Details of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games competition schedules — including hourly accounts of the sport activities taking place over the 17 days of Olympic competition and 10 days of Paralympic competition in 2010 were released Friday. The announcement by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) stems from the approval of the hourly Olympic Winter Games Competition Schedule by the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Beijing, China. The hourly Paralympic Winter Games Competition Schedule was approved by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in 2007. With both schedules now approved and available at www.vancouver2010.com, and just about two months remaining until tickets to the Olympic Winter Games go on sale, on October 3, the picture just got much clearer for those planning to attend the Games in 2010.

Notable schedule highlights include: the Opening Ceremony which will launch the XXI Olympic Winter Games, at 6:00 pm on February 12, 2010, at BC Place; the final sport event of the Olympic Winter Games, the men’s gold medal hockey game, on February 28, at 12:15 pm at General Motors Place; the first Paralympic sport event, on March 13, when the men’s and ladies’ alpine skiing competitions begin at 9:30 am at Whistler Creekside; and the final Paralympic sport event on March 21, the men’s and ladies’ one-kilometre sprint finals in cross-country skiing, beginning at 12:00 pm at Whistler Paralympic Park. “This is a major milestone we can share with our sport and broadcast partners who worked closely with us to develop a balanced Games schedule that satisfies the respective International Sport Federations (IFs), television audiences around the world and spectators who will attend the Games,” said Cathy Priestner Allinger, VANOC’s executive vice president, Sport and Games Operations. “As with all Games, the schedule will maintain a degree of flexibility in timing. However, now that the overall schedule has been refined, we know it will be of great interest to spectators so they can plan their activities. But it’s also a key planning document for others. Broadcasters and service providers can begin to hone their plans for 2010. Our team can start finalizing all crucial systems to ensure an exemplary experience for all. And, perhaps most importantly, the world’s greatest winter athletes can further develop their game plans as they prepare to perform on the world’s largest stage in 2010.”

With nine competition venues, 12 stadiums, seven sports, 15 disciplines, 86 medal events for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and 64 medal events for the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, producing the hourly competition schedules has been a highly complex endeavour. The hourly competition schedules released today were built on the schedules announced by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in December 2007, which underwent eight subsequent revisions.

Delta Air Lines has discovered the tourism treasures of the Kootenay Rockies Region of British Columbia and will begin direct jet service to Canadian Rockies International Airport (YXC) on December 17, 2008 from Salt Lake City (SLC).

The new service will utilize Canadair RJ 200 regional jets carrying 50 passengers at a cruising speed of 530 miles per hour, with a flying time of just one hour fifty-eight minutes between Salt Lake City and Cranbrook. The new Canadian Rockies International Airport joins Vancouver International (YVR) as one of only two airports in British Columbia serviced directly from a major US hub airport. The Salt Lake City International Airport serves eleven million passengers annually and provides the Kootenay Rockies market access to twenty US cities with a one-stop ninety minute connection through SLC. Skiers, snowboarders, hikers, golfers and adventurers can leave their place of work in the east and be home in Canada’s pristine Rocky Mountains that same day!

The Canadian Rockies International Airport is located just 60 minutes from Fernie Alpine Resort. “We know that convenient access and connectivity are of paramount importance to US travellers, and this new direct service to British Columbia will now position the exceptional vacation opportunities of the Kootenay Rockies alongside the mountain communities currently serviced by major US carriers,” comments Tourism British Columbia CEO, Rod Harris. “British Columbia looks forward to hosting the many new visitors taking advantage of Delta’s exciting new service. ”Canadian Rockies International prepares to welcome Delta Air Lines to the East Kootenay’s. Flights begin December 17.

Fernie Alpine Resort is one of the Top 5 Ski Resorts in North America, and is home to over 29 feet of legendary powder each winter, the “Griz” and more. Known for its light, fluffy powder and ski-in, ski-out convenience, there’s always more to discover in the City of Fernie.

Everyone is familiar with the sensation of breathing hard during exertion. The increased heart rate, quickened breathing and slight tightening in the chest. Now imagine these sensations increasing rapidly while you’re only sitting still. This is how an asthma attack feels.

The Asthma Society of Canada reports “In Canada, approximately 20 children and 500 adults die each year from asthma. About 20 per cent of boys and 15 per cent of girls aged 8 to 11 have been diagnosed with asthma. It is estimated that more than 80 per cent of asthma deaths could be prevented with proper asthma education.” Awareness, support and education are crucial to change these statistics.

