12 February 2010
2010 Winter Olympics set to begin in Vancouver
MINSK, 12 February (BelTA) – The 21st Winter Olympics are set to start in Vancouver on the night of 13 February. The First Belarusian National TV Channel will broadcast the Olympics opening ceremony live at 3.55 am Minsk time. The broadcast will be repeated at 15.30. The organizers of the Vancouver Olympics are trying to keep the details of the opening gala secret. Some media suppose that a Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky will light the Olympic Flame, but head of the organizing committee John Furlong denies this information. The solemn opening ceremony will be held at the BC Place indoor arena that seats 60,000 people. The total cost of the opening ceremony is $40 million. The ski jumping competition will start ahead of the official opening. The qualification takes place at Whistler Olympic Park at 20.00 Minsk time. All in all, the athletes will compete for 86 sets of medals in 15 sports. The Belarusian athletes will compete in six sports. Five Belarusian biathletes are preparing for women’s 7.5km sprint on Saturday. They are Darya Domracheva, Nadezhda Skardino, Lyudmila Kalinchik, Olga Nazarova, and Olga Kudrashova. But according to the rules, only four athletes can represent one country. Belarusians lay their medal hopes on Darya Domrachava and women’s relay team. Belarusian aerial jumpers have very good chances at a medal too. The aerial jumpers have been most successful Belarusian athletes at Winter Olympics so far. Dashinski won bronze in Nagano in 1998 and silver in Torino (2006). Another Belarusian aerialist Alexei Grishin was third in Salt-Lake-City in 2002. In addition, the Belarusian freestyle team has Anton Kushnir, 25, who has won the World Cup this season. Belarusians will vigorously support their ice hockey team, who failed to qualify to Torino in 2006. But it is still uncertain, whether Belarusian NHL players Andrei Kostitsyn and Mikhail Grabovski will be fit to play at the Olympics. Both forwards have not recovered completely from injures and their physical fit is unclear. Nevertheless, the supporters believe, that Belarus’ team led by Mikhail Zakharov will be able to repeat the success of the Salt-Lake-City Olympics in 2002. Then Belarus made a sensation by beating Sweden in the quarterfinals and winning the minor bronze medals. The Belarusian athletes will also compete in cross-country skiing, speed skating and Alpine skiing. After gaining the independence in 1991, Belarus took part in four Winter Olympics. Up till now, the Belarusian athletes have won six medals. Silevr medalists are speed skater Igor Zhelezovsky and biathlete Svetlana Paramygina (Lillehammer 1994), aerial jumper Dmitri Dashinski and biathlete Alexei Aidarov (Nagano 1998). Bronze medalists are Alexei Grishin and Dmitri Dashinski (Salt-Lake-City 2002 and Torino 2006 respectively). Belarus has not won gold medals at Winter Olympics yet and all Belarusian supporters hope that it will manage to do it in Vancouver.БЕЛТА