Leto

an oldie...but here's the gauntlet:



---------- Post added at 09:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:12 AM ----------

So, the Olympics are on. The el Nino weather isn't cooperating. There's a big-assed chain link fence segregating the Olympic flame from the masses. A poor soul loses his life in the pursuit of his dream. There seems to be a bitter-sweet pall hanging over these games. But because they are top of mind, the sharks are out to feed with some calling this the worst games ever:

Vancouver Games glitches get global attention
Games troubles mocked by international media as assertive Canadians lose niceness crown
February 17, 2010
PETTI FONG
ROBERT CRIBB

VANCOUVER–VANOC has problems and so does Sara Kneller, who is about to travel halfway around the world to get to Cypress Mountain.

VANOC's problems: wet weather; fog; concession stands breaking down; ticket cancellations; and criticism from the international media about poorly organized events.

Kneller's problem: She's one of the 20,000 ticket holders who just learned that VANOC has cancelled the spots where she can watch the competition next week.

"We're still planning to come over and we're hoping, hoping, hoping that somehow we can find a ticket," says Kneller, whose son Scott is competing in men's ski cross on Sunday for the Australian team. VANOC has cancelled all the standing-room seats for all the snowboard half-pipe, ski cross and snowboard parallel giant slalom events until the end of the Games.

And there were fresh concerns overnight, as several people were injured when a concert barrier collapsed at a free concert in Vancouver.

The barricade faltered when a crowd of Olympic partygoers surged forward during a set by Canadian band Alexisonfire. Nineteen people were injured and nine were taken to hospital. The concert and planned fireworks were cancelled, though organizers expected the venue to reopen Wednesday.

Meanwhile, construction workers used heavy machinery overnight to make modifications to the concrete barriers surrounding the plaza that hosts the Olympic cauldron. Visitors and Vancouverites have been sharply critical of the security fence that separate revelers seeking pictures from the Olympic flame, and even some IOC members have complained privately.

Earlier this week, VANOC cancelled 8,000 tickets for Monday and Tuesday snowboard cross events because warm wind and heavy rain melted the snow, leaving exposed the soggy hay bales on which spectators would have stood.

Caley Denton, the vice-president of ticketing for VANOC, says organizers could not find a way to make the area safe for thousands of spectators who paid $50 to $65 a ticket.

The tickets problems are just latest in a series of woes that have generated negative headlines around the world. "Vancouver Games continue downhill slide from disaster to calamity," wrote The Guardian's Lawrence Donegan, who mocked Canadian joy at Alexandre Bilodeau's gold by sniping: "What chance an enterprising Canadian carpenter is working on a commemorative wooden spoon?"

Okay, VANOC can't control the weather, Donegan wrote, but the transportation system goes from "sporadic" to "chaotic," the wiring on Cypress blew a fuse and there is a "growing sense that the 2010 Winter Olympics will be remembered as something substantially less than a triumph."

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail chortled about "heavy-handed security, a loss of civil liberties and traffic chaos."

During Tuesday's news conference, Olympic officials were in the unenviable position of having to defend themselves from British media suggestions that the Vancouver Games could go down in history as among the worst ever.

Take heart Canada – it's just part of the game of hosting the Games, say experts.

"Every country has been pounded like this when they hosted the Games," says Dr. Robert Hindmarch, general manager of Canada's 1964 UBC-based Olympic hockey team and former vice-president of Canadian Olympic Association. He's been to every Winter Olympics since 1960.

"Los Angeles was criticized for being too big. Mexico had too much poverty. It's been going on forever."

Canadians, long admired by the world as a quiet, polite and friendly people, also have been attracting an unusual amount of international outrage for our sudden and outspoken interest in actually winning medals and celebrating success with unabashed vigour.

"I think it is a little uncharacteristic," says Don Alper, director of the Center for Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, between Seattle and Vancouver.

"But at the same time, some of the toughest criticism is coming from within Canada. You're sensitive to the way the world is viewing you."

Dr. Harvey Schiller, former secretary-general of the United States Olympic Committee who worked on the 1996 Atlanta Games bid, says negativity is woven into Olympic hosting duties.

The Atlanta Games got rapped for security problems, including the bombing at Olympic Park, as well as for forcing the media to endure the indignity of porta potties.

But calling the Vancouver Games the worst ever?

"That's unfair. I wouldn't give it that label at all. You can't be held responsible for the weather," Schiller says.

And let's not forget the unspoken victory so far in these Games: security. "There hasn't been a single significant issue on that front and that's something that matters a great deal on this side of the border," Alper says.

And, if all of this isn't enough, it seems that American competitors have taken to mocking Canuck snowboarders for their Austin Powers-like apparel, claiming their hip-hugging aerodynamics breaches a gentleman's agreement to keep things nice and loose.

"We want to keep the cool factor in snowboarding, we don't want it to go speed suits," U.S. boarder Nick Baumgartner told one reporter.

File it all under the tempest-in-teapot category, says Guy Napert-Frenette, spokesperson for the Canadian Snowboard Federation.

"We win a gold medal yesterday and you want to talk about pants? There are no rules about that. They're high performance pants that keep us warm at all times and we're pleased to have them."

With files from Lesley Ciarula Taylor


Source:Toronto Star




Vancouver Games glitches get global attention - Vancouver 2010 Olympics - thestar.com

this one's just funny if you feel like linking:

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/2...852/story.html

__________________
You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey
And I never saw someone say that before
You held my hand and we walked home the long way
You were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_I