The track was modified but the crashes kept coming.

One Dutch bobsleigh pilot, Edwin van Calker, pulled out, claiming he had lost his nerve to race.

Kumaritashvili's death prefaced a first week to forget for the organizers.

Only three of the four columns supporting the Olympic cauldron emerged from the floor in the opening ceremony, the flame was then locked away behind an ugly chain fence, buses broke down, drivers quit and then there was the weather.

Vancouver's Cypress Mountain, blessed by warm, spring-like sunshine, needed fleets of helicopters and lorries to carry snow from the higher elevations to ensure the venue was competition-ready as the snow on the ground melted away.

But once the glitches were ironed out, the Games managed to turn hard-nosed criticism into warm praise.

Rogge said he had never seen a city embrace an Olympics as much as Vancouver and the people responded, filling most venues and queuing patiently for up to an hour to see the flame close up.

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