The chief ringhead on Olympics Insider will be off for the next week, resuming the blog on Monday, June 1.

We hate to delve into smut and cheap innuendo -- leaping into it is more fun and profitable these days -- but the subject can be avoided no longer.

More and more people seem to be agreeing with select Canadian potheads (pardon the redundancy) that the Official Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch, lying on its side, looks suspiciously like a big, fat doobie. As in, joint. Marijuana cigarette. Fill in your own nickname here.

We hardly think -- or at least we hope -- the good folks at Bombardier, makers of planes, trains and now, apparently, 37-inch, 2.8-pound, stainless steel and aluminum replica joints, had the evil, killer weed in mind when they designed the torch last year.

But in a nation that made dope-smoking snowboarder Ross Rebagliati a hero after he became the first person ever to be stripped (temporarily) of a medal for using a performance-impeding drug at Nagano in 1998, anything's possible.

That contact high that Ross claimed he got at a party in Whistler must have spread east, because the Toronto Star today ran a piece about the uncanny resemblance of the Olympic torch, or "Olympic toke," as they say it's being referred to around Vancouver, to a light-up-able conveyor of B.C. Bud.

Two thirds of Star readers, in a highly unscientific and perhaps buzz-induced poll, thought the torch looked like a joint.

Not everyone agrees.

Over on The Stranger's Slog, for instance, David Schmader opines that "Personally, I think it looks like a pregnancy test that reveals you're having Satan's baby."

Hard to argue with that.

Historical note: To be fair, a lot of torches of Olympics' past bear uncanny resemblances to unsavory things, if you turn them a certain way and squint a little. Canada ought to know this already. For instance, take that 1988 Calgary torch and turn it upside down, and what do you have?

A fine silver-and-wood toilet plunger, or worse.

Gets worse than that. Look back farther. The Albertville 2002 torch, pictured below, can only be described as looking like a .... well, you be the judge.

Note: If you want to get completely carried away with this -- and why not? -- see the New York Times' interactive graphic of torches past here.

(Photos, top: Vancouver Olympic torch tipped sideways for, uh, creative effect, VANOC;
lower: Calgary 1988 torch and 1992 Albertville torches (Olympic Museum)

One of the most interesting things about covering an Olympics in a foreign land is watching the people of the host nation wriggle, squirm, puff up their chests and react in myriad ways to their Big Moment in the Spotlight -- the inevitable here's-what-this-place-is-all-about coverage being zipped around the world by global media.

Residents of Vancouver have every right to look forward to most of that coverage -- let's face it, it's a grand city, and should be a spectacular host for the Games. But there's always cause for trepidation, and people in B.C. have some of that, too.

Like every place, Vancouver has its rough spots (thank God; it'd be awfully boring if it didn't), and city residents already have gotten a glimpse of what it will be like to see those wounds more widely exposed via recent pieces in Canadian media about the "problem" of the city's rough-and-tumble (this would be a kind way to portray it) downtown Eastside neighborhood -- a long stone's throw from the very heart of what will be the Olympic Main Press Centre.

The area along Hastings street, long known for its drug-dealing, prostitution, homelessness and other ills, lies right in between the home for 10,000 visiting journalists and some of the Games' most high-profile venues, such as the Pacific Coliseum, which will host figure skating and short-track speedskating. There's been plenty of speculation about ways city and Olympic officials will deal with this problem -- rumors range from large-scale relocation of homeless people during the Games to the more simple solution, routing all buses and official Olympic traffic well wide of the whole mess and just pretending it's not there (our money's on the latter.)

Meanwhile, one B.C. media outlet, The Tyee, has taken an unusually creative -- and proactive -- approach to helping the rest of us media types out when we "parachute" into the city to profile places like the downtown Eastside.

The piece begins by citing a recent, especially vapid USA Today profile of the city, which the paper calls the "supermodel" of North American cities -- and treats it as such, with a piece that gushes sufficiently to embarrass even tourism flaks. As The Tyee points out, it's all part of the big setup -- with that kind of intro, people should brace for the obvious other shoe dropping when reporters arriving to check out said supermodel, only to discover the cellulite lurking below the facade.

Writer Garrett Zehr's recommendations -- they include thinking twice about the impact of that community before attempting to sum it up in one tidy paragraph, and not assuming that problems found on that section of Hastings are only found there -- are worthy reading for anyone thinking about covering the Games -- or just visiting the city for anything more than a whirlwind tour.

Bremerton swimmer and 2004 Athens medalist Tara Kirk has settled a case against USA Swimming, the governing body of her sport, after claiming she was financially damaged by the group's negligence in failing to place her on the Beijing swim team last summer.

Kirk was denied entry onto the team in spite of finishing third in the 100 meter breaststroke at the U.S. Olympic Trials -- an event in which the first-place finisher, Jessica Hardy of California, later tested positive for a banned substance.

In most sports, Kirk would have advanced onto the Olympic team, which takes the top two finishers in every event. But USA Swimming, because of a delay in receiving test results, said the positive test came too late to change the Olympic lineup. An arbitrator last summer ruled that USA Swimming had followed its own posted rules in setting the roster, so Kirk could not be placed on the team.

But the arbitrator left the door open for Kirk to pursue damages. And for an athlete suddenly bereft of sponsors that come with the term "Olympian," those damages can be substantial.

USA Swimming settled the case as a followup arbitration loomed next week.

Terms of the settlement were not announced, by mutual agreement. The parties issued a joint statement saying the matter had been "resolved to the satisfaction of all parties."

Kirk said in an e-mail that she's excited about moving on with her life, and is in "preliminary talks" with the Bremerton Schools Foundation to endow a fund for an elementary swim program in her hometown community, which has produced three Olympic swimmers in the past two Summer Games.

Kirk also is getting married in August.

The Bremerton native and former Stanford star, now retired, said she got what she wanted from the arbitration process.

