The XXI Olympic Winter Games were held in the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia, between 12 and 28 February 2010. After the end of this event, Vancouver hosted the X Paralympic Winter Games from 12 to 21 March of that year.

The city of Vancouver was chosen by the International Olympic Committee over the nominations of South Korea’s Pyeongchang and the Austrian Salzburg. This was the third nomination for Vancouver Winter Olympics and will be the third time that the Olympic Games held in Canada after Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988.

The cost of the Games is estimated at approximately $ 1,400 million Canadian dollars. The opening and closing ceremonies were held in BC Place Stadium while sporting events are divided between various venues in Vancouver and its suburbs and the tracks of the ski resort of Whistler, located 125 km to the north, and Cypress Mountain .

Initially enrolled 2,632 athletes for the Olympic Games, surpassing the mark set by his predecessor, Turin 2006.

The Canadian state of British Columbia has a long history of candidates for the Olympic Games, dating back to attempt a possible bid for the 1968 Grenoble Olympics. The ski resort of Whistler submitted a bid for the Winter Olympic Games 1976 in conjunction with the City of Vancouver and around Mount Garibaldi. The Vancouver-Garibaldi bid received 9 votes being eliminated in the first round in the election of May 12, 1970 which went on to win the U.S. city of Denver. However, a plebiscite held in that city on November 12, 1972 was rejected, preventing the delivery of some $ 5 million to the organizing committee. Without funding, Denver refused to host the Games, at which the International Olympic Committee requested the support of Whistler, but the new government of British Columbia declined the offer due to high costs involved, and finally, the Austrian city of Innsbruck organized the event. Whistler try again host the Winter Olympics of 1980, but finally give up weeks before the vote, leading to the unanimous choice of Lake Placid, United States.

Canada hosted the 1976 Montreal Olympics and later the city of Calgary in Alberta, would be elected to host the Winter Olympics 1988. This succession of Olympic events stopped the nomination of Vancouver for over two decades, but not other towns. The city of Toronto, for example, applied for the Olympic Games of 1996 (made in Atlanta), while Quebec City did for the Winter Olympic Games 2002 (held in Salt Lake City). For the 2008 Olympics, was a proposal to bid binational between Vancouver and Seattle, but the IOC rejected it, as well, Toronto was selected as the Canadian candidate for these games, coming to be regarded as a favorite and best qualified among all the candidates, Despite this, the July 13, 2001, Toronto was defeated largely by Beijing with 22 votes to 55.

After the defeat of Toronto, the Canadian Olympic Committee decided to submit a bid for the Winter Olympics 2010. Three cities had pre-candidacies to the COC: Vancouver with Whistler, Calgary and Quebec. While Quebec was considered the favorite, was against political instability (less than four years of the independence referendum defeated by a small margin) and attracted little support in the choice of location 2002. The committee for Vancouver, meanwhile, tried to focus the advantage of using Whistler, widely regarded as one of the best ski resorts of the continent, far above the Mont-Tremblant Quebec. In a first round of voting held on 21 November 1998, Vancouver-Whistler had 26 votes, followed by 25 for the Quebec capital and 21 for Calgary. In the ballot held between the two cities with the most votes, the nomination of Vancouver reached the victory with 40 votes compared to 32 in Quebec. So, Vancouver has decided to present its third Olympic bid in history.

Technical evaluation

Eight cities submitted their applications before the International Olympic Committee before the end of the process of receiving, February 4, 2002. Along with Vancouver, were also candidates Andorra la Vella city, Bern, Harbin, Jaca, Pyeongchang, Salzburg, Sarajevo.

Following the selection and evaluation system implemented to solve the problems of corruption found in the choice of venue for the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City 2002, the “candidate cities” were subjected to a technical review by the Group Candidature Acceptance Working, which would evaluate and proceed to establish which of them did not meet the minimum requirements for the International Olympic Committee members could concentrate on the remaining election itself reached them.

The Working Group submitted the report on July 11, 2002. For its performance examined the candidates in ten categories (government support and public opinion, general infrastructure, sports infrastructure, Olympic village, environmental conditions and impact, accommodation, transport, security, experience and finance) and drew up a table ” general concept “to weed out those who were not fit to host the Olympics in 2008. To this end, the Working Group considered that, in a score from 0 to 10, should not selected a city that had a grade lower than 6.