In this year’s TransRockies there are two teams that are hoping to increase such awareness and education. The Blackstone Fernie Breathe Easy teams from are riding in support of the Asthma Society of Canada. They will compete in the “toughest mountain bike race in the world” for 7 days through the British Columbia Rockies covering approximately 600 kms and an elevation gain of 12,000 vertical miles. Team Breathe Easy One is Pepper Couelle-Sterling, a teacher and asthmatic and Dr. Shayne Soetaert, a family physician. Team Breathe Easy Two is Michelle Kramer and Sebastian Bade.

If you would like to learn more about the Blackstone Fernie TransRockies campaign supporting asthma, please go to the Asthma Society of Canada’s website: www.asthma.ca. Do it honour of the asthma sufferer you love the most. And don’t worry if that person happens to be you. To quote the motto of the Asthma Society, “everyone deserves to breathe easy.” To make a donation please go directly to: www.asthma.ca

The Blackstone Fernie Epic Finish happens in the Historic Downtown on Saturday August 16th. For more information visit fernie.com/transrockies

Concerned East Kootenay citizens have set up a blockade approximately 50 kilometres from Invermere on the Farnham Creek Forest Service Road. People committed to keeping the area wild intend to halt road construction inside the Jumbo Glacier Resort Controlled Recreation Area.

Jumbo Wild supporters blockade the Farnham Creek road to prevent access by Glacier Resorts to proceed with their planned ski lift and access road as part of their Master Plan.

The road construction is taking place through the Farnham Creek headwaters in an alpine area near West Farnham Glacier, which is adjacent to Jumbo Glacier. If built, the road would allow resort proponents the chance to build a ‘temporary surface lift’—yes, a ski lift—inside the proposed boundaries of the resort. However, the resort hasn’t been approved yet. Opponents of the development claim the lift would be an unacceptable invasion into the Proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort Controlled Recreation Area.

Construction started quietly last week, with Glacier Resorts plowing a 500-meter road through sensitive alpine tundra to access the West Farnham Glacier.

“Wildsight and the Jumbo Creek Conservation Society are appalled by this attack on the alpine and on due process,” said Dave Quinn, Wildsight’s Purcell Mountain program manager. “Machines are tearing up the alpine in Farnham Creek headwaters as we speak—just so that a collection of resort proponents can lay claim to some territory. Well, that’s not acceptable. It’s not fair play and some individuals have gathered and intend to stop the game.”
The road construction is occurring without public consultation and without an approval to proceed for the Jumbo Glacier Master Plan. The master plan has not received any form of local government rezoning, nor has it received local First Nations approval, nor has the provincial government signed off on it as a final Master Development Agreement.

Local activists suspect the activity is an attempt to keep alive a “stale” agreement between Jumbo Glacier resort proponents and one arm of the B.C. government

“The proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort’s controversial Conditional Environmental Assessment certificate expires in 2009,” said Dave Quinn, a program manager with Wildsight. “If the resort proponents show no progress by that time, they’ll have to go back to square one. So this appears to be their attempt to squeeze in any progress they possibly can—and keep a very outdated certificate alive.”

Quinn said the road and proposed lift is “a desperate attempt by a desperate developer for a doomed project.” He notes that after 20 years the Jumbo Glacier Resort proposal still doesn’t have the necessary rezoning it needs to go ahead. (The resort proponent, Glacier Resorts Limited, hasn’t applied for it yet.) Nor are there any permits in place to proceed with construction.

Since the original environmental certificate was drafted, professional wildlife biologists have revised estimates of grizzly populations in the area, demonstrating that they have plummeted by 50 per cent. If the certificate were to be renewed without being reviewed, new scientific evidence proving that the resort would severely impact the grizzly population could be ignored. The Jumbo Valley provides connectivity for one of the only trans-boundary grizzly populations left in the interior of B.C.

“We expect work to be halted. It’s ludicrous that this work is proceeding without public review of a new tenure or a development approval,” Quinn said.

To confuse matters, there have been troubling “license of occupation” transfers between the resort proponents and an adjacent stakeholder. The Canadian Olympic Development Association (CODA) has operated an athletes’ training camp on the adjacent East Farnham Glacier since 2005. This license of occupation was transferred by the provincial government to Glacier Resorts in December, 2007, when it mysteriously ballooned from 240 hectares to 1,400 hectares. CODA has disavowed any connection with the new development and stated that it is not part of a training facility for Olympic athletes

“We are for a wild Jumbo,” said Quinn. “With rapidly melting glaciers, a regional shortage of skilled tourism workers and a slowing market for recreational properties, a monster land grab in the Jumbo Valley makes even less sense now than ever. People are furious—and highly motivated to halt those who would run roughshod over the alpine in order to alienate public land for their private gain.”