"I'm now looking forward to working to prevent this problem from ever happening again, through appropriate rules changes to the selection procedures," she said.

USA Swimming, from the outset, refused to accept responsibility for the SNAFU, although individual coaches in the U.S. Swimming program acknowledged it makes sense to schedule the Olympic Trials farther in advance of the Games to allow testing to be completed, among other things.

Hardy, who qualified for the Games in four events, was suspended for two years, but recently had that suspension reduced by a year after convincing a separate arbitration panel that she ingested the banned substance in question, the anabolic agent clenbuterol, accidentally through her nutritional supplements.

Hardy and the nutrition company, AdvoCare, have sued one another over the matter, which could prohibit Hardy from competing in the London 2012 Games.

So, that was quick.

Not necessarily painless.

I've heard from a lot of readers and would-be buyers who were foiled by computer errors during the CoSport ticket sale. One common complaint: People got to the final purchase phase, hit "purchase," and got an error message similar to the following:

Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0115'

Unexpected error

/v2010/SendTicketsPurchaseConfirmation.asp

A trappable error (C0000005) occurred in an external object. The script
cannot continue running.

I don't know what that means. And neither does anyone else I've spoken to about it. But one reader did say he checked with his bank and the charge for his tickets did, indeed, go through.

My advice: You should get a confirmation email from CoSPort about your purchase. I got mine within about 20 minutes of making the buy. If you haven't by now, I'd be contacting them to find out about your ticket status. And, of course, check with your bank or card company. If you got charged, chances are you got tickets.

Meanwhile, I will attempt to get an answer from CoSport about this problem. The company actually was fairly persistent about solving these sort of "suspended-animation" payment problems in the last round of ticketing.

Stay tuned.

1:35 p.m.: Two choices:

Preliminary rounds hockey, or preliminary rounds hockey.

Although that women's bronze medal hockey game is still available.

1:18: A find: Women's bronze medal hockey game on Feb. 25: $202 and $269. Remember Turin: This was Team USA's last game.

Curling: Down to a single session. UPDATE: SOLD OUT.

------------

1:15: I see below that some of you got lucky, many did not. I feel all that pain. Looks like CoSport is getting down to the proverbial stems and seeds. Remaining hockey tickets are mostly now all the higher-price category, $188. But frankly, we're surprised they're still available. And the Web site now seems to be responding more readily with reduced traffic (YMMV).
---------------

Want to see the Olympics? Three words: Curling, women's qualifying. They're $88, while they last.

1:07: Long track speedskating gone, which means someone paid $249 to watch prelims in team pursuit...

1 p.m.:

-- Women's freestyle skiing sold out, except for aerial final at $202. Might be last medal-round ticket available. Oops. Never mind. SOLD OUT.

-- Curling going fast.

-- Ice hockey prelims still available.

-- Some long-track speed skating, going fast.

-- Closing ceremonies, $632 and $930. C'mon. Anne Murray might be there. Alanis. k.d. lang?

12:57 pm.: Less than 30 minutes after sale begins, looks like tickets available at this instant only for following:

-- Closing Ceremony.

-- Various rounds of curling.

-- Prelim hockey.

-- Women's freestyle aerials and ski cross.

-- Long track speedskate team pursuit qualifier.

-- Ice dance in priciest category, $500-plus.

12:51: Closing ceremony tickets still available...

Men's bronze medal curling match: $135. Hey, it's a medal round!

Some ice dancing seats at $535 per.

Also: Women's ski cross final at $168 and women's aerial final at $202.

Speed skating team pursuit qualifying: $249.

12:50 Update:
These tickets are going really,. really fast. And the Web site is holding up. As of now, some prelim hockey and curling, surprisingly, seem to be most of what's left.

12:45:Men's bronze medal hockey game: $538. Anyone? Anyone?

Short track: Sold out.
Long track: Sold out.
Bobsled: Sold out.
Biathlon: Sold out.
Cross-country: Women's 30k mass start, otherwise sold out.
Curling: Available.
Figure skating: Sold out, except expensive ice dance.
Freestyle skiing: Sold out.
Hockey: Available.
Luge: Sold out.
Nordic combined: sold out.
Opening ceremony: sold out.
Skeleton: Sold out.
Snowboard: Some available at $168.
Victory ceremonies, BC Place and Whistler: Sold out.

12:35: Tickets purchased! For the 50k mass start cross country race.

Note: If, like me, you race through the purchase process to get tickets before everything crashes, remember to click the box to "include shipping with the order" on the first checkout screen. It's ridiculously overpriced ($35 in other rounds) to have the tickets mailed, but otherwise you will have to wait in a will-call line in Vancouver next February.

Tickets appear to be available, as promised, for a fairly broad number of events, but of course the lower-priced seats are going very quickly, leaving tickets for the big-budgeted only -- already. Surprising numbers of hockey games, preliminary rounds. Starting price: $108.

12:28: TIckets still available for opening ceremony at $1,294 each. Go get 'em.

12:20 update: I'm in the site. Looks like small inventory for some events. Don't click on figure skating if you don't want to be in on-hold purgatory....

If you want tickets to just ANY Olympic event, go to skeleton, or ski jumping, or somesuch. Looks like you can get through there, eventually.

Scratch that. Ski jumping: Sold out. Women's curling qualifying, anyone? 88 bucks!

12:15 update: Icon spin continues, site won't load. Here is what Mark Lewis, president of Jet Set Sports, which owns and operates CoSport, told me last week about steps taken to avoid an Internet overload, like the one that happened in a previous ticket sale in February:

"We've worked with a new web-hosting and commerce company. We've done a lot of stress testing on the system. We think it'll hold up to the demand we're expecting. But there's always a finite number (at which point a system bogs down). Were confident we've enhanced our system."

"The last time, it was actually the credit-card purchasing portion that got gummed up. People got through the site OK, but couldn't get approval from the credit-card company. Everything started backing up (from there."

