Snow Skills

The Winter Olympics open in 4 weeks! The opening ceremonies for the 20th Winter Olympic Games will be held on February 10, 2006 in Turino, Italy. Turin was awared the Games in 1999, beating out a total of five candidate cities, including Helsinki (Finland), Klagenfurt (Austria), Poprad-Tatry (Slovak Republic), Sion (Switzerland), and Zakopane (Poland). I was in Turino 10 years ago and found it to be a unique alternative to better known Italian cities such as Rome and Venice. Turino was actually the capital of Italy until 1945 and has a beautiful setting at the edge of the foothills of the Alps.

In the 17 days of the games, 2,550 athletes from 80 countries will compete for 82 medals in 7 sports, requiring 650 judges and referees, and coached by 1,400 officials. The appeal of the Winter Olympics to me is that not every country goes and not many athletes are going to be awarded medals. I also think that the venues of the Winter Olympics, Turino certainly as an example are more exotic than Summer Olympic host cities due to their climate. We were in Turino in January and the city had just received a coating of snow. We can surely hope that Turino has a similar white appearance this year; it will create an awesome mood and setting for the Games.