2010 Winter Olympics

[mounty]

The sound seems rather odd.

You hear a person speech reverb around the stadium before you see them open their mouths.

I think the broadcaster in charge is struggling to fix this.

I think it's a beeb issue as eurosport doesnt have any reverb problems!

[Napalm Frog]

Coming out clear on CTV here in Canada. :) I love the jackets the Germans were sporting. I want me one.

[rajputwarrior]

Did Harper just give Michaelle Jean the snub?

good, anything to do with the queen should get the snub. effin stupid useless queen. solicitor general serves no purpose.

and these ceremonies suck...

[Rob2687]

Yeah it's pretty crap so far.

[Lewism]

Nice lipsync.

[rajputwarrior]

all this native crap is starting to make me angry... there is more to canada then just natives...

and all the japanese people run because they think the giant polar bear is godzilla...

[Rob2687]

It's the Coca Cola bear!

[rajputwarrior]

cermonies look like a bad acid trip...

[Rob2687]

Yup...They have Batman in a flying canoe playing a violin now.:huh:

[Napalm Frog]

I freaking love the fiddling, lol.

[Matrix XII]

haha it's awesome!

[n301]

Nice ceremony guys, well done!

[Rob2687]

Heh... The cauldron broke.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

That was quite awesome to see, well done Vancouver :)

[rajputwarrior]

it does not take that long to get to cordova from pacific...

ceremony ended up being pretty good though (Y) we did good :)

[Lexcyn]

The whale bit was amazing. I loved how they used the floor as a screen, was awesome.

[Crazysah]

Winter Olympics kick off in Vancouver

Vancouver, Feb 13 (IANS) The 21st Winter Olympics opened here Friday night amid pomp and pageantry at the famous BC Place.

Canadian Governor-General Michaelle Jean, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) president John Furlong and IOC president Jacques Rogge were among the 60,000 people who attended the grand opening ceremony broadcast live around the world.

Before the ceremonies, aboriginal youth from the First Nations - a term used to describe Canada?s native people before the Europeans came here - welcomed the guests to the mega sports show.

The ceremonies opened with a video of a snowboarder on the stadium screens, followed by a real snowboarder sliding down the snow-covered stadium floor, and followed by the singing of the Canadian national anthem.

Then athletes from the participating nations marched down the stadium.

The host Canadian contingent was led by 37-year-old Clara Hughes who has won medals at Summer and Winter Olympics.

More than 2,700 athletes will vie for 86 medals at the Winter Olympics which run till the end of the month.

Vancouver won the right to host the event seven years ago by beating South Korea?s Pyongyang. It is the third time that Canada is hosting any Olympics. The country played host to the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary where it failed to win even a single gold.

According to Sports Illustrated, Germany will dominate the medal tally. But Canada is expected to win at least 10 golds this time.

Most of the events of the 17-day sports extravaganza will be held in the Vancouver suburbs of Richmond and Whistler which is more than an hour?s drive from Vancouver.

The opening of the sporting mega-show was, however, marred by the death of 21-year-old competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili from Georgia who succumbed to his injuries after crashing into a metal pole while training at Whistler.

He was rushed to hospital where he died. ?This is a very sad day. The IOC is in deep mourning,? said teary-eyed IOC president Jacques Rogge.

?Here you have a young athlete who lost his life pursuing his passion. He had a dream to participate at the Olympic Games, he trained hard, and he had this fatal accident. I have no words to say what we feel,? Rogge added.

John Furlong, chief executive officer of the Vancouver Organising Committee, said: ?We are heartbroken beyond words to be sitting here. I am sorry to be in this position to be reporting this to you. It?s not something that I have prepared - ever thought I would need to be prepared for.?

U.S. team not conceding anything

By David Barron - Hearst Olympic Bureau VANCOUVER, British Columbia ? At selected spots during the next 17 days, the world's longest, most cordial border between nations is about to get considerably more contentious.

Canada has spent more than $117 million during the last five years on its Own the Podium program for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, designed to bypass Germany and the United States and vault the home team to the top step of the total medals count.

