Vancouver
In 2003 the IOC awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics to Vancouver, thus allowing Canada to host its second Winter Olympics. With a population of more than 2.5 million people Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area to ever host a Winter Olympic Games.[70] Over 80 countries and 2,500 athletes participated in 86 events.[71] The death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in a training run on the day of the opening ceremonies cast a pall over the Games. His death forced officials at the Whistler Sliding Centre to change the track to make it safer.[72] Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjorgen won five medals in the six cross-country events on the women's programme. She finished the Olympics with three golds, a silver and a bronze.[73] The Vancouver Games were notable for the poor performance of the Russian athletes. From their first Winter Olympics in 1956 to the 2006 games, a Soviet or Russian delegation had never been outside the top five medal-winning nations. In 2010 they finished sixth in total medals and eleventh in gold medals. President Dmitry Medvedev called for the resignation of top sports officials immediately after the Games.[74] The success of Asian countries stood in stark contrast to the under-performing Russian team with Vancouver marking a high point for medals won by Asian countries. In 1992 the Asian countries had won fifteen medals, three of which were gold. In Vancouver the total number of medals won by athletes from Asia had increased to thirty-one, with eleven of them being gold. Th rise of Asian nations in Winter Olympics sports is due in part to the growth of winter sports programmes and the interest in winter sports in nations such as South Korea, Japan and China. Vancouver (i/v???ku?v?r/) is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. The 2011 census recorded more than 603,000 people in the city, making it the eighth largest Canadian city.[1] The metropolitan area, with more than 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country[1] and the most populous in Western Canada. With 5,249 people per square kilometre (13,590 per square mile), the City of Vancouver is the most densely populated Canadian municipality among those with 5,000 residents or more.[2] Vancouver is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada, and for 52% of its population, English is not their first language.For more than a decade, business magazine assessments have ranked Vancouver as one of the most "liveable cities" worldwide,[12][13] and the Economist Intelligence Unit acknowledged it as the first city to rank among the top-ten of the world's most liveable cities for five consecutive years.[14] Vancouver has hosted many international conferences and events, including the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, Expo 86, and the World Police and Fire Games in 1989 and 2009. The 2010 Winter Olympics and 2010 Winter Paralympics were held in Vancouver and nearby Whistler, a resort community 125 km (78 mi) north of the city.