For the next 18 months, the World Cup circuits for Winter Olympic sports will be making their way through Vancouver and Whistler testing out the 2010 Olympic facilities and acting as dress rehearsals for the games.

This weekend it was the World Cup Short Track Speed Skating tour taking a swing around the Pacific Coliseum’s ice as a pre-cursor to the games. There are many great things about these pre-Olympic trial runs. They’re bona fide World Cup events, so Olympic calibre athletes are competing, and tickets are easy to grab.

We were sitting just right of centre ice, 10 rows up for Sunday’s round of finals and the tickets were just $15 each, no waiting list required.

We saw about a dozen races, watched Canada pick up a half dozen medals, and caught Apollo Anton Ohno showing off his stuff in a thrilling final relay that saw the US barely edge out Canada.

Excited about 2010 now? The energy of a half filled Coliseum was enough to convince me this weekend to get my name down for short track tickets.

Here are more shots from the World Short Track Speed Skating.

Other World Cup circuits coming through Vancouver-Whistler in 2009 include:

* FIS Nordic Combined World Cup, January 16-17
* FIS Cross-Country Skiing World Cup, January 16-18
* FIS Ski Jumping World Cup, January 24-25
* FIBT Bobsleigh & Skeleton World Cup, February 2-7
* ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships 2009, February 2-8
* FIS Freestyle World Cup, February 5-7
* FIS Snowboard World Cup, February 13-15
* FIL Luge World Cup, February 16-21
* WCF World Wheelchair Curling Championship, February 21-28
* IPC Ice Sledge Hockey Four Nations Tournament, February 24 - March 1
* IPC Cross-Country Skiing and Biathlon World Cup Final, March 4-7
* World Junior Curling Championships, March 5-15
* IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup Finals, March 9-14
* IBU Biathlon World Cup, March 11-15
* ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships, March 12-15
* IIHF Women’s Four Nation Tournament (Men’s Four Teams Exhibition), August 31 - September 6
[Vancouver 2010]

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 9:06 am and is filed under 2010.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.