Vancouver View - IOC Reviews 2010 Preparations; 200,000 Tickets Offered on Saturday

IIHF president and IOC team head Rene Fasel was pleased with the results of a project review this week. (Getty Images)

IOC Makes Quick Review of Vancouver Olympics

(ATR) The head of an IOC team for the 2010 Olympics says he is pleased with the results of a project review this week that included exercises to test crisis readiness.

“We had a very good meeting,” Rene Fasel told reporters Thursday at the close of the review.

“I must say I was in a positive way surprised how ready they were.”

Fasel, Games executive director Gilbert Felli and IOC staff members met with VANOC counterparts for the review.

Part of the time was spent on a table-top exercise to test crisis plans for postponement or cancellation of events.

Felli said further refinements are being made to workforce accommodation in the Sea-to-Sky corridor and the transportation plan.

The IOC and VANOC also discussed ceremonies and the Whistler Celebration Plaza.

National Olympic committees from Canada, Norway, Sweden and United States were part of the review process.

The only venue not Games-ready is B.C. Place Stadium, site of the opening, closing and nightly medals ceremonies. It is amid a $327.8 million renovation through 2011.

An April 9 inspection report by the province workplace safety agency said workers who control the air-supported roof are not properly trained.

“We need to trust the laws of the country, the procedures of the country,” Felli said. “B.C. and Canada procedures will validate the access to public buildings or public venues.”

The full 2010 Coordination Commission meets for the last time in 2009 on Aug. 25-26 along with winter sports federations.

200K Tickets on Sale Saturday

The ticket manager for the Vancouver Olympic denies that unsold or returned sponsor tickets are the source of an additional 50,000 seats that will go on sale June 6.

A total of 200,000 tickets are included in Saturday’s start of the second phase of online ticket sales.

Ticketing vice president Caley Denton revealed at a news conference on Thursday that venue configuration and broadcast plans had changed. He says that meant an expansion of the ticket inventory.

The most-sought after tickets may be the 1,000 available for the men’s gold medal hockey game. All tickets are on sale first-come, first-served through vancouver2010.com in a sale organized by sponsor Tickets.com.

Denton showed-off designs for the Games tickets, which will be printed by Arkansas-based Weldon, Williams and Lick.

The in-house-designed graphics use the familiar green and blue look of the Games, including stylized images of athletes in action. The opening ceremony ticket depicts a lone torch runner approachingVancouver 2010 mascots display the ticket designs that will be used for the Winter Olympics. (ATR/B. Mackin)B.C. Place Stadium.

Denton said tickets would include bar codes, holograms and other anti-counterfeiting features, but no embedded computer chip.

A third ticket phase is planned for the fall when a ticket exchange website will launch. Denton said fees will be charged to both buyers and sellers. VANOC is considering allowing tickets to be sold on the exchange site for greater than face value.

Olympic Athletes “Protected” During 2010 Games

The IOC medical director said 50,000 condoms would be distributed free of charge at the Whistler and Vancouver villages.

Dr. Patrick Schamasch spoke at the opening of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine convention in Vancouver June 4.

He said 100,000 were distributed at Beijing 2008.

“Sport was not the only occupation of Games-time,” Schamasch said.

Any athleteIOC medical director Dr. Patrick Schamach said 50,000 free condoms would be distributed at the Whistler and Vancouver villages. (ATR/B. Mackin)who is injured or ill during the Games will be treated at an Olympic village polyclinic, venue medical centre or Vancouver General Hospital, the Olympic family hospital.

St. Paul’s is for spectator use.

Whistler does not have a full-scale hospital, so athletes needing treatment for life, limb or organ-threatening injuries will be treated in a mobile surgical unit. Otherwise, they will be airlifted to Vancouver.

Spectator medical centers at venues will be staffed mostly by nurses and first aid attendants.

Schamasch said the IOC policy is not to disrupt normal hospital operations.

VANOC Contracts Carbon Offset Dealer

VANOC announced its first new sponsor of 2009 this week when it held a clean air day sustainability fair indoors.

Offsetters, a University of B.C. business school spinoff, will assemble a portfolio of projects that are supposed to help VANOC atone for 110,000 tons of Games-time air pollution.

VANOC estimates the Games will produce 300,000 tons of emissions, so it will combine with Offsetters to convince Games partners, sponsors and participants to buy carbon offsets for the remaining 190,000 tons.

Offsetters earns commissions from carbon offset sales and acts as a consultancy. Tansey said the Offsetters VANOC sponsorship is worth around $4.49 million.

VANOC paid the David Suzuki Foundation $10,000 to create a 330,000-ton emissions estimate in 2007. VANOC sustainability vice-president Linda Coady said that estimate would be updated this fall.

(Prices reported in U.S. dollars unless noted. Exchange rate: USD$1=CAD$1.113)

With reporting from Bob Mackin in Vancouver.

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