|
| |
Some Facts
Host selection process
Main article: 2006 Winter Olympic bids
Turin was chosen as the host of the Olympics in 1999, defeating Sion in
Switzerland by 53 votes to 36. This was just after the IOC had adopted new
election procedures during the 108th Extraordinary IOC Session in light of the
corruption scandals surrounding the votes for the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics.
Since IOC members were forbidden to visit the candidate cities (in the interests
of reducing bribery), the 109th IOC Session elected a special body, the
Selection College, to choose finalist cities from the pool of candidate cities
after each had made their final presentations to the full IOC Session; the full
IOC Session will then vote on the cities chosen as finalist cities by the
Selection College. Although six cities launched candidacies and made
presentations to the full IOC Session in Seoul in June 1999, the Selection
College chose only two cities to go forward to be voted upon by the full IOC
Session: Sion and Turin. The candidacies of Helsinki, Finland; Poprad-Tatry,
Slovakia; Zakopane, Poland; and Klagenfurt, Austria were dropped by the
Selection College after all six candidate cities made their candidate
presentations to the full session [1].
The selection of Turin over Sion came as a surprise, since Sion was the
overwhelming favorite. Media speculation was that the choice of Turin was due to
the combination of four factors: Turin's overwhelming population size difference
(Turin-1.5 mil, Sion-27,000), the skills of the Italian bid team, the IOC's
desire to compensate Italy for the recent selection of Athens over Rome for the
2004 Summer Olympics, and finally a way to retaliate against Switzerland for the
whistleblower role played by IOC member Marc Hodler in the revelation of the
2002 corruption scandal. [citation needed]
Organization
Out of 40,000 applicants, 20,000 volunteers were selected to help the athletes,
spectators and journalists, and to prepare the competition sites.
Construction
"Palasport Olimpico"65 sporting facilities, various infrastructures, sport
villages for athletes and media, and transportation infrastructures were
constructed for a total of 1.7 billion euros[2].
Among the most important sporting facilities that were used:
The Stadio Olimpico (Turin) (formerly known as Comunale stadium);
5 sports halls (3 new, 2 rearranged): the "Palazzo a Vela" designed by Gae
Aulenti (to host short track and ice skating), the Oval Lingotto (speed ice
skating), Torino Esposizioni (ice hockey), the Ice stadium in corso Tazzoli, the
Palasport Olimpico designed by Arata Isozaki (ice hockey);
The Olympic arch of Torino;
Olympic villages of Torino, Bardonecchia e Sestriere;
The ice stadium in Pinerolo, re-arranged and enlarged, to host the curling
competition;
A new stadium in Torre Pellice (ice hockey);
12 new intermediate-level ski lifts in Cesana Torinese, Cesana San Sicario,
Sestriere, Bardonecchia, Claviere, Sauze d'Oulx;
di Pragelato;
The tracks for bobsled, luge, and skeleton in Cesana (the second international
track in Italy, along with the one in Cortina d'Ampezzo);
The most important transport infrastructure works were:
The Torino Subway (VAL system), which for the Olympic games will connect
Collegno to the railway station of Porta Susa.
The upgrade of 11 state roads and motorways connecting Turin with other Olympic
sites.
In the city, from the urban point of view, the main developments were the
Palafuksas, a glass building designed by Massimiliano Fuksas, the new civic
library designed by Mario Bellini, the new Modern Art Gallery and the great
project of the "Spina", that will provide urban regeneration over an area of 2
million square meters through the construction of an underground urban railway
and the re-utilization of abandoned industrial areas.
Broadcasting
The 2006 Olympic Winter Games were broadcasted worldwide by a number of
television broadcasters:
An extensive list of official broadcasters is found at The Games on Television
section of the Torino Games official site.
The BBC provided television and radio coverage of the winter Olympics in the UK
- the TV coverage was presented mainly by Grandstand regulars such as Hazel
Irvine and Clare Balding. Most of the coverage was shown on BBC2, with some on
BBC1, and there was also BBCi for Freeview, Satellite and Cable (digital TV)
viewers, providing an extra two screens where as all 4 interactive streams were
available to UK users only on bbc.co.uk and Digital Satellite such as Sky
Digital.
CBC, Radio-Canada, TSN, RDS, and CBC Country Canada broadcasted the 2006 winter
Olympics in Canada, with CBC Radio One, CBC Newsworld and RDI providing Olympic
news and updates.
NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network, Telemundo, and Universal HD broadcasted the
winter Olympics in the USA. (American Forces Network rebroadcasted some of this
coverage for military personnel serving outside the United States.)
Seven Network broadcasted the games in Australia.
TVNZ broadcasted the Winter Olympic Games in New Zealand.
