The Turin 2006 Games will showcase the wines of Italy and gastronomy. Created four years ago to promote the flavours of the Olympic territory, Antonio Saitta, President of the provincial government said, “today the basket features around 30 specialties made with a hundred traditional food products”. These include Piedmont honey, Carmagnola peppers, Valle di Susa “prosciuttello” ham, Toma di Lanzo and Pancalieri mint chocolates, grissini bread sticks, mountain hone, and grissini rubata bread sticks.
TOROC’s official supplier of transport and logistic services will use 100 vehicles, 3500 staff and 23 warehouses, as well as three centres (more than 30,000 square metres) for the Turin Games.
During the Olympics 1,000 journalists, mostly American, will stay at a former military hospital, the Alessandro Riberi, which was handed over to TOROC after a one-and-a-half year renovation. The 30-million-euro project made it possible to create more than 700 rooms (493 singles and 235 doubles) at the 30,000-square-metre site. The Riberi media village is the fifth to be completed out of seven and will be ready for accommodation at the beginning of January. Following the Games it will continue to be a military and forensic medical centre, as well as a hall to accommodate service personnel.
There will be total coverage of the Games on three channels, Eurosport, Eurosport 2 and Euronews, between February 20 and 26 for 24 hours a day, 380 hours of television. More than 120 people in the Olympic region will be involved in Eurosport’s broadcast of the Turin Games in 19 European languages to 54 countries. Eurosport has also prepared shows for the run-up to the Games.
NBC Universal has sold nearly 90 per cent of ad inventory for the 2006 Winter Games two months before they begin. Reuters reports that the company has reached a sales record for a Winter Olympics just before it reaches its target of $900 million. The previous record was $740 million for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. NBC paid $613 million for the rights to carry the 2006 Games and executives expect they’ll turn a profit on the Games.
