´óÏó´«Ã½

Vancouver - the Games have arrived in the 'forgotten city'

Canada's own broadcasters take up the entire second floor, with vast studios for both English and French broadcasts.

Vancouver native , 50, will present coverage for . He's been on air here since 1984, but he hasn't been waiting his whole life for his home town to host the Games - because he never thought it would happen.

"Look at where we are on the globe - people used to think we were forgotten about as a city, but now we're catching up," he said.

"There's a great sporting void in Vancouver. This city has lost so much sport in the last 10 years. We had an NBA team and lost it, Indy car racing and lost that... we had a PGA Tour golf event, Triple A baseball (a level below the Major League) and we lost them all."

That is about to be put right on a grand scale, with ice hockey - a sport in which Britain has zero interest at the 2010 Games - taking centre stage for the host nation.

"Canadians are more in tune with the Winter Games than the Summer Olympics, and the ice hockey is huge," said Taylor. "The hype will be out of this world. If Canada win, watch out - I would not want to be a policeman in Vancouver. It's our national passion, it'd be like England winning football's World Cup."

Tickets for the men's ice hockey final are changing hands for many thousands of Canadian dollars but, for Taylor, the 201-strong Canadian team is better embodied by an individual competitor - speed skater .

"She encompasses what we think we are as Canadians. She's competed at both the Summer and Winter Olympics, first as a cyclist and now as a speed skater. She'll be carrying the flag for Canada and I can't think of a better choice."

Half the world away, the focus switches from individual athletes to entire nations. Sibling rivalry in Scandinavia will peak at the Winter Games, according to their respective broadcasters in Vancouver.

"There is a big rivalry with Sweden - which Norway normally wins," says Norwegian reporter Jan Petter Saltvedt, with a smile.

"In Sweden they like to make fun of us Norwegians. Last year, their annual sports awards gala was dedicated to making fun of Norway - but we get back at them by winning medals."

Norway's Winter Olympic poster boy competes in a sport which receives barely any attention in Britain: cross-country skiing. , who has just turned 24, is a multiple world champion in the sport and heading to his first Games.

"He is the definition of a modern cross-country skier," Saltvedt told me. The others sometimes seem to just appear out of the Norwegian forests for the Games and they're all good guys, but Petter has a big profile in Norway.

"He loves his one-liners - at the end of events he'll turn round after he was won and yell, 'Where were they?' He's always behind in each race until the very end, then he puts a big sprint in."

Which means he's a prime target for the Swedish team - and its fans. On Facebook there is a group where to any Swedish athlete who beats Northug. Well over a thousand people have joined.

Norwegian superstar and Swedish Facebook target Petter Northug leads another race

"We are the little brother, but the Swedes don't know how to smile. They take it too seriously," concluded Saltvedt. "After all, Norwegians will still support the Swedish hockey team. If you're the little brother, you support your older brother, don't you?"

Tobias Alsing, who will be producing Olympic broadcasts for Swedish television, admitted the Norway-bashing at the sports awards was a step too far - but insisted his country can look beyond Scandinavian in-fighting.

"We do try to have a light-hearted approach to the Norwegians. Sometimes we are better than them, like the hockey, but sometimes they compete in events like Nordic Combined, which simply isn't a big sport in Sweden.

"Northug is the guy to beat, but I wouldn't say the focus is on beating the Norwegians. Look at the ice hockey - this is the biggest hockey tournament ever for us, with all the NHL players, the Games being held in Canada, and us being the defending champions."

Biathlon, where competitors must ski and shoot, gets a lively reception on Swedish television, helped by top athletes and - the latter being outspoken author of an exceptionally-named blog, .

Ferry maintains a passion for sustainable forestry and his partner is arm wrestling world champion , which is something to contemplate when he pops up on your screen.

With characters like that and snow everywhere you look, it's no surprise to hear the Norwegians expect up to one third of their population to be watching back home. But what about nations where snow is barely a natural feature, let alone a national pastime?

"The Winter Games are like a travelogue for Australians," said , presenter for Channel Nine's coverage. "We're not a snowbound country but we have a fascination with speed and danger."

is one of two broadcasters, alongside , representing Australia in Vancouver. Foxtel's approach to advertising the Winter Olympics, as per the video below, suggests its audience needs persuading to engage with the Games.

"If you ask most Australians who the big star of these Games is, nine out of 10 wouldn't have a clue," said Sutcliffe. "But they could tell you about ."

Bradbury famously won short track speed skating gold in 2002 after his opponents, all of whom were ahead of him, collided with each other at the last corner.

"'Doing a Bradbury' has become part of the Australian language in the same way Eddie the Eagle did in the UK," said Sutcliffe - but like Team GB and Eddie, the Australians are keen to move on. According to Sutcliffe, whose first Winter Olympics were in Calgary in 1988, the Aussies want six medals from Vancouver, three of them gold.

"We've got four or five very good gold medal chances, and I don't even mean good chances in the same way you build up Andy Murray to win Wimbledon every year, and he never does," he told me. "I'd put money on two of them getting gold - in the snowboard half-pipe, and in the moguls.

"The half-pipe and moguls will be the sport of the Games. It's the fashion, the clothes, the style. Those two sports will be captivating the youth audience like no other."

So how about a sport like curling, then?

"Curling is mesmerisingly weird," said a perplexed Sutcliffe. "It's a sport that can't really stand slow-motion replays. It's like synchronised swimming - Australians watch it and ask why? How? They have a morbid fascination with what makes it a Winter Olympic sport.

"Because the Winter Olympics is about sexy sport, with athletes running around in colourful, skin-tight outfits. On top of that, some are doing 170mph or more. I'm just waiting for mixed doubles luge."