Rain’s exit stops Games-bashing
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/02/2010 (5971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
VANCOUVER — The sun has come out and it seems the dark cloud that had been hanging over the Vancouver Games might be gone.
Vancouver Games officials say the weather is finally on their side. The sun is shining on the city, and on the troubled Cypress Mountain venue where incessant rain last week washed away some of the already scant snow.
“I was out this morning and the cherry trees are blossoming. The weather is beautiful,” said Renée Smith-Valade, spokeswoman for the Vancouver organizing committee, known as VANOC.
“The sports are fantastic. The athletes are happy. The people of Vancouver and Whistler and British Columbia, and I would dare say, Canada, are so proud.”
The mood seemed to brighten by Friday even among the international press, which has largely savaged the Games for everything from the weather to protests and a tragic training death at the luge track.
The vaunted New York Times declared Vancouver “gorgeous.”
“No need for an apology,” wrote Timothy Egan.
The Pulitzer-prize winning writer lauded our health-care system, our low murder rate and our “boring” banking system, which held steady even as the world economy pitched and reeled.
“But the rough patches in the opening days of the Games, and savaging from a snit-loving British press that has no athletic feats of its own to cover, have put Canadians on the defensive.”
Even the U.K.’s critical Guardian had a sheepish story Friday that acknowledged the British press has taken criticism of its own “for relentless negativity and schadenfreude — ill-timed, according to some, considering the proximity of London’s 2012 celebrations.”
Oh, what a difference a few days can make. The weather was no friend of Olympic organizers last week, when the temperate rainforest climate conspired to have these dubbed the “Rain Games.”
But now, Mark Adams, spokesman for the International Olympic Committee, said he’d been up to Cypress and the venue was looking “fantastic.”
“I think once the Games get going, beautiful weather, fantastic events, fantastic performances, the city of Vancouver is absolutely rammed, you can hardly move, the excitement is fantastic. It can only continue,” he told reporters.
— The Canadian Press