World, February 12, 2010 (Pal Telegraph) -Vancouver will welcome some 2,500 athletes to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada at Friday's opening ceremony.
Financial worries and a lack of snow have hampered preparations, but the focus now switches to the competitors.
Canada could earn their first ever home Olympic gold medal on Saturday, while Team GB's 52 athletes have been set a target of three medals of any colour.
"We're keen to mark the beginning of a new era for winter sports in Britain," said British chef de mission Andy Hunt.
"It is extraordinary to have the number of athletes in the team that we do.
"We haven't set a specific medal target - our real target is for every athlete to achieve their personal best."
While the British Olympic Association (BOA) is playing down medal targets, funding body UK Sport expects a three-medal return on its investment.
That pales in comparison to the pressure facing the host nation's team of 206 athletes, competing across the Games' 15 sports over 17 days.
The Canadian team has defined a successful Games as winning more medals than any other nation - rather than necessarily aiming for more golds than other countries - with the men's ice hockey final considered a must-win showpiece event by home supporters.
Leading Canada's charge is 37-year-old speed skater Clara Hughes, who will carry her country's flag at the opening ceremony. A former cyclist, she has both Summer and Winter Olympic medals to her name.
Of the 82 nations expected to take part, the United States and Germany should also be close contenders both in terms of gold medals, where Norway also feature, and overall medal count.
The US team of 216 athletes is the largest at the Vancouver Games and is fronted by talismanic skiing sensation Lindsey Vonn.
Vonn has had a troubled build-up to her five Olympic events after suffering a shin injury during training - but few teams have arrived at the Games without incident.
The British team, in particular, saw its skiing and snowboarding governing body go into administration just one week before the Olympics, leaving the BOA to arrange emergency funding for the 14 affected athletes.
And financial problems extend to the Vancouver Organizing Committee (Vanoc) itself, which has faced reports of a 30m Canadian dollar (£18.1m) revenue shortfall.
However, Vanoc no longer expects large-scale protests against the Games outside the opening ceremony - the contents of which remain a closely-guarded secret - at the 60,000-capacity BC Place arena.
More problematic for organisers is the weather in the region, on Canada's west coast, which has been unseasonably warm in recent weeks.
Rain has played havoc with the Cypress Mountain freestyle skiing and snowboarding venue to the north of Vancouver, which has had to rely on snow imported from higher ground.
"The organisers have been doing everything they possibly can," said British snowboarder Zoe Gillings, who will compete at Cypress Mountain, where more rain is forecast.
"They've put so much work in that I think it'll be alright."
Whistler, the home to alpine skiing events situated two hours north of Vancouver, has no such trouble - there are record levels of snow on the ground.
But training runs there have already fallen prey to the fog for which the resort is renowned.
If the weather does not intervene, Whistler will play host to one of the first major spectacles of the Games when the men's downhill skiing takes place on Saturday.
The event is traditionally the blue riband event of the Games and 35-year-old Swiss veteran Didier Cuche, who leads the season-long World Cup standings, begins as favourite - despite skiing with a broken thumb since the end of last month.
Cuche's 23-year-old countryman Carlo Janka and Austrian Michael Walchhofer are also ones to watch. Local star Manuel Osborne-Paradis could go close, while Ed Drake will become the first Briton to compete at the Games.
British medal interest at Vancouver 2010 lies largely in Whistler, where world number one women's bobsleigh duo Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke will compete, as will skeleton star Shelley Rudman, who won GB's only medal - a silver - at Turin in 2006.
Back in Vancouver, the two British curling teams are also expected to challenge for medals, while there are outside chances in figure skating and speed skating.
"Pretty much everybody on the team skated British records and personal bests the week before we came here," said 29-year-old British short track speed skater Sarah Lindsay, who is set to compete at her third Winter Games.
"You can't ask for much more than that. For us, if one person can win, the whole team does."
Ref: BBC.
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