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Olympic decision too close for comfort

PRAGUE — Gerhard Heiberg, the Norwegian head of the IOC team that evaluated the three candidates to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, had a feeling.

PRAGUE — Gerhard Heiberg, the Norwegian head of the IOC team that evaluated the three candidates to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, had a feeling.

"Yes," he said moments after the IOC members awarded the 2010 Games to Vancouver-Whistler by a narrow 56-53 vote over Pyeongchang, Korea on Wednesday, "I had a feeling for how things would end.

"I expected (the result) for the last couple of days. Of course I didn’t know (for sure) but I had expected that this would be the result."

International Olympic Committee members voted twice in Prague, with Salzburg getting dropped from the second ballot. Heiberg wouldn't say how he voted.

But the final result was too close for most of the members of the Vancouver-Whistler team.

"I thought I kept myself fairly well under control – until Hugh O'Reilly hugged me with tears streaming down his face," said MLA Ted Nebbeling, the provincial minister responsible for the bid.

"And then we were both balling our eyes out. It's unbelievable. You have to experience it."

"Unbelievable" was also the first word out of Mayor O'Reilly's mouth.

"You know, it was so close," he said.

"Those guys made such a great bid, at the last minute I was really worried. And when Salzburg came out I went, 'Oh my god', because they were the front runners.

"It’s just unbelievable. We are going to host the Winter Olympics in our community – we had that vision in the ’60s, and now we're going to realize it, 50 years later. That is unbelievable. I'm still stunned."

Olympic medallist and champion downhill racer Steve Podborski has been in some close battles in his ski racing career, but few have been tighter than this Olympic vote.

"It's hard to say if anything’s been tighter than this," said Podborski. "Although I have to say that (it doesn’t matter if) you win by a little or you win by a lot, just as long as you win. In downhill skiing I've won by hundredths of a second and by half a second. This goes into the former category."

But one man who wasn't surprised by the result was IOC President Jacques Rogge.

"Obviously the best bid won," Rogge said at a press conference following the announcement, held in Prague's Hilton Hotel.

Rogge said an Olympic bid is ultimately about people, rather than bricks and mortar, and the Vancouver bid reflected that.

The Austrian delegation, which included Podborski’s old rival Franz Klammer, was stunned to have garnered only 16 votes on the first ballot. But Podborski said the Vancouver-Whistler victory wasn’t about settling scores with an old rival.

"This was more than just a thing about me and Franz Klammer," said Podborski.

"I can tell you it’s about a whole range of issues and opportunities and all I can say in the end is that we’re delighted to have the chance to represent our country in this way. It’s the biggest thing you can do in sport and it will help our athletes down the road. We'll have bricks, we’ll have mortar and we’ll have money."

Doug Forseth, vice-president of operations for Whistler-Blackcomb, focused on the consequences for the province and the country.

"I think this is big for B.C. and for Canada, especially the closer you get to the Games the more impact there's going to be," Forseth said.

"But B.C., Vancouver, Whistler – I think this is going to be the catalyst that's going to get our economy moving again. I think this is so valuable in many ways, not just sports – sports are critical – but business in general, and culture. The whole attitude of the province is going to be up, it's going to be positive.

"We've got to focus now so we can say this is a good thing to happen, and not maybe all the small stuff we've been talking about before. This is important. It doesn't get any better."

Squamish Nation Chief Gibby Jacob was also coming to grips with what the Olympics will mean.

"It just means the world to myself personally," he said. "I worked with a lot of great people putting the bid together…

"The benefits that we’ve gotten from this already are great. It’s only going to get better and it’s my belief it’s going to be good for everybody. We’re going to try to make that happen."

Asked if he’d ever been through anything like the Olympic vote before Jacob said: "Oh no. The closest I came to this was when my wife had our baby daughter – the wait killed me."

Forseth said the five-years of work that went into the Olympic bid all came pouring out when Rogge announced the results of the vote.

"I don’t think I’ve ever felt this emotion and the surge of adrenaline and energy I’ve just experienced going through the room right now. I feel rung out, but I’m so high right now I’m just… the effect of the moment and the experience, and also the fact that we’re going to be able to host the 2010 Games.

"It’s a whole new life, it’s a very sensational start to what I hope is going to be a very promising future for British Columbia and Canada and Whistler," Forseth said. "This is what we’ve been working for, what we now have. Now we can go make it as good as it can be. I think we're capable of doing that. We’ve been performing on a world stage to get this far, we now have a platform to really perform and show the world what we can do.

"It doesn't get any better."

The next focus will be on dissolving the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation and creating a new organizing committee to build the Olympic facilities, including the Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley and the Sliding Centre on Blackcomb.

O’Reilly predicted a bit of a lull.

"There’s going to be a lot of background work to get in (to) finish doing the due diligence. It’s a lot of technical stuff," the mayor said.

"Then we'll form the organization committee, we’ll form that as quickly as we possibly can. Make our appointments, make sure we get our leadership and our staff in place…"

Some of the first steps taken will be initiating a communication plan, a tourism plan to take advantage of the publicity leading up to the 2010 Games, and a business plan.

"How we engage all those communities in the province and really take this to the highest level, to the best benefit of British Columbians and Canadians is the next step," O’Reilly said.

"I think people are going to be amazed at what we can accomplish. We never said we'd be the best Games, we said we'd be the best that we can be. And we walked that line. I thought we were just fantastic in our presentation, we were respectful, we were Canadian and I think that stood us in good stead.

"But boy oh boy, that was way too close."

Voting

First round

Pyeongchang 51

Vancouver 40

Salzburg 16

Second round

Vancouver 56

Pyeongchang 53