"There's always going to be a number that knocks you down. But it's been stress-tested. We're ready to go."

He said it was "hard to say" how long the ticket sale might last, but added that he would be surprised if all the tickets would be sold in one day.

"I think we will see a strong demand up front," he said. "A good number will be sold on the first day."

---------------
UPDATE: (Noon). In my version of Windows, the time-wasting, Web-page-not-loading icon is a little spinning circle, which spins clockwise. What's yours?

It's really pretty hypnotic.

----------
People logging on to www.cosport.com in search of Olympic tickets at 11 a.m. PDT were greeted by a site-maintenance placeholder, with the promise of a ticket sale to start at 11:30. Let us know how it goes, folks.

That was the question on the mind of an intrepid reporter from The Province in Vancouver today, who called to ask about tomorrow's CoSport sale (see below.)

We're guessing no. This statement comes from CoSport's Web site:

Only Residents of Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Sweden, United States, countries within the European Union and European Economic Zone will be able to purchase individual tickets for use during the Games through CoSport.

The company likely uses the billing address for your credit card as proof of "residence." So, if you're a Canadian and you have a friend in Seattle, you might be able to have that person get you tickets as a proxy. Then again, you probably have a better chance with VANOC, which distributed about 90 times the amount of tickets as the meager number allotted for U.S. sales.

Bottom line: Stick to your own ticket sale!

One other note on the sale: Several readers have pointed out that CoSport, this time around, is not requiring a credit card to register on the site, as it did for earlier rounds. But you'll need one to buy tickets.

Looking for tickets to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler?

The last sizable block likely to be available to Americans goes up for sale online Thursday morning. Some answers to questions about how, where, and when to get them:

Q) Who's selling the tickets?

A) CoSport, the exclusive U.S. ticketing agency, which sells the tickets under a contract with the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Q) How many are there, and for which events?

A) CoSport will sell nearly 40,000 tickets, first-come, first-served. The company says the tickets cover a wide spectrum of events, including medal-round performances of "high-demand" sports. CoSport has not released a ticket breakdown beyond that.

Q) What's the process?

A) Those who have not done so must pre-register at www.cosport.com by 6 a.m. PDT Thursday. (To register, click the "Don't have an account?" link below the "Account login" windows on the left side of the home page. Or, just go to this link: http://www.cosport.com/country.aspx.) You'll need to provide address information and a valid credit card number to establish a username and password necessary to buy tickets. Update: A reader says CoSport is not requiring a credit card for preregistration, as it did for previous ticket sales.

The sale is set to begin at 11 a.m. PDT Thursday, and will continue until all tickets are sold.

Q) Has CoSport beefed up its infrastructure to prevent the sort of system crashes that happened during the February sale?

A) It says it has, although it acknowledges that no system is immune to failure if vast numbers of customers attempt to use it all at the same time. Patience is advised.

Q) What is the ticket price range?

A) It's all over the map. Depending on seat quality, prices range from $54 and $114 for the 4-man bobsled final to $135 and $200 for the men's downhill and $678 and $930 for the gold-medal hockey match, assuming those might be available (figures are in U.S. dollars). The company charges a markup of about a third over prices for the same tickets sold in a separate process to Canadian residents.
Q) Are there other charges?

A) Unless you want to wait in a will-call line in Vancouver, you'll pay $35 to have your tickets mailed to you.

Q) Is there a ticket limit?

A) It's 48 tickets per customer. CoSport also mentions an additional "per-session" limit, though it's not clear what that is.

Q) How does this ticket sale compare in size and scope with earlier U.S. ticket sales?

A) CoSport's first ticket phase, last fall, distributed about 48,000 tickets to fans who filled out ticket requests, which were submitted to a computer lottery. An additional 7,000 tickets were sold in an online-only sale in February, open only to purchasers who had participated in the first phase.

Q) I tried to get tickets in the first phase and got shut out. Does that give me preference in this round?

A) No.

Q) How many Vancouver Olympic tickets are being sold worldwide?

A) About 1.6 million. The U.S. share announced for sale to date is about 5.5 percent of the total, although the percent actually allocated to U.S. individual ticket buyers is significantly lower. CoSport's parent company, Jet Set Sports, transferred significant numbers of tickets from its all-inclusive Olympics-package travel business to the individual sales market. Demand for Vancouver tickets has far outstripped that for previous North American Olympic Games.

Q) Are medal-ceremony tickets included in the sale?

A) No. Tickets to nightly medal ceremonies at B.C. Place in Vancouver and at a central plaza in Whistler will be sold through a separate process, details yet unknown.

Q) Will additional tickets be sold later, after other nations turn in unused ones?

A) It's possible, although numbers are likely to be small.

Q) Can I buy tickets from third-party vendors in Canada?

A) Yes. But be prepared to pay huge markups over list prices.

We asked USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel to answer a few lingering questions about CoSport, the official, and exclusive, U.S. ticket agency hired by that organization to sell 2010 Winter Games tickets.

We didn't get the answers in time for Sunday's print piece about tickets, so I'm going to pass the information along here, in the form of a simple Q and A:

Q: Does the USOC's contract with CoSport limit the ticket markup? Does it have any other control over other costs, such as handling fees, etc., or the manner in which tickets are distributed? If not, why not?

A: The USOC does have input, but the final pricing is set by CoSport. Two important points we stress: 1) there should be a variety of price points at which tickets are available and 2) the pricing should be comparable to that of officially licensed ticket agencies from other countries.

Q: When does USOC's contract with CoSport expire, ie, is it renegotiated for every Olympic cycle? Are there multiple bidders when it's open?

A: The current contract expires in 2012. Jet Set Sports (CoSport) has the right of first negotiation for a renewal. If they decline that right, or if we are unable to reach an agreement, other companies could be involved.

Q: Has the USOC been receiving complaints about CoSport, or ticketing in general, during this Olympic cycle, and if so, what if anything is it prepared to do about it?

