2010 Winter Olympics for the 2000 Summer Olympics by two votes. Vancouver's victory came almost two years after Toronto's 2008 Summer Olympic bid was defeated by Beijing in a landslide vote. The Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) spent C$16.6 million on upgrading facilities at Cypress Mountain, which hosted the freestyle (aerials, moguls, ski cross) and snowboarding events. With the opening in February 2009 of the C$40 million Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre at Hillcrest Park, which hosted curling, every sports venue for the 2010 Games was completed on time and at least one year prior to the Games. In 2004, the operational cost of the 2010
Winter Paralympic Games of the Games. The origins of the Winter Paralympics are much similar to the Summer Paralympics. Injured soldiers returning from World War II sought sports as an avenue to healing. Organized by Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, sports competitions between British convalescent hospitals began in 1948 and continued until 1960 when a parallel Olympics was held in Rome after the 1960 Summer Olympics. Over 400 wheelchair athletes competed at the 1960 Paralympic Games, which became known as the first Paralympics. Sepp Zwicknagl, a pioneer of snow sports for disabled athletes, was a double-leg amputee Austrian skier who experimented skiing using prosthetics. His