Olimpic Games

        The world's greatest international sports games are known as the Olympic Games.

The Olympic idea means friendship, fraternity and cooperation among the people of the world. The Olympic Movement proves that real peace can be achieved through sport.

The Olympic emblem is five interlinked rings: blue, yellow, black, green and red. Any national flag contains at least one of these colours.

The original Olympic Games began in ancient Greece in 776 B.C. These games were part of a festival held every fourth year in honour of God Zeus at the place called Olympia. It was a great athletic festival, including competitions in wrestling, foot racing and chariot racing, rowing and others.

The games were for men only. Greek women were forbidden not only to participate but also to watch the Olympics.

The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896. Then they were resumed in London after the Second World War. Since then the Olympics are held every fourth year in different countries.

The ancient Greeks had no winter sports. Only in 1924 the first Winter Olympic Games were held in France. Now they are being held regularly.

All about...

The venues for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games stretched over a 120-kilometre zone from Richmond, through downtown Vancouver and north to the mountain resort of Whistler. Drawing on both new and existing facilities, VANOC’s goal was to create spectacular theatres for sport that provide top conditions for athletes and a welcome place for spectators to experience the excitement of competition.

        Vancouver Venues Overview

The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games events in Vancouver included curling, figure skating, ice hockey, sledge hockey, short-track speed skating and wheelchair curling.
Speed skating took place in Richmond, while the snowboard and freestyle skiing events were hosted at Cypress Mountain in the District of West Vancouver. The Olympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as the Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony, were staged indoors at BC Place in Vancouver city centre.

        Whistler Venue Overview

For the 2010 Winter Games, Whistler hosted Olympic and Paralympic Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing and biathlon, as well as Olympic Nordic combined, ski jumping, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton. Olympic and Paralympic Villages and media facilities were located in Vancouver and Whistler.

        Quick Facts about the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games

   - 17 days of Olympic Games events
   - 2566 athletes
   - 82 participating countries
   - 10,000 media representatives
   - 3 billion television viewers worldwide

 

 

TELEVISION

Television is one of the major mass media  of the United States. Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one. As a whole, the television networks of the United States are the largest and most syndicated in the world.

There are at least five basic types of television in the United States: broadcast, or "over-the-air" television, unencrypted satellite or "free-to-air", Direct Broadcast Satellite, cable television, and IPTV (internet protocol television).
Over-the-air and free-to-air TV is free with no monthly payments while Cable, Direct Broadcast Satellite, and IPTV require a monthly payment that varies depending on how many channels a subscriber chooses to pay for. Channels are usually sold in groups, rather than singly.

Broadcast television

The United States has a decentralized, market-oriented television system. Unlike many other countries, the United States has no national broadcast programming service. Instead, local media markets have their own television stations, which may be affiliated with or owned and operated by a TV network Stations may sign affiliation agreements with one of the national networks. Except in very small markets with few stations, affiliation agreements are usually exclusive: If a station is an NBC affiliate, the station would not air programs from ABC, CBS or other networks.

However, to ensure local presences in television broadcasting, federal law restricts the amount of network programming local stations can run. Until the 1970s and '80s, local stations supplemented network programming with a good deal of their own produced shows. Today, however, many stations produce only local news shows. They fill the rest of their schedule with syndicated shows, or material produced independently and sold to individual stations in each local market..

The three major networks

The three in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)- both of which date to the early days of television - (in fact, they both began in the 1920s as radio networks), and thirdly the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which began its life as a radio network spun off from NBC in 1943. In big cities, affiliates of these networks were almost always broadcast free of charge in the VHF band before the transition to digital television in 2009.

Major-network affiliates run very similar schedules. Typically, they begin weekdays with an early-morning locally produced news show, followed by a network morning show, such as NBC's Today, which mixes news, weather, interviews and music. Syndicated programming, especially talk shows, fill the late morning, followed often by local news at noon (Eastern Time). Network run Soap operas dominate the early afternoon, while syndicated talk shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show appear in the late afternoon. Local news comes on again in the early evening, followed by the national network's news program at 6:30 or 5:30 p.m., followed by more news.