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The 2010 Winter Games were the third Olympics to be hosted by Canada, and the first to be held within the province of British Columbia. Canada had hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta.
- Overview
- Vancouver City Information
- Notable Events from the Vancouver Winter Games
The XXI Olympic Winter Games opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on February 12 and closed on February 28, 2010. To celebrate the Games, Britannica is pleased to offer a broad selection of information on Vancouver and the Olympics, including a video highlighting the city’s history and geography; an interactive map of the Olympic venues; a brief history of the Winter Olympic Games and past Canadian Games, with tables featuring International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidents, sites of the Olympic Games through the years, and medal winners of 2006; a colourful photo gallery; and daily highlights of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Vancouver’s Olympic quest began in 1998, when the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) selected the city over Calgary and Quebec for Canada’s bid to host the 2010 Winter Games. The bid was technically a joint venture between Vancouver and the Coast Mountains resort town of Whistler, which lies about 70 miles (110 km) north of Vancouver and was the proposed site of most of the Games’ skiing and sliding events. The Vancouver bid to host the Games was shortlisted along with those from Bern, Switzerland, P’yŏngyang, North Korea, and Salzburg, Austria, in August 2002. Bern withdrew its bid one month later after a referendum indicated that most Bern voters did not want to pay for the Games. On July 2, 2003, the final vote of the IOC was held in Prague. In the first round of balloting, P’yŏngyang captured 51 votes, while Vancouver trailed in second place with 40 and Salzburg received 16. Salzburg was eliminated for the second round of voting, which Vancouver won 56 to 53, bringing the Olympic Games to Canada for a third time (Montreal had hosted in 1976 and Calgary in 1988).
Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet (an arm of the Strait of Georgia) to the north and the Fraser River delta to the south, opposite Vancouver Island. The city is just north of the U.S. state of Washington. It has a fine natural harbour on a superb site facing the sea and mountains.
Vancouver was originally a small sawmilling settlement, called Granville in the 1870s. It was incorporated as a city in April 1886 (just before it became the western terminus of the first trans-Canada railway, the Canadian Pacific) and was renamed to honour the English navigator George Vancouver, of the Royal Navy, who had explored and surveyed the coast in 1792. In 1929 two large suburbs to the south, Point Grey and South Vancouver, amalgamated with Vancouver, and its metropolitan area became the third most populous in Canada. By the 1930s Vancouver was Canada’s major Pacific coast port. After World War II it developed into Canada’s main business hub for trade with Asia and the Pacific Rim.
•February 12:
•Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after crashing during a practice run hours before the Vancouver Olympic Games were set to open.
•Technical difficulties caused delays at the opening ceremonies—the first Olympic opening ceremonies held indoors—which featured Canadian Olympic greats such as skier Nancy Greene, ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, and basketball player Steve Nash.
•February 13:
•Simon Ammann of Switzerland was awarded the first gold medal of the Vancouver Olympics after winning the normal hill ski jumping event.
•Slovakia’s Anastazia Kuzmina won the first Winter Olympic gold medal in her country’s history by scoring a surprise victory in the women’s 7.5-km biathlon sprint.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Feb 12, 2010 · For the 2010 Winter Games, Whistler hosted Olympic and Paralympic Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing and biathlon, as well as Olympic Nordic combined, ski jumping, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton. Olympic and Paralympic Villages and media facilities were located in Vancouver and Whistler.
The Olympics came to Canada for a third time in 2010, as Vancouver was the site of the XXI Olympic Winter Games ( Montreal had hosted the Summer Games in 1976 and Calgary the Winter Games in 1988).
t. e. Part of a series on. 2010 Winter Paralympics. Bid process. Venues. Mascot. Torch relay. Opening ceremony ( flag bearers) Medal table ( medalists) Event calendar.
Feb 28, 2010 · The 2010 Winter Olympic Games were held from 12 to 28 February 2010 in Vancouver, Canada with the participation of approximately 2,600 athletes from 82 nations. In association with International Olympic Committee
The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games and also known as Vancouver 2010 , were an international winter multi-sport event held from February 12 to 28, 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the surrounding suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University of British Columbia ...