TV 2 broadcasted the games in Denmark.
MediaCorp 5 broadcasted the games in Singapore.
Astro broadcasted the games in Malaysia.
CCTV-5 broadcasted the games in the People's Republic of China.
ARD and ZDF broadcasted the winter Olympics in Germany every second day each.
France 2 and France 3 broadcasted the winter Olympics in France.
Eurosport and BNT broadcasted the winter Olympics in Bulgaria.
RAI broadcasted the games in Italy.
Channel 2 broadcasted the games in Israel.
HRT broadcasted the games in Croatia.
ORF broadcasted the winter Olympics in Austria.
SF and TSR broadcasted the winter Olympics in Switzerland.
Televisa and TV Azteca broadcasted the games in Mexico.
YLE broadcasted the winter Olympics in Finland.
NRK and SportN broadcasted the winter Olympics in Norway.
SVT broadcasted the winter Olympics in Sweden with Peter Jihde as main
presenter.
NOS on Nederland 2 broadcasted the winter Olympics in The Netherlands
Sportv on the Sportv 2, a Globosat sports channel, broadcasted for the first
time the Winter Olympics in Brazil. Bandsports features daily 1-hour specials
and Olympic news bulletins.
RTS broadcasted the winter Olympics in Serbia.
RTCG broadcasted the winter Olympics in Montenegro.
Česká televize broadcasted the winter Olympics in Czech Republic. It introduced
a new sport channel called "ČT4 Sport" on the occasion of the start of the
winter Olympics.
Televiziunea Română and Eurosport broadcasted the winter Olympics in Romania
Eurosport also provided live coverage of events to viewers across the EU and
Europe. The BBC also broadcasted many events live over the Internet for free
viewing by internet users in the United Kingdom.
Olympic problems
Bankruptcy threats
The financial situation of the Organizing Committee has gradually become more
and more difficult. The latest development was a 64 million euro financial
shortfall appearing at the end of 2005, mainly due to the fact that Italy's
draft budget for 2006 did not include the government's promised final 40 million
euro allocation to Olympic organizers. This shortfall could have led the Torino
2006 Games to declare bankruptcy. The concerns went as far as starting to define
the first step of a bankruptcy procedure for Torino 2006, which could have
happened if the organizing committee had failed to approve its budget at a
January 20, 2006 board meeting. Finally, the Italian Government promised to
cover the shortfall.
Subway
The subway was finally opened to the public on February 4 after long delays. It
operates on a shorter stretch (XVIII Dicembre to Fermi - 11 stations) than
originally foreseen, only reaching the main railway station (Porta Nuova) and
the rest of the city centre one year after the Games. For the duration of the
Games, a single ticket (5 euros) covered use of both the subway and other means
of public transportation for a whole day.
Weather
A number of Alpine competitions were delayed because of low visibility caused by
snowfall. Despite these events being postponed, most were later held in better
weather without any problems.
Doping
Italian police raided the Austrian athletes' quarter in search of evidence of
doping. They got suspicious when the biathlon coach Walter Mayer, who was banned
from all olympic events upto and including the Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010
due to previous doping convictions, showed up. Around the time of the raid Mayer
and two Austrian biathletes tried to escape and fled back to Austria. After some
days the results of the tests of all 10 tested Austrian athletes were presented
and were all negative.
List of athletes with doping convictions in these Games:
Olga Pyleva who the silver medal in 15km biathlon event.
Ratings
Several news organizations reported that many Americans are not as interested in
the Olympics as in years past [3]. It has been suggested that reasons for this
disinterest include the tape delayed coverage, which showed events in prime-time
as much as 18 hours late in the West, and also due to the lack of success
achieved by big-name American athletes. [4]
In Canada, CBC's coverage has also posted disappointing numbers, which were
reduced as the Canadian men's hockey team was eliminated early in the
competition. Primetime ratings reached only as high as #7 in the weekly ratings.
However, ratings for live, afternoon coverage have attracted 300,000 more
viewers than the taped, primetime coverage. Overall, only primetime coverage has
suffered, dropping 45 per cent from the 2002 Games, with the entire coverage
being 52 per cent ahead from 2002. [5] [6] [7] Meanwhile on TSN, the numbers for
its live curling coverage (which aired as early as 3:00am EST) were between
300,000 and 500,000 viewers. [8]
Security measures
As with every Olympics since the 1972 Olympics in Munich and increasingly since
the 2002 Winter Olympics, there was heavy security due to fears of terrorism.
The organizers further increased security measures [9] in connection with the
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and insisted that the Olympic
Games were going to be safe, which they were; the Olympics concluded without a
major breach of security occuring.
| |
|