A: Yes, we have received some complaints - primarily about the online order process being slow and customers being "timed out" of their order session. My understanding is CoSport has followed up directly with these customers to resolve the problem and fulfill their order.

We have also received a few complaints about tickets not being available for some of the high demand events, which is understandable.

Not a shocker here, given her all-but-announcement in the past month or so, but Sasha Cohen confirms to the Chicago Trib's Phil Hersh that she's definitely coming back to competitive skating next year, with the goal of skating in the Vancouver 2010 Games.

Cohen says she'll begin training in June, after wrapping up a Stars on Ice tour next week in Vancouver.

Whether Cohen can round into competitive form in time or not, it's great news for U.S. Figure Skating, which at least has a marquee player to offer up on TV next season as the march towards the U.S. Olympic Trials Jan. 14-24 in Spokane.

Speaking of which: Anyone guessing that ticket sales for that event get a boost -- not that one is entirely needed -- for that event?

It's nice to see Cohen, 24, make the leap back onto the stage. The woman has an undeniable flair for drama, and a certain amount of grit -- the kind you get when you're so close to the golden ring for so long, but never quite get it to slip on.

Somehow, you knew she wasn't done in the bright lights. And we don't mean the ones sponsored by Smucker's.

Loved the dual news releases sent out yesterday by the U.S. and Australian Olympic Committees, both announcing the May 14 sale by CoSport of the last significant lot of Vancouver 2010 tickets.

Check out the, uh, candid quotes in the two releases by two different people who had uncannily similar sentiments at the same time, an entire planet apart:

"We appreciate the efforts of CoSport to secure tickets so that Australian Olympic fans who will be in Vancouver during the Olympic Winter Games could cheer the Australian team in person."

-- Craig Phillips, Secretary General of the Australian Olympic Committee,

"We appreciate the efforts of CoSport to secure more tickets so that America's Olympic fans can be on hand to cheer their team on in person."

-- Lisa Baird, Chief Marketing Officer for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Apparently the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics aren't sold out, after all.

CoSport, the exclusive U.S. ticketing agency for the Feb. 12-28, 2010 Games, announced Wednesday that it had come up with an additional stash of nearly 40,000 tickets, including some for unspecified "high-demand" events.

Those tickets will go on sale online,at 11 a.m. Pacific Time, May 14, on CoSport's Web site. They'll be sold on a first-come, first-served basis, only to buyers who have established an account on the Web site before 6 a.m. Pacific Time the same day.

When they're gone, they're gone.

The size of the additional ticket allotment is a stunner -- it's almost as large as CoSport's original U.S. share of 48,000 individual tickets sold late last year.

Officials from CoSport, which has exclusive U.S. sales rights through a contract with the U.S. Olympic Committee, said the tickets came from two sources: an additional allotment from the Vancouver Organizing Committee, likely from tickets that went unsold in other countries; and a transfer of tickets from Jet Set Sports, CoSport's parent company, which deals in pricey, all-inclusive Olympic travel packages.

The new ticket inventory is "a very strong cross-section" of sports, Mark Lewis, Jet Set's president, told The Times. "There are a lot of high-demand events, and medal events themselves, not just preliminaries. A good number will be sold on the first day."

That's likely to revive the hopes of fans already resigned to not being able to attend the Olympics in person.

The new ticket sale, in contrast to the original one, will be a simple first-come, first-served online affair. In the first U.S. ticket sale last fall, prospective buyers were required to fill out online request forms, then wait weeks to be informed which tickets they would receive after computer lotteries were conducted. Because of high demand, most received only a fraction of the events requested, and many fans were shut out altogether.

That prompted wails of protest from Americans, particularly in Washington state, where about 40 percent of total U.S. ticket requests orginated from. Many U.S. fans had believed that close proximity to British Columbia would translate into a larger share of the ticket pie for Americans.

But because of record-high ticket demand in winter-sports-crazed Canada, the original, 48,000-ticket U.S. ticket allotment for individual (non-travel-package) buyers was only about 3 percent of the Games' total 1.6 million tickets.

A second sale of remaining tickets -- conducted online Feb. 5, only for buyers who had registered for the first ticket sale -- proved disastrous, as tens of thousands of buyers essentially crashed the CoSport Web site in a mad scamble for remaining tickets.

CoSport, conceding it had only about 7,000 tickets to sell that day, later apologized to prospective buyers who were bumped off its "significantly overloaded" Web site. Hundreds of lost orders were later resurrected, and reinstated, by the New Jersey company.

CoSport has contracted with a new Web host and beefed up its system after that experience, Lewis said.

"Obviously, there's always some number that can knock you down," he said, adding that fans might need to be patient at times. But the system has been stress-tested, and "we're ready to go next week," he said. "We're excited to have a chance to reprove ourselves."

A limit of 48 total tickets per customer account will be imposed.

The company expects high demand once more from the Seattle area, which has led the charge in ticket-seeking for these Games, Lewis said -- supplanting the normal number one market, California.

"There's obviously been a strong demand from Washington state as a whole, and the Seattle area in particular," Lewis said. It makes sense: "People can drive to it if they wan to do it in a day. It's practically an American Games for that community."

U.S. prices for Games tickets through CoSport, which adds a premium of about 30 percent above the face value of tickets sold in Canada, range from $54 and $114 (depending on seat quality) to the 4-man bobsled final to $135 and $200 for the men's downhill and $678 and $930 for the gold-medal hockey match. That's assuming any of those are still available. Having the tickets mailed, rather than waiting at will-call in Vancouver, costs extra -- $35 in previous sales.

Those prices are a bargain compared to third-party sales prices in Canada, where scalping Web sites are legal, and tickets for opening ceremonies are advertised at $3,000 to $5000 (Canadian) apiece, while women's figure skating tickets fetch $400 to $1,500 Canadian.

