And yet, early reports from Italy are that the vibes have not been great. Some of that was the usual logistical headaches involved with staging the world’s biggest sporting event. The hockey arena was barely ready on time, the building said to be full of mid-construction dirt just weeks ago. The long-dormant Cortina sliding centre had to be rebuilt into a functioning track after the IOC decreed that organizers couldn’t outsource the luge, skeleton and bobsled events to an existing facility in a neighbouring country. And, unique to these Games, the events are being hosted in six separate clusters, a changed necessitated by geography: there was no room to pile venues closer together, so they are spread out among the mountains.