John Furlong, president and chief operating officer of the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corp., kicked things off with the first of many presentations expected during the IOC visit.
Delegation members spent the morning in a conference room decorated with aboriginal art, high-tech monitors and images of what the Vancouver Games would look like.
The bid committee hopes to impress the 18-member delegation not only on the region's physical beauty, but also the bid's technical competence.
John Furlong, President and COO of the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corp., answers a reporter's question during a Sunday press conference. (CP Photo/Richard Lam)
"We want to leave the impression we have technically prepared well," John Furlong said Saturday.
"We also want to leave the commission with the sense that we understand that this is first and foremost about athletes and the entire plan is athlete friendly."
The inspection team includes former athletes, leaders from previous host committees, as well as IOC officials. They'll be evaluating everything from security, culture, marketing, environmental protection, transportation, technology and even weather.
"The people on this committee have wide-ranging skills," Furlong said. "International sports federations are represented, the environment is represented. We have people with expertise in accommodation. There are four past Olympic cities represented as well."
Some visit details are being kept secret for security reasons. However, Prime Minister Jean Chretien will ski in Whistler Monday and is expected to attend a social function featuring different Canadian cultures on Tuesday.
Transportation concerns, chiefly the Sea-To-Sky Highway which links Vancouver and Whistler, is expected to be another top priority for the IOC delegation. The narrow 110-kilometre stretch of highway, with its picturesque ocean views and sharp mountain turns, could be one of the stumbling blocks for the Vancouver bid.
The B.C. government has already promised to spend $600 million to improve the highway.
"I am very much aware of the problems," said inspection team leader Gerhard Heiberg of Norway "That's why we want to drive it."
After the tour, the IOC team will write an evaluation report, which is supposed to be made public May 2. The team has already done its inspection of Pyeongchang, South Korea, and next will travel to Salzburg, Austria.
The Vancouver bid committee pocketed a recent PR victory after a favourable referendum in the city. That's not to say everybody's been won over, however. There are some anti-Olympic protests planned during the IOC visit.
But former IOC vice-president Dick Pound says he thinks the organization won't be daunted by the protests.
"The IOC is used to taking games all around the world," he said, "and probably it would be more suspicious if there were 100-per-cent approval in a western democracy."
Pound says Vancouver is the best city in the running and predicts the IOC group could be very impressed.
But politics will play as much of a role as bid specifics in the selection campaign, he says.
"There will be some that vote on a continental rotation. There's some who will vote out of a personal predilection for one site or another, and there will be a lot of a strategic voting."
Pound says European countries looking to the 2012 Summer Games stand a better chance if the 2010 Winter Games are awarded to a North American city.
As part of the effort to sell the bid, there were will be a giant party along three blocks of Robson Street on Sunday from 12 noon until 5 p.m. There will be rock bands, a bobsled track, an artificial ice rink and even a ski jump.
with files from Canadian Press and vancouver.cbc.ca
