It almost time for the exciting competition that happens every four years, the XXI Winter Olympics. This time the host city is Vancouver and the games begin on February 12^th and run until February 28^th.

If you are planning on attending the Winter Games you have to plan ahead. There are different Olympic venues; you have to make sure you prearrange transportation to and from them. Besides Vancouver, other venues include Richmond and Whistler Host Mountain Resort. There is no spectator parking at any of the Olympic venues so you must use public transportation or the Olympic buses.

The opening and closing ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in downtown Vancouver at BC Place Stadium. Both Whistler Village and BC Place Stadium will host victory celebrations. In Vancouver you will be able to see a number of competitions. Some of the events you can watch include figure skating, ice hockey and curling.

The speed skating events will be hosted by the city of Richmond at the new Richmond Oval. Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver will host the freestyle skiing and snowboard events. Whistler Mountain will hold all of the other events including bobsleigh, luge and cross country skiing.

Vancouver is also an epic center for the arts and entertainment. While you are here for the Winter Games you should also check out the Cultural Olympiad Events. This event features genre bending dance, music, theatre and visual art displays. There is something different going on every day.

The Olympic Games cover a variety of different winter sports that are thrilling and exciting to watch. Alpine skiing is a crowd favorite and has been part of the Olympics since 1936. These skiers fly down the slopes and can reach speeds of more than 130 kilometres an hour. The Downhill event has the longest course and also the fastest.

Curling is another event that most people look forward to watching.  Curling has been played for over 500 years. There are two events in curling, a women’s tournament and a men’s tournament. Two teams play against each other and the tournament starts with 10 curling teams. Curling is played on ice and the teams take turn pushing 19.1 kilogram stones towards a series of circles. The object behind this game is to get your team’s stones as close to the centre of the rings as possible.

Snowboarding is one of the fastest growing sports today and is a newer Olympic event which was first introduced at the 1988 Winter Games. There are two snowboard events, the halfpipe and parallel giant slalom. The halfpipe is when each snowboarder performs a routine which includes jumps, tricks, and twists. This is done inside of a half cylinder shaped snow tube. In the parallel giant slalom two snowboarders race each other down a course and the best time goes on to the next round.

The Winter Olympics are fun to watch and there are different events and types of sports that everyone will enjoy. Every four years we get to see some of the best athletes in the world compete to see who will take home the gold.

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