Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 17, 2010

'Free the flame': In Vancouver, the Winter Olympics 2010 symbolic, flaming Olympics torch is behind a wire fence, angering Olympic audiences... Globe and Mail editorial headlines read yesterday, 'Tear Down This Fence'

The worst thing that has happened at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver was the horrific fatal accident of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili during a pre-Olympics practice track run. But other problems are mounting at the Games, including the bizarre, prison-camp-like imprisonment of the symbolic Olympics torch, which is behind a wire fence.

Olympics officials are stunned by the growing outcry, and said they had underestimated how much attendees wanted to be close to the Games cauldron.

From David Warner, The Daily Loaf, The Olympics you don’t see on TV:

From the vantage point of NBC cameras, the Vancouver Olympics is a sea of cheery, cheering Canadians. And yes, the host country has clearly enjoyed some shining moments, most notably Canada’s first gold medal win on home soil (and with it, the genuinely touching saga of winning moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau).

But you want to know what it’s really like to be the resident of an Olympics city? Go to The Tyee, a daily online magazine in British Columbia.

The Tyee’s Olympics coverage includes stories like “Fill Your Opening Ceremony with Arts, then Cut Them” (about B.C.’s massive cuts to culture funding) and “What’s Driving Olympics Homeless Protesters” (about the shortage of low-income housing in Vancouver).

There’s also a feature called The People’s Podium, in which users get to choose their own Olympic winners and losers and hand out Penalty Box citations. For instance: “PENALTY BOX Go there directly, whoever ordered a chain link fence erected around the Olympic torch. What, no coils of razor wire?”

A weirdly hilarious photo of the incarcerated torch (and those pesky malfunctioning towers from the opening ceremonies) ran with this caption from photographer Tom Wiebe:

“People are demanding that it be freed but, the Olympic Cauldron, which has never been formally charged with any crime, remains behind the barricades at Camp Poole.”

Thousands of fans have been turned away from seeing popular snowboarder Shaun White because of melting snow. After winning US Olympic gold in 2006, White was featured on this cover of Rolling Stone magazine

From Bloomberg, Shaun White Fans Shut Out as Vancouver Olympic Glitches Pile Up:

(Bloomberg) — Damion Brown traveled to Vancouver from London to see U.S. Olympic snowboarder Shaun White catch some air today. After Olympic organizers canceled his ticket, he may not get a chance.

Brown is one of 28,000 ticket holders for the standing area at Cypress Mountain who won’t be able to watch snowboard and freestyle skiing events this week because heavy rains and mud made the area “unsafe,” according to Olympic organizers.

“This isn’t what I expected,” said Brown, 42, after traveling 7,660 kilometers (4,700 miles) to attend the Olympics.

Cancellation of the snowboard tickets is the latest glitch for Vancouver Games organizers, who also face growing criticism over long food lines at Cypress, access to the Olympic flame and a leaky ice-cleaning machine that forced delays in speedskating races.

[...]

At Cypress, organizers said they canceled the snowboard tickets after rain washed away much of the snow they had piled on bales of straw in the spectator areas. An absence of snow has created treacherous gaps between the bales, they said.

“It’s too unstable up there and too unsafe to have people in big numbers walking around the side of the courses,” Caley Denton, the Games’ head of ticketing, told reporters yesterday in Vancouver.

The Olympic flag flies near the finish area after heavy snowfall forced the postponement of the Men's super combined at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, Feb. 16, 2010... Olympic officials dismiss British media's claims that the Vancouver Olympics are among the worst Games in history. | Photo credit: AP Photo/Gero Breloer

From My Way News, A glitch for every gold at the Vancouver Games:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) – From fire to ice, nothing seems to be going right at the Olympics.

The torch malfunctioned. Warm weather turned the slopes and the event schedule to slop. A Zamboni had to ride to the rescue from Calgary following a meltdown at the speedskating rink.

By Tuesday, the Glitch Games were in full swing: 20,000 standing-room tickets for the snowboarding venue were voided because fans had fallen between the bales of hay under the melting layers of trucked-in snow.

Want to take a picture of the Olympic cauldron? Make sure that camera is pressed up against the chain-link fence – provided there’s room to squeeze in and a Vancouver 2010 banner isn’t in the way.

Organizers expect to unveil a plan Wednesday to address the rising public outcry and bring people closer to the flame, the most distinguished and enduring symbol of any Olympics.

“Perhaps,” conceded Renee Smith-Valade, a spokeswoman for the organizing committee, “we did underestimate the degree to which people would want to get close to it.”

Perhaps. At a press conference, a Canadian TV reporter asked organizers why the flame was hidden behind “a ratty-looking prison-camp fence.” And the Globe and Mail newspaper chose to allude to another Olympic city – Berlin.

Addressing the head of the Vancouver Games, the paper cried: “Mr. Furlong, tear down this fence!”

Of course, no scheduling or logistics issue – or sporting event, for that matter – seems significant in light of the death of a Georgian luger on the first day of the Olympics.

And, to be fair, there have been bright spots. Moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau gave Canada its first gold medal in three home Olympics. NHL superstar Sidney Crosby has the Canadian men’s hockey team looking for gold. NBC ratings have been strong.

But aside from that, it’s been one problem after another for a games governed not so much by the Olympic creed as by Murphy’s Law. Shades of Atlanta.

The canceled tickets at Cypress Mountain – 28,000 in all – mean about $1.5 million in lost revenue for the games, and disappointment for people who spent $50 to $65 to see events like the halfpipe and snowboardcross.

They’ll get refunds, although anyone who bought secondhand may be out of luck. Fans whose tickets were still good, and who went up the mountain Tuesday to see events, were treated to blinding snow.

