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VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The Olympic flag was raised
in Vancouver on Tuesday, greeted by the cheers of 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.
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