The Olympic Games and the Youth Olympic Games receive international attention and inspire people around the world. Away from the media spotlight, however, the Olympic Movement also strives to use sport as a tool for social development. Sport can bring people together, it can facilitate social integration and it can serve as a helpful tool in areas with few resources.

Organising an Olympic Games is a complex undertaking that requires people from all walks of life and with lots of different experiences to make it a reality. TheVancouver 2010 Organising Committee (VANOC) has approximately 1,400 full-time staff with an additional 25,000 volunteers all working hard to put on these Games. One of those full-time staff members is Cathy Priestner Allinger, VANOC’s Executive Vice-President, Sport and Games Operations. She is perhaps better placed than most to speak about organising a Games, as she is a two-time Olympian – silver medallist in speed skating in Innsbruck ’76 – former coach, administrator, volunteer, and television broadcaster, who has also worked for two previous Games organising committees (Salt Lake City 2002 and Turin 2006). Olympic.org caught up with her to ask a few questions about what it’s like to be on the inside of an event like the Games:

While the iconic Bird’s Nest stadium crowd in Beijing was still buzzing after the Jamaican 4x100m relay world record at the Olympic Games in 2008, an Australian was quietly going about his business on the way to his own landmark gold. As the crowd lauded the Usain Bolt-inspired quartet on their lap of honour , Steve Hooker was maintaining his focus superbly in an incredibly tight pole vault competition.