Olympia is coming soon, only 1 day left!!!
The past weeks Olympia 2010 did not make the best headlines- lack of snow and rainfall in Whistler where most of the skiing events will take place, gave the organization committee some sleepless nights. But right in time hundreds of officials and volunteers managed it to get all venues prepared and ready to start off in time. The opening ceremony will take place this Friday February 12. Before that ski jumper will already have their first qualification on Friday morning. Then Saturday February 13, the 21st Olympic Winter Games will be kicked off- Ski Jumping, Men’s Downhill, Ice Hockey, Speed Skating, Biathlon, Freestyle Skiing, Luge, and Short Track. Then on Sunday and Monday the games continue with Nordic combined, Figure Skating, Cross Country Skiing, Curling and Snowboard races. The last day of the 21st Olympic Games will be on February 28 with a 50km cross country skiing race, the Men’s Ice Hockey Final game and the closing ceremony at night.

There will be 15 winter sports events which are announced as part of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The eight sports categorized as ice sports are: bobsled, luge, skeleton, ice hockey, figure skating, speed skating, short track speed skating and curling. The three sports categorized as alpine skiing and snowboarding events are: alpine, freestyle and snowboarding. The four sports categorized as Nordic events are: biathlon, cross country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined. So far ski jumping is only an Olympic discipline for men. In 2006, the IOC voted not to include women’s ski jumping in the 2010 Games on the grounds that the sport was not yet developed enough and did not meet basic criteria for inclusion. The members of the Canadian Women Ski Jumping Team filed a grievance with the Canadian Human Rights Board citing gender discrimination. So far the IOC has yet to comment or change its decision.
The number of National Olympic Committees that will enter teams in the 2010 Winter Olympics is projected to be over 80 representing more than 2630 athletes. Nations will be added as they qualify at least one athlete or team. Cayman Islands, Colombia, Ghana, Montenegro, Pakistan, Peru and Serbia will make their winter Olympic débuts. Also Jamaica, Mexico and Morocco will return to the games after missing the 2006 Winter Olympics. Tonga sought to make its Winter Olympic début by entering a single competitor in luge, attracting some media attention, but he crashed in the final round of qualifying. Luxembourg qualified two athletes but one did not reach the criteria set by the NOC and the other was injured before the games. Hence Luxembourg will not take part.
So only 2 days to go…get ready for two great weeks of winter sport with hopefully instead of bad injuries and doping issues a lot of fun, action, excitement and success stories !!! I will blog again next
Wednesday with the first update of results; hopefully I can already report some Olympic medals for the US or for my home Germany.