Lewis said it's possible that some lingering tickets will be made available to CoSport from VANOC at a later date. However, "This is the last quantity of tickets we know of at this time that we can absolutely guarantee will be available," he said. "As long as we have tickets, we will continue to sell them."

The transfer of tickets from Jet Set's travel offerings, usually all-inclusive packages sold to corporations, doesn't reflect a weak demand for those packages in a slow economy, Lewis said, adding that many of those sales occur closer to the Games themselves.

"This isn't a fire sale from breaking up packages in any way, shape or form," he said. "We still hope to sell a lot more (travel packages)."

Jet Set's ticket allotment -- which apparently was larger than the original individual-ticket allotment for the entire United States -- comes from its own sponsorship arrangement with VANOC. CoSport's individual-sales allotment is a result of a separate contract with the USOC, which allows the company to impose a markup in exchange for buying the tickets up front and taking the risk of selling them all.

In the case of this Olympics, that appears to be a very small risk.

Customers can pre-register for the May 14 sale here. Stay tuned here for updates.

The latest info on buying remaining Vancouver 2010 tickets from CoSport:

Dear Valued Customers,

CoSport is pleased to provide you with a service update regarding the Vancouver 2010 Ticketing Program. Please review the information below.

Individual Ticket Sales

Phase 2 Ticket Sales on the CoSport website will commence on Thursday, May 14th 2009 at approximately 2:00 pm (14:00) Eastern Standard Time in the United States. There is a very high demand for individual tickets and they will be available for purchase on a first-come, first serve basis. Tickets will remain on sale until they are SOLD OUT.

Please note the following important points:

In order to access the sales area of the CoSport website on Thursday, May 14th 2009, you must first login to your CoSport Account with your email address and password.

· Only individuals that have already created an account on the CoSport website before 9:00am EST on Thursday, May 14th 2009 will be able to participate in the next sales phase. To create an account please click on the following link: http://www.cosport.com/country.aspx

· The CoSport website will be shutdown two (2) hours before Phase 2 sales begins in order to update the ticket inventory.

· There will be a variety of high demand sessions available on a first-come, first serve basis.

· CoSport will not announce ahead of the sale commencement what specific events tickets or how many will be available.

· All ticket sales will be conducted directly at www.cosport.com. We are not able to take ticket orders via phone, fax or email.

· Only Residents of Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Sweden, United States, countries within the European Union and European Economic Zone will be able to purchase individual tickets for use during the Games through CoSport.

Payment by Credit Card only (Visa is the Official Credit Card of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games).
All sales are final.
Customers will be able to purchase 48 tickets in total, per account. There will be quantity limitations per session.
Shipping is optional for an additional charge.
· Please review the Terms and Conditions and Need to Know before purchasing tickets.

· While we have taken all measures to prevent this, due to the high volume of transactions you may experience delays when browsing the website or processing your order. Please be patient and try again if you experience technical difficulties.

Tickets and Hospitality Pass Packages

CoSport will continue to offer Tickets and Hospitality Pass Packages (THPP) on our website. These packages include access to our downtown hospitality center, as well as access to the Victory Ceremony celebrations. Please review our website for more details and to purchase a package.

Hospitality Packages

CoSport recently added additional hospitality packages offerings that include tickets to Figure Skating. Please review our website for more details and to purchase a package.

Accommodation Only Sales

As an added convenience for our customers, Accommodations Only in Vancouver are now available through our website. Please visit our website for more information and to purchase accommodation in Vancouver only.

Competition Schedule Changes

There have been minor changes to the competition schedule. Please check our website for the most up-to-date schedule and plan accordingly.

Ice Hockey Draw Announcement

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) recently posted the ice hockey competition schedule. You can view the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games Competition Schedule, please click on the following link:

http://www.vancouver2010.com/dl/00/44/31/-/44312/prop=data/o1kl3j/44312.pdf

For information about how the men's and women's Ice Hockey schedule is determined, please read below:

How is the schedule determined?

1) The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) determines the competition format for the Olympic Winter Games ice hockey tournament.

2) The 12 competing teams qualify for the Olympic Winter Games through the IIHF's Qualification Principles.

3) Once all teams are qualified, the IIHF, in conjunction with broadcasters and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), develops the tournament schedule outlining which teams play on which dates (*the schedule is confirmed once the participating hockey federations have approved the proposed schedule. Please note that although changes are not anticipated, confirmation of the proposed schedule is expected by June 2009.)

Now that the competition schedule has been published, if you wish to purchase tickets to watch a specific team, you can do so from the available inventory of tickets. Tickets already purchased cannot be cancelled or exchanged.

Victory Ceremony Tickets

Victory Ceremony tickets will not be available during Phase 2. We will not accept requests and reserve the right to offer them at a later date or onsite in Vancouver.

Transportation

Transportation plans are still being finalized by VANOC. Please continue to check our website and VANOC's for updates.

Please contact CoSport if you have any questions or problems with the above procedure at cosport@cosport.com or at one of our offices below:

North America:

Telephone (from within the US or Canada) - Toll Free: 1-877-45 RINGS (+1-877-457-4647)

From outside the US: +1-908-326-2660. Fax: +1 908-234-0270.

Hours: Monday to Friday - 9:00am to 6:00pm EST

Europe

Telephone: +43 (1) 713-3534.

Hours: Monday to Friday - 9:00am to 5:00pm (Austria time)

Australia

Telephone: +61 (0) 2 9241-5500.

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The maker of the nutritional supplements swimmer Jessica Hardy blames for a positive doping case that cost her a spot on the U.S. Olympic team is disputing the findings of the arbitration panel that reduced her suspension Monday (see posts below).

The panel said Hardy had met the burden of proof that AdvoCare supplements she was taking were contaiminated with a slight trace amount of Clenbuterol, a banned substance.

But testimony offered by Hardy's scientific experts is "in direct conflict with testing conducted by two independent laboratories, both of which found no evidence that Clenbuterol was present in the AdvoCare supplements consumed by Ms. Hardy," Allison Levy, the company's legal counsel, said in a release today.

