Vancouver named to Olympic short list

The attempt to bring the Winter Olympics to the West Coast in 2010 was given a boost on Wednesday morning as the Vancouver-Whistler bid made the short list.

"We are now a candidate city, so the campaign is now on," said Jack Poole, chair and CEO of the bid committee.

In an early morning news conference, Poole read from the fax received from the International Olympic Committee at shortly after 4 a.m. PT.

Loud applause erupted as he read the alphabetical list, with Vancouver saved for last.

From an earlier list of eight cities hoping to host the Games, the IOC chose four:

• Bern, Switzerland
• Pyeongchang, South Korea
• Salzburg, Austria
• Vancouver

FROM CBC SPORTS ONLINE: Vancouver bid makes 2010 Olympic short list

Cities in Andorra, China, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Spain didn't make the cut.

It's not clear how the short list is chosen. People familiar with the International Olympic Committee call the selection process mysterious.

Poole suggested Canada's international reputation helps.

"It's been gratifying as we've moved around the world in pursuit of this wonderful prize to find how highly respected Canada is and the great reputation that we've got for hosting major events," he said.

The bid process is also costly.

The Vancouver-Whistler bid team has already spent $13 million putting together their proposal.

The cost of putting on the actual Games is astronomical.

Bid officials estimate it will cost more than $300 million to build venues and upgrade existing sites.

Highway and rapid transit upgrades will cost hundreds of millions more. One of the main drawbacks of the bid could be the narrow, twisting highway between Vancouver and Whistler.

The municipalities of Whistler and Vancouver have teamed up with the provincial and federal governments and the Canadian Olympic Committee to foot the bill. Poole said there are 100 corporate partners as well, who have promised to match the contributions of Ottawa and B.C.

But bid president John Furlong calls the plan ambitious but attainable.

"One of the things that we really set out to do at the very beginning was that whatever it was we were going to say about this bid we could back it up, that when you drilled down into this bid, you found oil," said Furlong.

A member of Calgary's winning bid team for the 1988 Olympics says Vancouver has a good shot at the Games. Bill Warren says location is important, and the fact that the next Winter Olympics is in Italy is probably good.

"It's going to hurt sites like Austria and Switzerland more than it will hurt Vancouver," said Warren.

The winning bid will be announced in July 2003, in Prague.