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Report card from IOC

International Olympic Committee evaluation team reports on 2010 candidate cities today Is the Sea to Sky Highway a hurdle? Is there enough accommodation in Whistler and will it be a boon or a bust to have a covered stadium for the opening and closing

International Olympic Committee evaluation team reports on 2010 candidate cities today

Is the Sea to Sky Highway a hurdle?

Is there enough accommodation in Whistler and will it be a boon or a bust to have a covered stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games?

We may get the answers to some of these questions today as the International Olympic Committee releases its report on the evaluation team’s visits to the three candidate cities earlier this year.

The 15-member team visited all three of the candidate cities from mid February to mid March.

It visited Pyeongchang, Korea, first, then Vancouver-Whistler, and Salzburg, Austria last.

Salzburg is generally considered the front runner with Vancouver, voted the second most livable city in the world last month, a close second.

During the evaluation team visit all three candidate cities were praised and all three had challenges identified.

The evaluation is rather like a prospective buyer looking over a new car. The buyer wants to make sure what’s purchased lives up to its promises and performs as expected.

In Pyeongchang the evaluation team, led by Gerhard Heiberg, commented on the Korean bid’s attention to detail – a must-have characteristic to host a successful Games.

"…Everything is going very, very well," said Heiberg of the visit to Pyeongchang’s venues.

"The presentations are excellent. On our questions, the answers are excellent. So we are very happy."

But like all the bids the South Korean one faces challenges. They include a rail transport system that has yet to be built, a highway network that has not been tested, potentially limited accommodation options and venues that may be too far apart for spectators.

About half the facilities that would be needed don't exist. The government has pledged to build a high-speed rail link from Seoul to Pyeongchang but while that would speed people to and from the resort area, the roads are bad once you get there.

The South Korean bid committee doesn't seem daunted by the challenges and cites the country's record hosting other major sporting events.

When soccer's World Cup was held there last year, for example, South Korea spent nearly $1 billion US to build 10 new stadiums that many claim the country didn’t need and that have hardly been used since.

"Seoul doesn't even have a soccer team," says Bruce Dawson, a Canadian who worked as a public relations consultant to the World Cup organizers.

"And they weren't built to be used by other sports.

"But that's how they do it here. They see it as being about prestige in the world. They don't worry about the costs."

Korea's out-going president Kim Dae-jung pledged to spend $3.2 billion US to whip the proposed Olympic site into shape, and president-elect Roh Moo-hyun met with the committee to confirm his continued commitment.

Earlier this week South Korea indicated that it would consider co-hosting the Games with North Korea if Pyeongchang is chosen on July 2 to host the 2010 Games.

As for the province of Gangwon where the events will be held, Governor Kim Jin-sun doubles as the bid committee's executive director.

He orchestrated a warm welcome for the IOC technical committee with cultural events and thousands of waving supporters at key intersections through which they passed.

Bid committee members also found time to ski, and several of them murmured vague pleasantries about how nice it was.

Little was said about the Paralympics, which would be held at the same time at the same site.

But South Korean cities have never made much effort to be accessible to people with mobility disabilities. In downtown Seoul, for example, one sees virtually no one in a wheelchair since simply crossing a street – some as many as 18 lanes wide – involves going down and up 40 or 50 stairs to use a subway tunnel. There are steps everywhere, with very few ramps.

Committee member Rita Van Driel, of the Netherlands, has said that assessing accessibility is definitely on the evaluation committee's list. But she refused to say what she or others thought of what they'd seen in that regard in South Korea.

The South Koreans have said that hosting the Games would help ease tension along the border with North Korea, noting the Olympic movement "shares the view that it can play an important role in global reconciliation."

But if the nuclear crisis deepens, fears of Armageddon could put the kibosh on the South's bid.

There seems to be little doubt that the Vancouver-Whistler bid lived up to its billing during the evaluation team visit.

But despite the many positive attributes of the local bid it was challenges associated with the Sea to Sky highway which dominated the headlines during the evaluation team’s visit.

In an off-the-cuff remark Gerhard Heiberg, evaluation team chairman, told a Vancouver TV station that Whistler was too far from Vancouver.

Later he clarified the remark adding that he was pleased the highway was to be upgraded.

Indeed the $600 to $700 million government-funded upgrade is likely to shave 25 minutes off the commute during the Games.

The team also questioned the budget for security, which according to the Vancouver Bid Book is $116 million US.

Salt Lake City’s 2002 Winter Olympics spent $300 million US and Athens 2004 Summer Games are projected to spend $600 million US on security.

However, local bid proponents point out that the Salt Lake Games came just a year after the terrorist attacks on New York, and Athens – which is hosting the much larger Summer Games – must not only cope with the legacy of terrorism, but also the Iraq war and continuing unrest in the Middle East.

Hosting the opening ceremonies inside B.C. Place Stadium was also a new idea the evaluation team had to think about. Historically the ceremonies have always been held outside and historically many, many athletes have not attended in case it chilled them before competition.

Whistler and Vancouver also got high praise for the work the bid had done on making its plan sustainable.

The Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation has continued to work on refining its plans to host the Games said spokesman Sam Corea.

"We have made operational adjustments to our plan as required as pointed out to make it better but we are not making any wholesale changes to any of the venues," said Corea.

"Until we know what is raised in the report it is premature to respond to it. We are not going to submit a response to the report full of what we think the issues are today when they may not be an issue on Friday."

It is unlikely the evaluation team report will raise anything new. Indeed as Heiberg prepared to leave Vancouver he said if the city won the 2010 Games they could quite possibly be "the best Games ever."

Consequently when the evaluation team left Vancouver and Whistler the bid corporation was all smiles.

The smiles became slightly more forced as praise flowed for Salzburg, the evaluation team’s final port of call.

"There is no question about it, you have the best venues in the world," Heiberg told Salzburg at the end of the team’s four day visit to the candidate city.

However, Salzburg was also saddled with a fix-it list.

The bid’s transportation operating budget needs, "much, much, more," said Heiberg.

The evaluation team also raised concerns about the cramped nature of the finish area at the snowboarding venue in St. Johann and the 90-metre jump at Ramsau is too far from the nearest Olympic village at Amadé.

There were also some reservations voiced by evaluators about Salzburg’s plans to build a stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies between two bridges which cross the Salzach River.

Salzburg scored high in many areas including culture.

"From a cultural standpoint you actually have a very strong bid – nobody can beat you there," Heiberg told reporters in Salzburg.

"You would be second to nobody."

Salzburg, where one in every three residents are employed directly or indirectly in tourism, has to build four ice rinks, the Olympic Village and the site for the opening and closing ceremonies to host the event.

If Salzburg won the bid to host the 2010 Games it would be the first time the Games would be held in more than one country at once: Salzburg has opted to hold the luge and bobsleigh events in Koenigssee in the German state of Bavaria.