Venue manager promises not to repeat mechanical problems at Winter Olympics

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-16 16:56

VANCOUVER: After a one-hour delay of the men's 500m speed skating due to the resurfacing broken machines, venue general manager for VANOC at the Richmond Olympic Oval promised on Monday to prevent this from happening again.

The machines broke out during the planned ice resurfacing break between pair 10 and pair 11 of race 1 at the Vancoucer Winter Olympic Games on Monday.

It took stuff members over an hour to repair damage to the ice while many coaches hoped to cancel the event.

The competition was consumed one hour later before South Korea's Mo Tae-Bum finally shocked the rest of the field to take the gold on his 21st birthday.

It was the first gold medal that the Korean athletes won at the Olympic Winter Games outside of short track speed skating.

Magnus Enfeldt of Sweden, venue general manager at the oval, said at a press conference that the problems of the ice resurfacing machines had been ongoing.

"These machines have been operational for one-and-a-half years at the Richmond Olympic Oval. We just recently started having problems with the two bigger ones, smaller versions are also used."

"We're bringing in a Zamboni, the same brand as those used here, from Calgary. We're doing everything to prevent this from happening again," Enfeldt said.