Share this story!            

Turin races towards Winter Games

CESANA (Italy): With gunshots ringing through the cold air and Nordic skiers gliding through the snow, the biathlon venue for the Winter Olympics in February looks ready for action.

Bulldozers still rumble along narrow roads linking the main venues in the mountains near Turin, and the city itself is dotted with building sites, but at least athletes will have somewhere to eat, sleep and compete. The small, plain apartments at the Olympic Village are already furnished and waiting for visitors, although on Tuesday workers were busy applying yet another layer of paint to the facades. As Turin was getting ready to begin its 50-day countdown to the Games on Thursday, builders were putting up spectator stands at Cesana. The Norwegian biathlon team trained at the shooting range, next to a bobsleigh track where German and Australian athletes had worked out some weeks ago.

“This is one of the best stadiums ever. There is a long part of the competition that spectators can follow, it’s exciting,” Ubaldo Prucker, vice-Chairman of the International Biathlon Union and Turin Games competition manager, told reporters. However, only 6,500 spectators will be able to follow the competition directly as capacity is limited by transport and security constraints. “It’s a really low number, we’re not happy with that,” Prucker added. The limits also affect other mountain venues such as Pragelato, where a few forlorn spectator stands look oddly out of proportion against two imposing ski jumping slopes. Organisers have set up a complex shuttle system to prevent traffic jams on the winding mountain roads but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) warned on its last visit to Turin that transport remained a concern.

Panoramic windows: Following a last-minute building frenzy, some elegant new structures have become visible less than two months before the start of the Olympics on February 10. At Pragelato, most spectators will watch the competitions from plastic seats on open-air stands but a few lucky IOC guests will be able to peer at the ski jumpers through panoramic windows from a sleek wood-and-stone lounge. Officials of the organising committee, TOROC, said the airy, curving lounge and athletes’ centre along the ski jumping track were designed to blend in with the surrounding rocks and trees.

Environmentalists still find the whole venue an eyesore, arguing that untouched habitat was destroyed and that the ski jumping hills and the bobsleigh track will hardly be used after the Games. Other aspects of the Games find more favour with the green lobby. TOROC has worked closely with the United Nations Environment Programme to draw up a plan for a “green” Olympics. This includes offsetting all carbon dioxide emissions — seen as the cause of global warming — produced during the Games by cutting down on such pollution elsewhere. “The Winter Olympics and climate change are closely linked. The future of the Olympics depends also on the climate,” Ugo Pretato, head of TOROC’s environmental programme, told reporters. reuters

Home | Sport

Share this story!