior torch. Tons of people all day long!

[johnjimbc]

Originally Posted by satishreddy

I just came back from Cypress. I saw the Ladies Moguls preliminaries, but did not stay for the finals. Some comments

(1) From what I saw, our public transit system is doing a decent job. I took skytrain and #145 to the SFU bus hub. On the way back, I took the Seabus back to Vancouver. Thing were running smoothly.

(2) The transportation to Cypress was not well organized. My bus pass was for a 13:40 departure. I arrived around 13:00 because the pass says to arrive 30 minutes early. I did not leave until about 14:50. The preliminaries started at about 16:30 and I finally go to the stadium at around 16:15. When I left there were A LOT of people still in line waiting for event buses, which were not coming frequently.

(3) The course at Cypress looked beautiful. I am not in a position to say it was too hard or soft or icy.

(4) The moguls stadium was packed. The way out has souvenir shops and food stands on either side. That area was PACKED right after the preliminaries when I left.

(5) The weather was not bad. There was some rain (I left around 18:00), but it was not a lot. For me the cold was more of an irritant than the rain.

Thanks so much for the personal observations.

One question . . . how long did it take to make it through security once you arrived at Cypress? How much was just that portion?

[NetMapel]

Still too pissed off about our final results with Moguls. No doubt the Americans deserved to win with that final performance, but DAAMNNN............

[Echoes]

It seems like most of the sentiment on these boards has been pro-Olympics. I too am a fan and devoted follower of the Olympics, am excited they're in Canada, and am a believer in the Olympic spirit and the great opportunities the Games present.

However, I must admit that the anti-Olympics side present compelling arguments, raising issues regarding financial cost, taxpayer burden, environmental degradation, social upheaval, etc., etc.

So for those who are well acquainted with these arguments against it, yet still support the Games... how do you reconcile between these conflicting things?

I acknowledge and sympathize with many of the issues raised, yet as a lifelong fan of the Olympics I can't bring myself to be against them. While I hate that sensitive wilderness was destroyed to build the Sea to Sky Highway, or that accelerated gentrification is encroaching on the most vulnerable in the Downtown Eastside, I remain a devoted supporter of the Games.

I know my own opinions contradict each other, and that makes me a hypocrite, and I know there are many others like me. So how do you justify the Games? What trumps all these arguments against it to validate its coming to Vancouver? Your thoughts would be most appreciated....

[johnjimbc]

I really don't think anyone here is going to want to hash back through the arguments against the Vancouver games, especially based on a rather vague request from a visitor.

What social upheaval has the Olympics caused? No, not some vague 1 + 1 = 3000 argument. What actual social "upheaval" has been caused by these Games?

What environmental "degradation" has occurred? A widened road? A single passage over a ridge (with special animal-life corridor tunnels built into the design I hasten to add). Does a new transit line not in some way compensate for the supposed "degradation"? This isn't the oil sands so you'll have to explain the term "degradation" and how exactly it applies to the Vancouver Olympics.

AS for finances and tax burden. Taxes fund many things. The decision to host these Games was made years ago. They are underway now. They have already provided economic activity for the province, and their legacy will yield benefits for years to come. Canada has just spent boatloads of money on "stimulus" projects across the country, which many regard as a positive undertaking. Yet somehow the economic stimulus provided by the Olympics is naturally assumed to be "wasteful." Were all those jobs to prepare and execute the Games not of any economic benefit? Is the new transit line a waste? Is improving the deadliest highway in the province wasteful? Are the new community centres provided by the new facilities built in Vancouver and surrounding communities not of ANY compensatory benefit? Is turning a desolate, unproductive stretch of brown-zone former industrial site along False Creek into a new, green, high-density productive neighborhood a "bad" use of funds - particularly given that the neighborhood units are being sold at market rate to recoup most if not all the funds expended on the project?

A bunch of thugs just ran around with masks breaking windows in our city this morning yelling things like "down with the state" so I'm frankly not in the mood to discuss the merits of their "compelling" arguments.

And if you want to, I think you'll need to provide much greater detail on what you find so compelling about their bold stance to be "against" an event in works for nearly a decade and occurring as we discuss the matter.

If someone else wants to have a go at it, have fun. But I'm done playing that game.

P.S. If you are going to regurgitate the entire sad discussion, can you PLEASE start a new thread so the rest of us can ignore it?