The 200-plus U.S. Olympic Committee contingent, however, is not prepared to be a gracious visitor. Mike English, the USOC's chief of sports performance, will not make a medals projection for the U.S. team, but he has great expectations.

?We expect the Canadians to be in a very strong position. They certainly will enjoy home-field advantage,? English said. ?They've talked about their Own the Podium program, but we haven't exactly been sitting back, either. It's going to be fantastic competition.?

The U.S. is hitching its wagon to the star power of familiar names ? Shaun White, Kelly Clark, Gretchen Bleiler and Lindsey Jacobellis in snowboard, Apolo Anton Ohno in short track speedskating, Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick in long track speedskating, Evan Lysacek in men's figure skating and Steve Holcomb's ?Night Train? four-man bobsled team.

However, to challenge the Germans and Canadians, the U.S. also needs contributions from sports like Nordic combined and biathlon, where the next American medal will be the first in Winter Olympics history, and cross country skiing, where the U.S. has one medal in its history.

?We have had improvement in our emerging sports,? English said. ?We've been strategic in planning. We've made sure we're working with our national governing bodies and coaches as they get their athletes podium-prepared.?

Potential breakthrough athletes include:

Biathlon: Tim Burke, 28, of Paul Smiths, N.Y., in 2007 became the first U.S. man to crack the top eight at the world championships. He was fifth in World Cup points entering the Olympics and has been a member of the U.S. national team since age 16.

Nordic combined: Eight years after its agonizing near-miss at Soldier Hollow, Utah, the U.S. team has three legitimate world-class competitors in Todd Lodwick, 33, of Steamboat Springs, Colo.; Billy Demong, 29, of Vermontville, N.Y.; and Johnny Spillane, 29, of Steamboat Springs, Colo. All have won world championship and World Cup medals.

Cross-country skiing: While no U.S. athletes are medal favorites, Kikkan Randall, 27, of Anchorage was a silver medalist in the ladies' sprint race at the 2009 world championships, and veteran Kris Freeman, 29, of Andover, N.H., was fourth at 15 kilometers.

Luge: If anyone can derail the German juggernaut, it will be Erin Hamlin, 33, of Remsen, N.Y., who last year became the first non-German entrant in 100 major international races to win a gold medal.

Mike Plant, a USOC board member and the titular head of the U.S. delegation as chief of mission, said the 216-member team brings more resources, and more experience, personified by five-time Olympian Mark Grimmette, 39, the doubles luge competitor who was selected to carry the U.S. flag in the opening ceremony.

?You see a great deal of experience, not just learning how to train better, but how to compete better, but also just understanding yourself as an athlete that you can prepare and take those results to get into bigger events like this,? he said. ?So if you look at our 216 athletes, we feel that we've got one of the strongest teams here because of the quality across all the sports.?

[.Kompressor]

Well Done..."oh Canada....." :D

ps. great...Joni Mitchell song....boith sides now !! ....makes it more memorable or a lasting impression effect....

[rajputwarrior]

wayne gretzky was perfect for the last torch bearer... guy defines canada and sports

[morebaker]

Fire works were awesome.

[qdave]

No offence, but it was one of the most boring olympic opening ceremonies i've seen. A lot of nice artistic touches, but songs werent so good, apart from french guy and opera singer, who were great.

Also shame on cauldron being broke..poor Katherina :(

Still glad of the event.

[Rob2687]

I wonder what kind of projection system was used.

[morebaker]

Samsung :shifty:

[zivan56]

Loved the ceremonies...especially the fiddlers. Weren't boring like most...this was the first time I could watch the whole opening ceremonies ever.

The torch relay from the stadium to cauldron was so hard to watch, I kept thinking some drunk idiot would jump up onto the truck or like down in front of the convoy.

All in all, loved it. They needed more music performances though...

[xpablo]

Was very nice opening ceremonies, can't believe the 4th post of cauldron wouldn't come up.

I too was thinking some protester was going to jump Wayne Gretzky on the truck, I give it high marks but the F'n French was not needed, My opinion

French is not required or needs to be recognized anywhere west of Ontario.