Vancouver bids for 2010 Games

LONDON (Reuters) -- Vancouver pledged to improve road links with the Whistler ski resort after handing in its formal bid to stage the 2010 Winter Olympics on Thursday.

Vancouver is considered the favorite for the Games but its Achilles heel could be the narrow, twisting road linking the British Columbian city to the Whistler resort, about 125km to the north.

Bid committee chairman Jack Poole said a maximum of C$670 million would be spent on the highway and there would be a minimum of three lanes "all the way" to Whistler by the time of the Games.

This figure is not included in the Games budget of C$2.1 billion, of which 800 million would be spent on capital projects and security. The provincial and national governments will split spending more or less 50/50, he told Reuters.

Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell said his city's bid deserved to be the favorite and the experience of Montreal's staging of the 1976 Summer Olympics, which left local authorities with substantial debts, was irrelevant.

"We offer unsurpassed visual beauty and facilities," Campbell said. "Montreal is not a worry for the people of Vancouver, money is not a huge issue for us as the costs have been identified and the money raised.

"There is not a real Montreal spectre."

Campbell and Poole were speaking from Lausanne where they handed in Vancouver's official "bid books" spelling out their plans to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Bids by rivals Salzburg of Austria and South Korea's Pyeong Chang must also be handed over by January 10.

Poole believes the Vancouver bid will score well with the IOC on environmental grounds, one of the key areas of concern for Winter Olympic bids.

"Sustainability has been at the top of our minds," he said. "Environmentally it's about as benign as you can imagine."

Organizers will have to construct a luge track and a venue for the cross-country skiing but the Nordic events are being held in an area already cleared for an old mining claim.

The venues built in Vancouver will be on cleared urban land, Poole said.

South Korea to present 2010 bid to IOC

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The South Korean bid committee for the 2010 Winter Olympics will present its plans to the International Olympic Committee this week, officials said Thursday.

Choi Sung-hoh, secretary-general of the bid committee, will make the presentation Friday at the IOC's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, said Kim Jin-sun, governor of Gangwon province.

The province in eastern South Korea hopes to host the 2010 Winter Games at Pyeongchang, a mountain resort.

The governor said the presentation will include letters from outgoing South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who takes office Feb. 25.

Pyeongchang is competing against Salzburg, Austria, and Vancouver, Canada. The IOC will make a final decision on July 2 in Prague, Czech Republic, after inspections of each site.

The inspection of Pyeongchang is scheduled for Feb. 14-17.

Pyeongchang is a small rural town 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Seoul. It is surrounded by thickly wooded, high mountain ridges which provide ideal ski slopes. Organizers have offered to use three separate ski resorts in the area for the games.

The Winter Olympics have been held only twice in Asia -- in Japan in 1972 and 1998.

 

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Both the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.