[JRunn14]

Originally Posted by North East Goon

Why beat around the bush and criticize little happenings currently going on in Vancouver. The real beef is financially speaking the COA and the IOC screwed up many moons ago and should have awarded these games to Calgary before our facilities become too run down. I am certain we could have turned a profit on this despite the enormous security needed in this day and age.

International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound told critics yesterday to chill out, attributing most of the harsh reviews to a bored news media.

"There's not enough going on for you guys [the media]," Mr. Pound said. "To say these Olympics are not well-organized, that they're not great, and people aren't having a wonderful time is, quite frankly, silly."
...
"The Olympic gods are capricious. You have ice and snow since the beginning of time, until you get to the Winter Games, and you have heat waves, like we did in Calgary," Mr. Pound said. "It happens all the time."

The outspoken Olympic official, former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, also took a shot at those criticizing the high-speed luge track for being too dangerous, after the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.

"The outcome was rather extreme, and that's a shame," he said. "But people are calling into question the very existence of luge, saying the track was dangerously designed and so on. That's just silly. It's not."

Mr. Pound, who has attended every Winter Olympics since 1976, said current critics have no idea of the many glitches experienced by previous Games.

"You should have been in Lake Placid [site of the 1980 Winter Olympics]. The joke running around Olympic circles for decades was that, whenever anything got screwed up, people would say: 'Oh, this was organized by Lake Placid.'"

Even the much-vaunted Calgary Winter Olympics of 1988 had problems, Mr. Pound recalled. "We had 75 different events rescheduled during those Games. We had six days in a row when the temperature was warmer than in Miami. People were watching ski-jumping with no shirts on. This is nothing here," he said.

"When you compare these Games to Torino or Lake Placid or anywhere else, VANOC is a pretty well-oiled machine."

Not even the abrupt, unprecedented cancellation of 28,000 standing-room tickets for snowboard events at Cypress because the fenced-off area became unsafe perturbed Mr. Pound. "You can't have them up there standing in the mud, but is that the end of life as we know it? I mean, not really.... Hey, stuff happens."

Mr. Pound said VANOC has done a remarkable job responding to problems as they've arisen.International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound told critics yesterday to chill out, attributing most of the harsh reviews to a bored news media.

"There's not enough going on for you guys [the media]," Mr. Pound said. "To say these Olympics are not well-organized, that they're not great, and people aren't having a wonderful time is, quite frankly, silly."
...
"The Olympic gods are capricious. You have ice and snow since the beginning of time, until you get to the Winter Games, and you have heat waves, like we did in Calgary," Mr. Pound said. "It happens all the time."

The outspoken Olympic official, former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, also took a shot at those criticizing the high-speed luge track for being too dangerous, after the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.

"The outcome was rather extreme, and that's a shame," he said. "But people are calling into question the very existence of luge, saying the track was dangerously designed and so on. That's just silly. It's not."

Mr. Pound, who has attended every Winter Olympics since 1976, said current critics have no idea of the many glitches experienced by previous Games.

"You should have been in Lake Placid [site of the 1980 Winter Olympics]. The joke running around Olympic circles for decades was that, whenever anything got screwed up, people would say: 'Oh, this was organized by Lake Placid.'"

Even the much-vaunted Calgary Winter Olympics of 1988 had problems, Mr. Pound recalled. "We had 75 different events rescheduled during those Games. We had six days in a row when the temperature was warmer than in Miami. People were watching ski-jumping with no shirts on. This is nothing here," he said.

"When you compare these Games to Torino or Lake Placid or anywhere else, VANOC is a pretty well-oiled machine."

Not even the abrupt, unprecedented cancellation of 28,000 standing-room tickets for snowboard events at Cypress because the fenced-off area became unsafe perturbed Mr. Pound. "You can't have them up there standing in the mud, but is that the end of life as we know it? I mean, not really.... Hey, stuff happens."

Mr. Pound said VANOC has done a remarkable job responding to problems as they've arisen.

Things go wrong in every Olympics...stop hating just because it`s Vancouver. COP is already too run down and would need major upgrades.