Olympic organizers offered their midway assessment of the Games at a press conference in Vancouver this weekend, an evaluation in which they passed themselves with flying colours.
“We’re extremely pleased with how the operations of the Games have been going,” said VANOC executive vice-president Dave Cobb.
While Cobb used most of the press conference to pat himself and his organization on the back, he did speak to some of the growing pains faced in the first week of the Olympics.
“Some of our buses arrived in insufficient quality to what we expected,” added Cobb. “But we had about 100 buses replaced in two days and now we believe our transit system to be running very well.”
Along with the subpar buses, Cobb also addressed the long lineups in retail areas, food and beverage shortages in certain venues, and empty seats — those belonging to the press and families of athletes — in some of the stadiums.
“We have challenges when it comes to Olympic family seating and we are looking at tweaking the size of some of those areas,” he said.
Gilbert Felli, executive director for the IOC, attended the press conference and congratulated VANOC on a job well done so far.
