Heavy Medal

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge on Tuesday praised Vancouver for putting forward a green Olympic Games, saying a socially and environmentally conscious organizing committee had provided a "blueprint" for future Olympics.

Rogge, who spoke at the opening of an IOC session three days before Friday's Opening Ceremonies, also commended organizers for steering Games preparations through difficult economic times, saying they had risen "to the challenge without compromising the original vision for these Games."

That vision has included a speedskating oval whose roof is made from reclaimed timber, an athletes' village heated in part by local sewers and with supplied with rainwater toilets, and a sliding track for bobsled, luge and skeleton that heats nearby buildings with waste heat from its ice refrigeration plant. Some locals have complained that the attention to the environment has led to cost overruns.

But, Rogge said at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, "that vision has established new standards for environmental sustainability and legacy planning. Everything that has been done to prepare for these Games was done with the athletes, the environment and legacy in mind. The lessons learned here are a blueprint for future Games."

Rogge pointed out that more than 2,500 athletes from 82 countries will be competing at the Winter Games, which will be recorded by more than 10,000 media members and watched by 250,000 spectators and a global television audience of 3 billion.

Just landed in Vancouver a couple of hours ago, and am safely aboard the bus that will transport me to Whistler, site of the alpine skiing events at the Winter Olympics, not to mention a little bobsledding and a few other things.

By way of introductions, I'll be your ski reporter for the next three weeks, and the author of our profile of Lindsey Vonn -- one that will run in Wednesday's paper, along with our special Olympics preview section. I'll also get down to the city for some hockey. I hear Russia and Canada might be okay.

Our team: ace Olympics reporter Amy Shipley and columnist Tracee Hamilton -- who used to run the Post's Olympics ship when she was an editor -- are also due in today. We'll use this space for updates, observations, etc., from now on -- through Friday's Opening Cermonies through the first major events of the weekend and on through the end of the Games on Feb. 28. Plus, there's the good old fashioned $.75 edition, assuming you can shovel out said version from your front stoop.

Some initial thoughts: Where's the snow? (I know, I know. Cruel to say that to folks back in Washington.) We're headed to Highway 1 out of town here in Vancouver, directly toward the mountains -- which are stunning, by the way -- and the grass is that greenish brown that usually defines grass in ... well, in Washington this time of year. (Actually, it looks a bit greener than that.) And it's probably warmer than 40 degrees. The sky could scarcely be bluer.

Bode Miller's back for another Olympics, and though he doesn't enter these Games with the same level of acclaim as what preceded him four years ago in Turin, Miller writes in his blog, "I'm looking forward to the Olympics more this time around because I feel like all the pieces are fitting together better."

Miller also dismissed the media criticism he received four years ago for appearing to be more interested in the Italian nightclubs than in winning gold medals.

"That was a joke," Miller wrote. "They blew that completely out of proportion."

U.S. women's hockey player Angela Ruggiero is under consideration for one of two openings on the International Olympic Committee athletes' commission, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports. Ruggiero could help the U.S. Olympic Committee repair its overseas image and give the Harvard graduate a USOC board position.

Ruggiero, 30, plans to spend her downtime at her fourth Olympics telling athletes "why I want to be a part of it and why I'll do a good job for them. ... You're helping out in the Olympic movement, and you're the voice of the athletes to the Olympic movement."

The United States men's hockey team lost another defenseman when the Maple Leafs announced that Mike Komisarek will have shoulder surgery that will end his season. The U.S. team already had lost New Jersey Devils defenseman Paul Martin because of a broken left forearm.

Potential Olympic replacements for Martin and Komisarek include Atlanta's Ron Hainsey, Los Angeles' Rob Scuderi, Ryan Whitney of the Anaheim Ducks, and Carolina's Tim Gleason.

Few fans of Olympic hockey will forget Mark Johnson, who scored two goals in the United States' "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union during the Lake Placid Games in 1980.

Johnson is back in the Olympics again this month, albeit in a much different role: coach of the U.S. women's team.

"I'm just real thankful that I've got this opportunity," Johnson told the Associated Press. "It's not too often that you get to play in an Olympics, and then 30 years later you get to go back."

A broken left forearm will keep New Jersey Devils defenseman Paul Martin off the American hockey team during the Vancouver Olympics.

Martin, who was injured at Pittsburgh on Oct. 24 when he was hit by Bill Guerin's shot, was told he will need to spend another two weeks in a cast.

Potential replacements include Atlanta's Ron Hainsey, Los Angeles' Rob Scuderi, Ryan Whitney of the Anaheim Ducks, and Carolina's Tim Gleason. .

A violent crash in last week's Winter X Games isn't expected to keep Daron Rahlves out of the first Olympic skicross race Feb. 21 in Vancouver.

U.S. Ski and Snowboard CEO Bill Marolt said he expects Rahlves and fellow American Casey Puckett, who is recovering from a separated shoulder, will be "fully ready to go" by the time they arrive in Vancouver.

Rahlves, 36, retired from Alpine skiing in 2006 after 28 World Cup podium finishes, including 12 victories, and three World Championship medals.

Johnny Weir told Icenetwork.com that after animal-rights activists threatened to "disrupt" his free skate at the Vancouver Olympics, he decided to remove the real fox fur from his long program costume and replace it with white faux fur instead. Weir, who has been the object of scorn from Friends of Animals and other animal-rights groups because he has admitted owning more than a dozen furs, claimed in a statement he and his costume designer had been threatened and harassed.

The IOC looks for any number of qualities in selecting a host city for a winter Olympics. But one has to presume at least one attribute would be, um, snow. And in Vancouver these days, um, not so much.

However, despite growing concerns and continued forecasts of temperatures in the low 50s, organizers say there are no plans to move the snowboard and freestyle skiing events from their scheduled site of Cypress Mountain.

"We have no intention from moving from that venue," Tim Gayda, the Vancouver Organizing Committee's (VANOC) vice president for sport, told reporters during a special briefing on the situation. "Things are well at Cypress and we have things in hand," he said.