2010 Winter Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympics, and commonly known as Vancouver 2010, was a major international multi-sport event from February 12, 2010 to February 28, 2010, in Vancouver, with some sports being held at Whistler, Richmond and West Vancouver.

The Canadian Olympic Association chose Vancouver as the Canadian candidate city over Calgary, which sought to re-host the Games and Quebec City, which had lost the 2002 Olympic bid in 1995. On the first round of voting on November 21, 1998, Vancouver-Whistler had 26 votes, Quebec City had 25 and Calgary had 21. On December 3, 1998, the second and final round of voting occurred between the two leading contenders, which saw Vancouver win with 40 votes compared to Quebec City's 32 votes. Vancouver had also previously bid for the 1976 games, which were first awarded to Denver, then to Innsbruck and the 1980 games, which were awarded to Lake Placid.

Vancouver won the bid of the Olympic games in July 2, 2003, at the IOC Session at Prague, Czech Republic. The result was announced by Jacques Rogge.

Venues
Some venues were at sea level, a rarity of the Olympic Games. The 2010 Games were also the first—Winter or Summer—to have had an Opening Ceremony held indoors. Vancouver was the most populous city ever to hold the Winter Games. In February, the month when the Games were held, Vancouver has an average temperature of 4.8 °C (40.6 °F). The average temperature as measured at Vancouver International Airport was 7.1 °C (44.8 °F) for the month of February 2010.

The opening and closing ceremonies were at BC Stadium. The main media centre was at Main and Whistler, similar to House Island. The Whistler Olympic and Paralympic Village were their main hotels.


 * Canada Hockey Palace: Hockey
 * Cypress Mountain: Freestyle skiing, snowboarding
 * Pacific Colliseum: Figure skating, short track speed skating
 * Richmond Olympic Oval: Speed skating
 * UBC Thunderball: Ice hockey
 * Vancouver Olympic Centre: Curling
 * Whistler Creekside: Alpine skiing
 * Whistler Olympic Park: Biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping
 * Whistler Sliding Centre: Bobsleigh, luge, skeleton