I have been a spectator at the last three Olympic games but nothing can top attending your home Olympics. When Vancouver was bidding to host the 2010 Olympics games, I had decided I would do anything to attend the games if they won. Happily, their bid won the games and I started planning my first Olympic adventure: the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games.
Bidding Process: 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games
The final candidates: Vancouver, Canada; Pyeongchang, South Korea; and Salzburg, Austria. Voting was held on July 2, 2003 and would be a very close race. I was living in Winnipeg, Manitoba and watching the vote live. I thought it was a race between Salzburg and Vancouver. They had the two best bids but you know these bids can get quite political. The best candidate/bid does not always win (see Toronto for 2012 summer games) and this was not long after the Salt Lake bribery scandal.
Olympic Rings, Vancouver 2010
Voting for the 2010 Olympic games included two rounds of voting. Salzburg was eliminated after the first round (my head almost exploded) and Vancouver finished second to Pyeongchang with 40 votes to their 51 votes. Vancouver cleaned up in the second round of voting and won by a vote of 56 to 53. What a close race!! The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games would be a great experience and after waiting for seven years, it was worth all the time I put into planning this trip.
I ended up moving to Edmonton, not long after Vancouver won their bid, for graduate school. I had a chance to move to Vancouver or Toronto but I chose Edmonton instead. I then spent the next seven years planning my Olympic trip. Since there was such a demand for tickets, a lottery would be assigned to the most in demand tickets (hello hockey) and I spent the next few months hoping for a win. I had submitted a ticket request for the entire Olympics but was not allocated my entire request; only receiving 10% of my original request. Thankfully there would be more opportunities to purchase tickets as more were released several times and they put up a reselling website.
Neil Young at the Vancouver 2010 Closing Ceremony
Planning the Vancouver Olympic Games Trip
I posted about planning your Olympic spectator trip adventure for Sochi, Russia 2014 trip of my dreams which include the Men’s Figure Skating Sochi 2014 recently but used many of those tips for this trip as well. I had waited five years to submit my Olympic ticket request. I had just returned from Germany (Berlin travel tips) in October 2008 (including visiting Heidelberg, top travel tips) and was thankful the deadline had been pushed back a few weeks. I submitted by request and waited a few months to hear back. I also created accounts for my mom and dad (in case they wanted to go) and to give me a few more chances at the men’s hockey gold medal game.
I remember being at work and wondering what tickets I had been allocated. They charged the credit card before the emails were sent so I had no idea what tickets I received. I phoned my mom and she checked her card and a certain amount had been charged: I knew right at that moment it was my men’s hockey gold medal game. What a thrilling moment!!
I booked my hotel nine months before the Olympics and my airplane ticket about six months before the event. Vancouver had lots of hotels so that was not an issue as it was in Sochi.
Canadian men celebrate Olympic hockey Gold, Vancouver 2010
Now I had to wait a year and a half until the Olympics, hoping that Canada would make the finals. Thankfully they did and I was rewarded for holding onto that gold medal ticket for over a year and a half. I also had tickets for the women’s gold medal hockey game as well as both curling gold medal games. Canada went three for four in the gold medal games. For the next few weeks, I will post about all the events I attended in Vancouver.
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