"Every single raw material used in the specific lots consumed by Ms. Hardy also tested negative (Not Detected) for Clenbuterol."

The test results were certified by NSF International, an independent laboratory licensted to test for controlled substances, the release states. The results also were certifed by HFL Sports Science, a World Anti-Doping Association-experienced laboratory that AdvoCare says has analyzed more samples for banned substances than any other lab in the world.

"The arbitration panel's finding that Ms. Hardy had met her burden of proof in showing supplement contamination was based solely upon information presented by Ms. Hardy and her legal team," the statement said. "AdvoCare was not permitted to participate in the arbitration proceeding. AdvoCare was not allowed to question witnesses or present any evidence to the arbitration panel. The arbitration panel also denied AdvoCare's requests to attend the hearing and have the proceedings transcribed by a court reporter.

"For these reasons, AdvoCare believes that the arbitration was severely flawed and the panel's finding regarding the purity of AdvoCare's products is not supported by the facts or evidence."

The company noted that it has sued Hardy in Texas, seeking a judicial determination that the AdvoCare substances were clean.

"AdvoCare believes that after consideration of evidence presented by both AdvoCare and Ms. Hardy that it will prevail in the lawsuit," the release states.

Athletes who think the reduced suspension of swimmer Jessica Hardy signals a softer stance on accidental ingestion of banned substances would be mistaken, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's chief officer said Tuesday.

"The concept of strict liability ... says that if it's in your system, it's a violation," said USADA's Travis Tygart. "That stands. There's no question about that."

Even with the reduced suspension, Hardy's penalty was significant, and should serve as a warning to other athletes, he said.

"Make no mistake. She received a one-year suspension, and she lost a guaranteed spot on the Olympic team," Tygart said. "That's a significant penalty."

Arbitrators accepted Hardy's contention that she accidentally ingested the banned substance clenbuterol, from AdvoCare nutritional supplements she used from 2007 up through the U.S. Olympic Trials, where she tested positive last July. Hardy and Advocare are involved in an ongoing civil case over the matter.

The USADA chief said he was reluctant to comment on specific facts of the case, because his agency, by rule, is not allowed to do so, beyond announcing punishments of athletes.

But he said the American Arbitration Panel that reduced Hardy's suspension from two years to one -- and offered to further reduce it if the suspension might cause her to miss the 2012 London Olympics, should she qualify -- "took a lot of time, and I think was very deliberative."

"We'll take some time to reflect on the decision," Tygart said. "We vigorously and thoroughly challenged (Hardy's) evidence, as is our obligation, and feel like a fair decision was reached. "

The panel's further step of asserting jurisdiction over the case until a path is cleared for Hardy to compete in the 2012 Olympic Trials was unusual, Tygart said, adding that he'd only seen it happen in one other case, and under different circumstances.

Which begs the question: Was it even allowable under the U.S. Anti-Doping Code?

"Well, they did it," Tygart said. "Let me put it this way: There's no specific mechanism for it. They obviously felt there were good reasons to do it."

Tygart said he does not see the IOC's new Rule 45, which bans from the next Olympics any athlete who serves a sentence of more than six month for a doping violation, as something that's likely to wreak havoc with existing doping penalty rules in the future.

"I think it's case-specific," he said. Nobody would likely find fault with the rule in the case of, to use one example, dopers found guilty of intentionally cheating, and intentionally circumventing the drug-testing process, as in the case of athletes associated with the BALCO labs, Tygart said.

"I would find it hard for anyone to find it unfair in those cases, when you've got an intentional conspiracy," he said. "(But) in this one, the rule went into effect just a couple of days before her positive (test). She's missed one Olympic team already. There are a lot of factors that might be unique to her case" that don't apply to the average doping conviction, he added.

The testimony made it clear Hardy took "extraordinary steps" to ensure her supplements were clean, Tygart noted, probably the most taken by any athlete who has later tested positive.

But her subsequent positive test should signal to other athletes that, as of now, there simply is no way to get those assurances, he said.

"Our stance has to remain the same," Tygart said. "There's a risk (in taking supplements) not only from a health standpoint, but also from testing positive from any and all supplements that you might take, because the industry is unregulated. It's a legitimate risk."

According to the arbitration decision, Hardy testified that a nutritionist with USA Swimming, as well as a sports psycholigist from the U.S. Olympic Committee, had not only failed to dissuade, but helped ease her concerns about taking supplements in the first place.

Tygart said he'd need to see the precise testimony to comment. But he reiterated that his agency has never wavered on its stance about the dangers of supplements.

"We inform both our federations and the USOC that that's our position, and we would hope they would take a similar position," he said.

Still, Tygart said he understands the pressure athletes are under from peers, coaches and parents, and that their busy, training-dominated lifestyles make it difficult to get all the nutrition they need from meals.

"I appreciate those pressures," he said. "I generally wish we had an option to tell athletes, 'Here's a better way to minimize the health risks, and the risks of testing positive,' besides just telling them not to take the stuff. But unfortunately, that's the reality of the supplement industry."

Some recent studies have found that supplements are not as effective as most athletes believe, and even suggest some contain traces of toxic materials, such as arsenic and lead, Tygart said.

"We've got to have a more effective way of convincing and educating our athletes" to stand up to the billions of dollars in supplement promotion, he said. Even if there was a way to guarantee the safety and efficacy of the products, the sports establishment needs to be able to say to athletes: "Let's make sure you really need them, and it's really in your best interest to take them," Tygart said.

"For now, that's not possible."

Fresh on the heels of the abrupt departure of former CEO Jim Scherr comes today's rather sudden departure of Darryl Seibel, the U.S. Olympic Comittee's Chief Communications officer.

The USOC annouced Seibel's departure today in a news release, calling Seibel a "terrric spokesperson" that it nonetheless apparently decided it could do without.

