Whistler Sliding Centre

Whistler Sliding Centre: The Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010 venue

The Whistler Sliding Centre is situated on the shared traditional territories of the Lil’wat and the Squamish First Nations. Other than being a chosen venue for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, the Whistler Sliding Centre is also a well known place with spiritual significance.  The Squamish call this place as the “Kwekwayex Kwelh7aynexw” or the Wild Spirit Place. On the other hand the Lil’wat named the Whistler Sliding Centre area as the “A7×7ulmecw” which means a spirited ground.

The list of facilities that are available at the Whistler Sliding Centre venue include,

• Entirely refrigerated concrete sliding tracks
• A suitable start house for the skeleton, bobsleigh and the men’s luge events
• A suitable start house for the women’s luge and doubles luge events
• A unique building particularly meant for the finishing area
• A separate and well equipped timing and control building
• An operation building for all the various track operations
• A distinct track lodge building
• A track access road system along with an exceptional mountain load system
• A full equipped and self sustaining refrigeration plant

Brief History:

Way back in 2003, Vancouver was chosen over Salzburg, Austria and Pyongchang, South Korea as the venue for the 21st Winter Olympics 2010. Thereon preparations for the grand event started. One of the first announcements that were made in this regard was on the 15 of November, 2004 when the Stantec Architecture Limited was designated to provide the site master plan and the detailed and intricate design for the tracks to host the events. Stantec Architecture Limited was the same firm who had priorly designed the luge, skeleton and bobsleigh tracks for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games held at Park City, Utah in the United States.

The construction of the site for this particular sports facility centre began on the 1st of June, 2005. Before that, authoritative permission was taken from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act who had approved of the environmental parameters that were supposed to be taken into concern. The safety and security measures were put in to place right at the foundational state of the construction itself. As many as 500 workers were employed on the construction site and finally what came into being was one of the world’s best sliding tracks that could hold luge, skeleton and bobsleigh, all at the same time. Ever since the time of the opening of The Whistler Sliding Centre sports venue, the place has brought in sliding sports to more than 78,000 visitors. These numbers also include 18,000 only this past summer. Moreover, the Whistler Sliding Centre has also hosted as many as three World Cup competitions and hailed in an excess of 1,100 sliding athletes to its tracks. In the past 2008-2009 season only, a whopping 15,000 runs were recorded on these tracks.

Location:

The Whistler Sliding Centre is located amidst the Fitzsimmons Creek valley in the Whistler district of British Columbia in Canada. The exact location from Vancouver would be 125 kilometers or 78 miles towards the North. The Whistler Sliding Centre is to be found on the south-east sloppy foothills of the Blackcomb Mountain. The Blackcomb Mountain is one of the two mountains that comprise the Whistler Blackcomb resort.

The Whistler Sliding Centre is a first rate venue for sliding sports that is well known all across the world. The venue has seen some of the best and highest performances in the niche sports that it serves to. The venue comprises of a 1,450 meter extended competition track along with venue support buildings as well.

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games That Will Take Place Here

The Whistler Sliding Centre venue has been scheduled to host luge, skeleton and bobsleigh event competitions for the XXI Winter Olympics Vancouver. The event is being co-hosted this time by the Resort Municipality of Whistler and Vancouver. The skeleton and bobsleigh events will be held on the 1,450 meters. The Men’s luge will be held on the 1,374 meters while the women’s luge and the doubles event will be held on the 1,198 meters track. Athletes from all around the world are bucking up to put forward some exceptional performances on these world class tracks past the 12th of February 2010.