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It all started seven years ago with this: "The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing that the twenty-first Olympic Winter Games in 2010 are awarded to the city of Vancouver!"
And with that, preparations began for Canada's first Olympic games in twenty-two years!
A lot has gone into making Canada shine, and with good reason. Come February 12th, an estimated three billion sets of eyes will be on us. More than a hundred million dollars has been poured into 'Own The Podium', an initiative to help ensure our athletes win on home turf.
But there's a lot more that had to be done to get ready - housing for almost seven thousand athletes and officials, venues for eighty-six sporting events, plus accommodation and amenities for more than two hundred and fifty thousand expected spectators.
The guy in charge of much of that? John Furlong.
He led Vancouver's successful bid for the games, and is now CEO of the Olympic Organizing Committee. In short, he's the guy making sure things run smoothly. And so far, so good.
The venues are built and tested, and officials say they're pretty much within budget - roughly 1.8 billion.
Mind you, the media says it'll be much higher. Up to six billion dollars, including infrastructure improvements and security. And well, the bottom line matters, because no one wants another Olympics legacy like Montreal's, which left the city one-point-six billion dollars in the hole.
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