Actually, Seibel's role in the organization grew in recent years to being much more than just a spokesperson: Seibel worked closely with Scherr and other USOC managers to formulate policy for the organization, shaping its public face to the world through media.

His departure news release reads an awful lot like a force-out memo to us. And it leaves the USOC, under new self-appointed acting CEO Stephanie Streeter, the leader of the get-Scherr coup on the USOC board, extremely rudderless as the 2010 Winter Games approach.

Another key USOC manager, Steve Roush, chief of sports performance, resigned in January, after being blamed for the infamous Beijing air-mask incident involving the U.S. track cycling team.

Will the last person leaving Colorado Springs please turn off the lights atop Cheyenne Mountain?

Probably lots more behind this one. Stay tuned. The release follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 5, 2009

USOC Chief Communications Officer Darryl Seibel To Depart Organization

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) announced today the resignation of Darryl Seibel as the organization's Chief Communications Officer.

Seibel will remain with the USOC in a full-time capacity through June 5 and assist the organization thereafter as a consultant on specific assignments, including the transition to his successor, for which the USOC will conduct a national search.

"Since the conclusion of the Beijing Games, I have had the opportunity to give serious consideration as to when the time would be right to turn the page and begin a new chapter professionally - and that time is now," Seibel said. "My gratitude for having had the opportunity to work alongside so many talented athletes, coaches, teammates and journalists is immeasurable. In departing, I am confident the USOC, America's athletes and the National Governing Bodies are on a path that will lead to even greater heights of success in the future, and I will remain steadfast in my support."

The timing of Seibel's resignation provides the USOC with more than nine months to select its next Chief Communications Officer prior to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

"Darryl has been a terrific spokesperson who has given his all to the USOC and our partners," Acting Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Streeter said. "His contributions have been integral to the success of the USOC and the Olympic Movement in the United States. While we are going to miss him greatly, we fully understand and support his decision, and appreciate his willingness to assist us during the transition. He is a tremendous talent and I am certain he will experience continued success in whatever he chooses to do next professionally."

Seibel, 41, was named USOC Chief Communications Officer in January 2003. He was responsible for establishing the overall communications strategy and direction for the USOC while serving as the organization's spokesperson and primary point of contact with national and international media. He oversaw the USOC's media operations and served as the U.S. Olympic Team spokesperson for the 2004 Athens, 2006 Torino and 2008 Beijing Games.

During his tenure, the USOC's media outreach efforts expanded to include emerging platforms such as digital and social media. The U.S. Olympic Team Media Summit grew to include more than 500 print, broadcast, photo and digital media and more than 100 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls. And the USOC partnered with NBC and its family of broadcast networks to develop exclusive content and promotional opportunities in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Games.

Jessica Hardy, the California swimmer bounced from the Beijing Olympic team after a positive doping test, got a reduced sentence of sorts from an arbitration panel Monday.

Hardy, who was serving a mandatory two-year suspension while she presented further evidence in her case, convinced the panel (actually, her doping-case-expert attorney, Howard Jacobs, convinced the panel) that the illegal anabolic agent clenbuterol found in her system the week of the U.S. Olympic Trials last July was ingested accidentally, from a nutritional supplement manufactured by AdvoCare -- ironically, one of her sponsors.

As a result, her suspension was sliced in half, to one year. Given credit for time served, she'll be eligible to compete again Aug. 1.

It's not an unexpected outcome. Hardy had the best attorney money can buy, and evidence presented to the panel indicated her supplements, which she admitted to have been taking since 2007 -- in spite of warnings all athletes receive from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and others, of this very sort of potential outcome -- likely were tainted with at least some level of the substance in question.

On the surface, the judgment seems fair. If she didn't know she was taking the stuff, it doesn't seem right to levy the same punishment on her as on substance abusers who diabolically plot to improve their performance through chemistry. (Beneath the surface, it may be less fair, but more on that later.)

But the arbitration ruling raises all sorts of other fascinating questions, not the least of which is whether the talented Hardy, in spite of the decision, will be eligible to swim in the 2012 London Games.

Her suspension leaves her in violation of the new Rule 45 of the Olympic Charter, which decrees that any athlete suspended by any anti-doping agency, for any reason, for more than six months will be ineligible for the Games that follow the end date of his or her suspension, which in Hardy's case will be July 31.

That would leave Hardy ineligible for the 2012 London Games. Her positive test was taken on July 4, 2008 -- three days after the new IOC rule was adopted. Her suspension runs through July, 2009.

Lawyers on the American Arbitration Association panel thus faced a conundrum: The U.S. and World Doping Codes provided for a reduced sentence of only one-half due to exceptional circumstances such as accidental ingestion. But that one year was twice the punishment necessary to keep Hardy out of a second Olympic cycle.

The panel ruled that forcing Hardy to miss two Olympics would be "grossly disproportionate" under the "principles of proportionality." Their creative solution: Hardy should apply to the IOC, in a case likely to be booted to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland, the court of supreme authority in these matters, for a waiver of Rule 45 with regard to doping behavior that they themselves deemed negligent.

If she doesn't get that waiver, the arbitrators ruled -- in the process attempting to claim continued authority over her case until it's settled at the higher level -- they will reconvene at a later date, to further reduce her sentence to, wild guess here, exactly six months, to make sure she's Olympic eligible.

That's a pretty severe degree of bending over backwards -- the same approach the legal system has seemed to apply to Hardy's case from the beginning (she was allowed to "withdraw," recall, from an Olympic team she was automatically suspended from after her positive test.) And it appears to be an attempt by sypmpathetic lawyers to gut the spirit and intent of the new IOC rules -- not to mention the national drug cops' much ballyhooed concept of "strict liability" that they lay out for all emerging athletes.

That term means what it says: Athletes are responsible for what they put in their bodies. Intent doesn't matter. You can test positive by accident and still see your career go up in flames. It's happened already to other athletes. But the American Arbitration Association seems ready to literally take on the world to prevent it from happening to hapless victim Jessica Hardy.

