“Last night it was 80 degrees on the aft deck of my boat, Strangelove, in Vancouver, but no one wanted to talk about anything but the expectation that the Winter Olympics here, starting February 12, will be one of the wonders of the world. The ice sports will be staged in Vancouver and about an hour and a half up the Sea to Sky Highway the great snow events will happen in Whistler. Almost everything will be bigger, better and more high tech than ever. Winter Games usually bring in 10,000 press but this year’s prediction is more – seriously more – because Vancouver and Whistler have made or remade everything deliberately plus. Vancouver is the first large, glamorous, metropolitan city to host the Winter Games and as the city has been booming in every way – and enjoying its boom – it has gone to extremes to make this the sports event you’ve got to see in 2010 …”

Click here to read more from Mary Wells’s tour through the grounds of the 2010 Winter Olympics.