Even if Highway Closed, the Games Must Go On!
Rock slide won't stop Olympic events
As long as athletes, technicians present, races will proceed
Damian Inwood, The Province
Published: Friday, October 24, 2008
If a rock slide closed the Sea-to-Sky Highway in 2010, Olympic events would go ahead in Whistler even if spectators couldn't get there from Vancouver, says a top official.
Gilbert Felli, of the International Olympic Committee, said yesterday that organizers wouldn't cancel events, even if there was a massive slide like the one that closed the highway for four days in July.
"That is why we have pushed to have a village up there, so we have the athletes on the spot, we have the technicians on the spot," Felli said at an IOC co-ordination commission news conference in Vancouver.
"We have pushed to have enough accommodation for the media so you can run the Games, even if the road is closed. It's only for the spectators that you have maybe problems."
He said the "specific issue" is the lack of alternative routes to Whistler.
Vancouver 2010 CEO John Furlong tried to downplay the suggestion that Olympic events could go ahead with empty grandstands.
"The fact we have the athletes and officials and a huge number of people already in Whistler [means] we have the ability to deliver the events, which we would," Furlong said. "So the challenge would be largely around moving spectators."
He wouldn't outline contingency plans in the event of a road closure.
"We're going to work with highways and others to make sure that if we faced something like that, we have the ability to improvise and keep going," he said.
Furlong said transportation plans won't be released until next year.
© The Vancouver Province 2008