Budget talk to dominate Vancouver countdown

VANCOUVER. February 12. KAZINFORM As Vancouver prepares to start the one-year countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics organisers are increasingly aware that the global financial crisis will put them under extra pressure.

Last year, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) distracted by human rights issues in China and then the world captivated by the glossy Beijing Olympics, scant attention was paid to the 2010 Winter Games as Vancouver's preparations remained on course and on budget. Now the Olympic spotlight has shifted, just as the economic crisis bites, turning what the Vancouver organising committee (VANOC) had hoped would be a glorious sprint to the finish into a tip-toe through a financial minefield. "I think the year ahead will be tenfold more challenging than any year we've had before," John Furlong, CEO of the committee, told Reuters ahead of Thursday's one-year milestone; Kazinform cites Today's Zaman. Certainly Furlong has woken up to plenty of bad news recently. This month the VANOC chief has been busy trimming costs in an effort to rein in an operating budget that has shot up by $103.5 million to $1.42 billion. At the same time, the City of Vancouver has been forced to take over financing of the athletes' village after cash-strapped developers of the C$1-billion project watched their funding dry up in the withering economy. City residents are bracing for yet another gigantic Olympic bill to land on their doorsteps, with Games security costs originally projected at $175 million expected to rocket to $1 billion. The rising costs have sparked grumbling in the Olympic city, recalling Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau's famous claim that the 1976 Summer Games could no more run a deficit than a man could have a baby. Thirty years later, Quebec residents finally paid off their Olympic debt. Vancouver activists and protest groups such as the Olympic Resistance Network are looking to crash the Olympic party and are getting bigger, louder, more organised and more aggressive. Last weekend, however, Furlong must have worn a big smile as he watched Canadians parade to the podium in test events in British Columbia and at competitions around the world. From John Kucera's surprise downhill victory at the Alpine skiing world championships in France to a podium sweep of a men's World Cup ski-cross event at the 2010 Games venue at Cypress Mountain, Canadian athletes piled up 12 wins, producing performances they hope to repeat a year from now when Olympic medals will be on the line. If nothing else, the results were a good omen for Canadians who have twice before hosted Olympic Games -- Montreal and the 1988 Calgary Winter Games -- and not won a gold medal.