Motif: Logo design application of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver 2010 From 12 to 28 February 2010 the Canadian city of Vancouver (about two million inhabitants) will host the world’ s best winter sportsmen and sportswomen - alpinists and biathlonists, hockey players and skaters, ski jumpers and speed skaters…It will be for the second time in history that Canada organizes winter Olympic games. In 1988 Calgary was the first Canadian city to represent the second largest state in the world as the organizer of this respectful competition. It will also be for the 6th time that Winter Olympic Games are held in North America. Apart from Calgary winter Olympic Games were hosted by US towns: Lake Placid in 1932, Squaw Valley in 1960, Lake Placid again in 1980 and Salt Lake City in 2002. First Winter Olympic Games were held in Chamonix, France, and very often winter sportsmen and sportswomen have gathered in smaller, mostly European, winter resorts. However, recently, the International Olympic Committee has changed this tradition and in 2006 the Winter Olympic Games were held in Italian Turin (Torino) and its surroundings with a population of over a million; also Vancouver is a major world centre which grants even more splendour to such an event. Summer Olympic Games have always been among competitions that have captured major attention as more spectacular, with more participants, publicity and more TV spectators. However, their winter counterpart is trying to reach the same level and the cities like Turin and Vancouver are doing their best to bring this great sports event closer to the eyes of billions of spectators. The Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, its spectacular opening and closing as well as the entire mix of events have set the bar high and everyone it trying to reach it. As a rule, at the Winter Olympic Games the greatest attractions have always been competitions in alpine skiing and ice hockey. American-Canadian professional ice hockey league (NHL) is the reason why some of the recent Winter Olympic Games were incomplete - especially when we bear in mind all the megastars of this sport, and why the interest for the Winter Olympics has decreased accordingly. However, recently all best hockey players have recovered their sense for the Winter Olympics so that ice hockey will surely be the event number one in Vancouver. Canadian love for hockey is infinite, their team probably the world’s best and in February most headlights will be focused to these "giants on ice”. Alpine skiing is in some sense undergoing a metamorphosis. After brilliant individual achievements in Nagan, Salt Lake City and Turun there will be no Janica Kostelić, Hermann Maier or Kjetil Andre Aamodt on the slopes in Vancouver. What a huge loss their not taking part at winter Olympics means for skiing as a sport is best illustrated by the following statistics: Janica Kostelić (four gold and two silver medals at Winter Olympic Games), Hermann Maier (two gold medals, one silver and one bronze medal) and Kjetil Andre Aamodt (four gold, two silver and two bronze medals). Presently, some new skiers are trying to take their posts, among them, hopefully, also the best Croatian skier Ivica Kostelić – the silver medal winner (his only medal from the Olympics so far) in Combination at last Winter Olympics. At the Winter Olympic Games the spectators have always been enchanted by attractive and elegant ice skaters, but lot of attention has also been paid to inexhaustible cross-country skiers and biathlonists. One of them is also the legend of the Winter Olympics, the Norvegian cross-country skier Bjorn Dahlie who at three Winter Olympics (Albertville 1992, Lillehammer 1994 and Nagano 1998) won eight gold and four silver medals. His woman counterpart is a Russian Larisa Lazutina with five gold medals, one silver and one bronze medal. While we were remembering the legends that said good-bye to Olympic Games in 2006, there is one more name left that still exalts the spectators and deserves his live legend title: a Norvegian biathlonist Ole Einar Bjorndalen the winner of four gold medals in Salt Lake City ( three individual medals and one in relay race). Bjorndalen’s rich treasury presently keeps five gold medals, four silver and one bronze medal and in Vancouver he will be „chasing" eight gold medals of his countryman Dahliea. In the bunch of world stars there stands proudly Croatia with its representatives. While Croatian sportsmen and sportswomen shyly presented themselves in Albertville in 1992 and two years later in Lillehammer and while Janica Kostelić made a step onto the big stage in 1998 in Nagan, in 2002 and 2006 Croatia was already an important participant owing exclusively to Kostelićs – Janica and Ivica. Croatian Olympic Committee has scheduled 18 Croatian sportsmen and sportswomen for participation at the Winter Olympics - ten in alpine skiing, two in biathlon, two in Nordic skiing and four in bobsleigh.