Strict liability is a cruel, but ultimately just, taskmaster. After all, if you "accidentally" ingest some performance-enhancing substance, such as clenbuterol or steroids, it's still going to benefit you on the field of play, right?

Hardy's attorneys, and her backers, went nuts last summer insisting that her positive test made no sense, and must have been a mistake. She had already competed, and qualified for the Olympic team, by winning the 100-meter breaststroke on July 1, apparently swimming clean. Tests after that event, after all, turned up negative. The positive test came on July 4, after she was already on the team. How could the stuff magically appear in her system only then, and why would she take it after already making the team?

But new evidence presented in the arbritration ruling sheds some new light. It discloses, for the first time publicly, that the same UCLA lab that tested Hardy's other samples informed USADA on July 23, two days after reporting the initial positive result, that two Hardy samples from July 1 (when she won the 100 breast) and July 6 (when she finished second in the 50 freestyle), initially reported as negative, "actually revealed the presence of 'suspect clenbuterol transitions.'"

We'll leave it to the scientists to interpret that. But the fact is, each of her three samples raised flags at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

The strict liability concept was introduced for this very reason. Even athletes who "prove" that they didn't ingest intentionally shouldn't get the benefit from whatever they took. And it now appears that Hardy very well may have.

The arbitrators made it clear Hardy did not intend to cheat. Hardy's case, in fact, is "truly exceptional" in terms of accidental ingestion, according to the ruling. (Hardy said she had insisted on an indemnity agreement with the supplement company, and further claimed that she had consulted an unnamned nutritionist with USA Swimming, and a sports psychologist with the U.S. Olympic Committee, both of whom essentially endorsed her taking the AdvoCare supplements.)

The panel accepted testimony from drug-lab testers who found trace amounts of clenbuterol in lots of AdvoCare samples, although USADA's attorneys argued that the tests "were not scientifically reliable," and included insufficent chain-of-custody provisions. They also doubted that the minute levels of clenbuterol could have created the amount found in Hardy's positive sample.

Ultimately, the panel decreed that Hardy had not taken the substance on purpose, but "there is no doubt that (she acted with 'fault or negigence' in committing an anti-doping violation....She took a nutritional supplement which was the cause of her positive doping control result. She took supplements in spite of being aware of the warnings of USADA and despite her hesitation about taking supplements due to the risk of contamination."

So why is USA Swimming, the American Arbitration Association and everyone else tripping over itself to ensure Hardy -- assuming she's still got the goods, sans her amped-up milkshakes -- gets a fair shot at the London Games? Good question.

If you come up with an answer, try running it past Tara Kirk, the Bremerton swimmer who has been demonized by USA Swimming for daring to file her own claim under the Stevens Act that governs American amateur sport in the wake of this fiasco. Kirk, recall, finished third, by a hundredth of a second, behind Megan Jendrick in that 100 breaststroke race won by an apparently (accidentally) juiced Hardy.

Only the top two make the Olympics. In a just world, Kirk would have been moved up, and on to the Beijing Olympic team. But as reported here months ago, USA Swimming, USADA and the UCLA test lab combined to bungle the timing of Swim Trials test results, leaving no time for alternates to be added to the Olympic team to replace Hardy in the four events for which she qualified. (Other members already named to the squad took her place.)

Nobody has bent over backwards to do anything for the now-retired Kirk, beyond urging her to go away. Her legal motion to be added to the squad was denied before the Beijing Games, but her claim that she was damaged by USA Swimming's negligence in the case remains alive, and will get its own arbitration hearing later this month.

USA Swimming even had the gall to demand that she, a former national team captain and 2002 Olympic medalist, pay its legal fees.

That group, understandably, was falling all over itself to declare the matter closed in a statement Monday. "We are glad that this situation has been resolved," swimming's governing body said, adding that Hardy "has served a significant penalty and has taken responsibility for her actions, which were ruled unintentional."

The group went on to say that "The importance in being diligent in following the anti-doping rules cannot be overstated, and this case should serve as a stern reminder to all athletes to take extreme care with everything they put into their bodies."

But what kind of thermonuclear mixed message does all this send to the nation's impressionable young athletes? Don't use supplements, wink, wink. But if you do (and to be multiple-medal material, you pretty much have to) just make sure you can afford a good attorney, and we'll be behind you 100 percent?

Prediction: No way the IOC, or CAS, is going to roll over on this one. And they shouldn't. Doing so would effectively render moot a rule they just put in place for a very good reason: To keep athletes with even the mere taint of doping out of the Games.

In international sporting circles, there's likely to be even less sympathy for an American athlete testing the rule for the first time, in a precedent-setting way. Especially given the rest of the world's longstanding disdain for America's big-talk, little-action approach to doping.

Hardy is no criminal. But she wasn't very smart, either. Athletes are warned, repeatedly, not to take nutritional supplements, which are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, thus can contain trace amounts of just about anything from clenbuterol to plutonium. Hardy knew it. She even trained at one point with Kicker Vencill, another swimmer who missed out on an Olympics due to positive tests from a tainted supplement.

Vencill sued the manufacturer, and won. But he never got to the Olympics. Hardy is doing the same thing, although the manufacturer has countersued her, claiming innocence. It'll all take some time to sort all that out. And if staff of the USOC or USA Swimming actually helped her decide to take the stuff, some heads should roll.

Bottom line: Hardy is lucky to even have a chance -- slim as it now might be -- to swim in the next Olympics. She was warned. Her protestations that "85 to 90 percent" of other elite swimmers use supplements might be true, but that doesn't change the rules, and everyone knows what they are. Everybody plays with fire. A few get burned.

The sad fact for Hardy is that the IOC put its Rule 45 in place, it would seem, specifically to keep careless -- and yes, arguably, unlucky -- athletes like her out of the Olympics. And she's going to ask that organization to waive it to let her in?

Good luck with that.