Olympic flag raised in Vancouver for 2010 Games
By JEREMY HAINSWORTH, Associated Press Writer
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- The Olympic flag was raised in Vancouver on Tuesday, greeted by the cheers on thousands while four years of preparations await for the 2010 Winter Games.
"Ten years of dreaming and the flag is finally ours," said John Furlong, the Vancouver Organizing Committee chief executive.
The flag was presented to quadriplegic Mayor Sam Sullivan on Sunday during the closing ceremony of the Turin Games. The flag was placed into a special attachment on Sullivan's wheelchair by International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge. Sullivan took several spins in his wheelchair with the flag.
"Receiving that flag in front of the entire world was one of the most thrilling moments of my life," Sullivan told the crowd at Vancouver City Hall.
On Tuesday, Sullivan, who broke his neck skiing when he was 19, and an honor guard raised the flag, which was caught by a gust of wind as it was unfurled.
Organizers have a plenty of work ahead in the four years before the Winter Games are held in the sprawling, multicultural seaport of Vancouver and Whistler, one of the top ski resorts in North America.
A short-list of headaches includes rising construction costs in an overheated real estate market, a flap over a new highway for the two-hour drive between Vancouver and Whistler, and how to deal with one of Canada's seediest neighborhoods.
Earlier this month, in what Furlong pledged would be the last of such requests, organizers asked federal and provincial authorities for an additional $96 million to cover surging construction costs, raising their projected budget to $580 million. With a local shortage of skilled labor, contractors have dispatched recruiters as far as Europe.
Crucial to the 2010 plan is the upgrading of the scenic, but often congested and dangerous Sea to Sky Highway, which links Vancouver with Whistler over a twisting, mountainous route. Organizers say work is ahead of schedule and will be done by 2009.
But many residents and politicians in affluent West Vancouver are furious the project now calls for an overland, four-lane highway, not a tunnel, through a scenic section of their neighborhood.
Close to Vancouver's vibrant, trendy downtown is a starkly different neighborhood called Downtown Eastside, long a skid-row destination for drifters and drug addicts who frequent dilapidated rooming houses. Organizers have pledged to upgrade the area without causing displacement, but a residents' association predicts rents will soar as landlords and hotel owners try to cash in on the Olympics.
Updated on Tuesday, Feb 28, 2006 5:48 pm EST
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