The three Olympic Villages will accommodate 5,000 people during the upcoming 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin. The Olympic Villages in Turin, Bardonecchia and Sestriere will be operating 24 hours a day, providing accommodation and services for the Olympic athletes, coaches, escorts and members of the National Olympic Committees. Here's a brief introduction...


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Here's just a brief presentation of the Ice Hockey stadium, and from an architectural point of view, a very nice building:

The design can accommodate up to 12,500 spectators during the ice hockey games with a maximum capacity of 17,500 for post-Olympics flexibility use. Its large structural roof spans of up to 90m and limited number of main supports means that stadium will have a high degree of flexibility for different uses. The services strategy for the building minimises energy demand and ensures that the environment can be easily adapted to suit the many uses of the building, ranging from ice hockey to exhibitions and concerts.

The stainless steel facade, was chosen for being robust, long-lasting and low maintenance and is thought to symbolize eternity. (!)

This unique stainless facade is composed of glass ''window slots'': these not only allow natural light in the building, but also break the continuity of the stainless steel. During the Olympics, the windows will be covered to provide professional ice-hockey conditions.

The design is by Arata Isozaki, who won first place in an open competition in June 2002.The stadium is due for completion in October 2005, in order to tune and test the building for the opening of the Winter Olympics in February 2006.

Apparently the sales of tickets are taking off abroad - however the Italians are a bit more slow to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. 'Only' 100.000 of the 460.000 tickets sold have gone to the public directly, the rest have been sold or given to sponsors and partners. In total there are over 1 million tickets availible and the organizing body estimates to sell about 85% of these. However the most popular events like figure skating, ice hockey, and alpine skiing will probably be sold out very fast. So if you fancy some close encounters with the curling for women I think you can still get some excellent seats ringside.

(via SportsIllustrated)

Just in case you missed out of the different sports that will take place during the Winter Olympics:
- Biathlon
- Bobsleigh
- Nordic combined
- Curling
- Freestyle skiing
- Ice Hockey
- Figure skating
- Speed skating
- Ski Jumping
- Alpine Skiing
- Cross-country skiing
- Short track
- Skeleton
- Luge
- Snowboard

The Olympic Winter Games will be held in Turin from 10 to 26 February 2006. The Winter Games comprise seven different sports and 15 different disciplines, which will be played out in eight different competition sites. Around 2,500 athletes, 650 judges and umpires and 1.5 million spectators are expected to participate in this 20th edition of the Winter Games.

Samsung who is one of the main sponsors of the Torino Games, introduced some of their torch bearers today, which includes some great former athletes.
The Italian basket player Dino Meneghin, the Austrian skier Franz Klammer, the first Chinese Olympic medalist in figure skating Lu Chen and from Poland Robert Korzeniowski, three times race walker Olympic champion. They'll be four of the over 10.000 torch bearers in the relay which will start in Rome 8 December and reach the opening ceremony in Torino on the 10th February, after having crossed the Italian peninsula.

Happy days for those who like light American beer:
In addition to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Budweiser is the "official beer" sponsor of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy. Anheuser-Busch's brands also serve as "official beer" sponsors of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), extending its support of the U.S. Olympic Team through 2008. Anheuser-Busch is the exclusive malt-beverage advertiser for all Olympic Games telecasts in the United States through 2008.

Budweiser has been an Olympic supporter since 1984 when the brand was the "official beer" sponsor of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Budweiser also was the "official beer" sponsor of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
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According to the official ticket office of the Olympics the tickets are hot in demand. Half of the availible tickets are sold out and the sales of tickets to the domestic Italian market has been suspended until 27th September.
Among the most popular buys, are the tickets for the ice-hockey matches - above all for the Czech Republic, Canada and, after it was confirmed that the NHL players would be taking part, the United States. Stacks of orders are arriving from the US. The NHL, the National Hockey League, itself has asked for loads of tickets - about 150 for ever game scheduled. The less famous winter disciplines are also enjoying success. Every day biathlon enthusiasts appear and people are going crazy for curling too, so much so that tickers to the final of the men's tournament are not available at the moment. The high number of requests has made other events unavailable too.

There's been quite a lot of investment in the Olympics (surprise surprise). As 2006 happens to be an election year here in Italy, the Torino Olympics is also expected to be a show off for prime minister Silvio Berlusconi who aims to stay in office.
Over 800 million Euros have been invested in new infrastructure, and according to the plans 100 km of newly built road will be completed by November. Also on the brag list is 13 new viaducts, 5 tunnels, 11 kilometres of prefabricated walls (whatever they'll be used for...) 16,5 km of new sidewalks, 40 rounds and 1.200 new parking spaces etc etc. As Berlusconi has had a rough term so far it wouldn't surprise me very if he took the credit for the Olympics, all though he didn't do much to get it in the first place.

Wow - on behalf of my fellow Norewegians I'm impressed. Of all the Scandinavian countries the most tickets have been sold there. Over 19.000 tickets, followed by Sweden with 6500 sold, Finland 4500 and the Danes with a meager 234 sold.
The president of Games organizing committee Toroc Valentino Castellani gave these figures in Helsinki during the Athletics World Championships while presenting Turin 2006. Finnish ice-hockey internationals Kari Lehtonen and Tuomo Ruutu took part in the presentation of Games, the city, its facilities and the beauty of the Olympic region. ''The world championships gave us a great opportunity to promote the Games,'' Castellani said. ''The interest raised is shown by the success of the 'Torino 2006 - Olympic Winter Games and More' exhibition.'' On Saturday the Turin 2006 culture programme was presented in the capital of Finland.