Athletes weren’t spared, either. Timing foulups marred both biathlon events Tuesday. A Swedish woman was held up at her start gate for 14 seconds, and two of the men went off too early. Officials later corrected for the errors.

“It is embarrassing,” said Norbert Baier, the International Biathlon Union’s technical delegate. “Why do we have this incompetence?

From MSNBC, Olympic organizers take a beating:

…Things such as the fact that bus drivers, who are supposed to be shuttling ticket holders to events, have been getting lost on their way to the venues. And that shuttle buses have been breaking down and have to be replaced. There also have been a lot of complaints about long lines at concession stands.

The Olympic torch cauldron has been a major point of contention. The cauldron stands behind a chain-link fence. It’s not only unsightly, but it makes it extremely difficult for Olympic fans to take photos of. One reporter called the barricade in front of the torch “a tacky looking prison-type fence” that blocks the public’s view of the Olympic torch.

At Tuesday’s briefing VANOC said it is close to unveiling a plan to address complaints that the cauldron is inaccessible to the public and will likely announce it on Wednesday.

Another reporter noted that lots of VIP sections at the events are empty, while regular folks can’t get tickets to some of these events.

One reporter even asked if this was the “worse beginning of the games ever?”

Also from Bloomberg:

Cypress also suffered a power outage, and spectators have complained about waiting two to three hours in line for food and hot drinks, according to a report in the Vancouver Sun.

From Seattle Times, Woe, Canada! Olympic problems and missteps pile up:

The cancellation of 20,000 more tickets to events at Cypress Mountain, on top of myriad other woes, is putting Vancouver Olympics organizers increasingly on the defensive as they attempt to salvage the world’s impressions of the Games taking place here.

In an hourlong Tuesday briefing touching on everything from transportation snafus to equipment failures to weather woes to the prison-camp look of the Olympic caldron display, some reporters demanded to know if this might be the worst start ever to an Olympic Games.

Clearly concerned about the way these Olympics are being portrayed internationally, Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade said, “We’ve seen some press from Britain that we have looked at and wondered which city the reporter is reporting from. It doesn’t feel like it’s here.”

[...]

By far the biggest pall was cast even before the Games opened, with the Friday death at Whistler of Georgian luge racer Nodar Kumaritashvili triggering controversy about safety of the track.

And since then, the problems and gaffes just seem to keep coming.

Friday evening, as the world watched on television, one of four huge pillars intended to light the caldron at the Opening Ceremony failed to rise.

At the beginning of this week, the ice-resurfacing equipment broke down two days in a row at the Richmond Olympic Oval, delaying speedskating events by up to an hour. VANOC is bringing in a replacement from Calgary, but reporters asked why a backup wasn’t closer at hand.

From Montreal Gazette, Ticket woes, event errors dog Games:

A series of errors made by Olympic officials in Tuesday’s biathlon left some attacking the integrity of the event. Three critical timing errors were made in the women’s biathlon 10-kilometre pursuit — including one with medal implications.

In a critical piece written by the Guardian’s reporter in Vancouver, headlined “Vancouver Games continue downhill slide from disaster to calamity,” the British newspaper said the title of “worst Games ever” is up for grabs.

“It is hard to believe anything will surpass the organizational chaos and naked commercial greed of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta or the financial disaster of the 1976 Games, which bankrupted Montreal, yet with every passing day the sense of drift and nervousness about the Vancouver Games grows ever more noticeable,” says the story.

The Times Online covered Canada’s historic first gold medal on home turf with the headline: “Canada salvages gold from wreckage of tarnished Vancouver Olympics.”

From Mail Online, The Olympics omen: Riots, traffic chaos and £2.4bn overspend… are the Vancouver Winter Games a portent for London 2012:

Welcoming the world under the slogan ‘With Glowing Hearts’, they are the final Olympics before the games come to London.

The words, from the Canadian national anthem, are meant to capture the country’s pride, commitment and passion at hosting one of the world’s greatest sporting events.

But just a few days in, the Vancouver Winter Olympics have produced nothing but pain and heartache – raising fears that something similar could happen at the summer games in London in 2012.

Related reading:
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Following Olympian Luger’s Death, Shortened Luge Track Trickier, Upsets Olympic Women, Many Have Fears (video) and E-Waste First: Olympic Medals Made from Gold, Silver, & Copper Recovered from Electronic Waste and Controversial Video of Olympian Nodar Kumaritashvili’s Luge Crash, via Associated Press (video) – Update: Olympics Protest Video Added and Kumaritashvili’s Tragic Death: Olympics Athletes Worry about Safety of Luge Track, Google Logo Honors Luge Athlete Killed — Update: Google Luge Logo Removed and SHOCKER: Luge Athlete, 21-Year-Old Nodar Kumaritashvili from Georgia, Killed on Olympic Track — Updated
The Conservative Pup: Favorite Olympic Moments: 1988 Calgary, Midori Ito
Trophies Trophy: Women’s lugers upset with Olympics track
Daily Contributor: Olympic Luge Track Altered After Athlete’s Death
Byline to Finish Line: Finding Olympic spirit in tragedy
News Daily: Luge death darkens mood as Winter Games open
Gateway Pundit: Olympic Luger Thrown From Sled & Hits Steel Pole – Dies (Graphic Video)
Patterico’s Pontifications: Luge Death at the Olympics
New York Daily News: Nodar Kumaritashvili dies in vain if IOC doesn’t make changes to ‘deadly’ events
DuniyaLive.com: Luge Crash Death: Nodar Kumaritashvili was not a reckless driver, claims Georgia
New York Times: Olympic Luger from Republic of Georgia Dies After Crash During Training Run

Categories: International Relations, Media & Communication, Social and Political Climate, Sports, Athletes
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