Three winters from now, every one of the far-flung places on the planet that don't already know about Whistler Blackcomb ski resort — there were four, at last count — will get an in-your-face introduction.

Picture it: Downhill racers ripping up Franz's Run and the Dave Murray Downhill. Crazy guys in sausage suits hitting 88 mph on the luge run at the base of Blackcomb. Ski jumpers sailing into blue skies from a ramp in the Callaghan Valley.

All on television, all filmed with stunning snowcapped-peak backdrops from a helicopter, all part of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada's first shot at the world's biggest sports fest since Calgary in 1988.

The winter-sports hype will reach boiling point Feb. 12, 2010, when the Games begin with a torch-lighting in Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium. It won't end until March 21, when the Paralympics conclude. That's only a month of activity. But it's preceded by another three full years of preparation and hype.

All of which leaves skiers and snowboarders already in love with Whistler Blackcomb for its pre-Olympic greatness — namely, the world's largest collection of alpine terrain, all reached comfortably from one of the planet's most complete base villages — with a legitimate question:

Will the heat of the Olympic flame burn out the Whistler we've come to know and love, and if so, when?

The answer, of course, depends on one's definition of burn. Winter recreationers who don't care for Olympics hype probably will see any sign of pre-Games construction as a headache; fans of the five rings will look at the same sight and see it as an omen of great things to come. Whistler, after all, was turned into a destination ski area with the hopes of luring the 1968 Winter Games, and has been in hot Olympic pursuit ever since.

Both camps are likely to find comfort in visiting Whistler during the pre-Olympic run-up. Because intrepid fans already can dip a toe into the waters of Whistler Winter Olympism. But for the next two years, at least, they'll have to go out of their way to do it.

Part of that is intentional, part of it just happenstance.

For one thing, Whistler, the community and Whistler Blackcomb, the resort, can't go pasting the Olympic rings all over themselves, their hotels, their ski lifts or even their brochures for another year and a half. That's when the 2008 Summer Games wrap up in Beijing.

The International Olympic Committee frowns on upcoming host cities making too much noise about themselves until the host city front and center, in this case Beijing, has had its moment in the spotlight. It's part of the return every host city expects on its multibillion-dollar Olympic investment.

So even though Whistler, which will host bobsled, luge, skeleton, cross-country skiing, ski jumping and alpine skiing, and Vancouver, which will host all other Games sports, are next up for the Winter Games spotlight, they must first wait for it to fade from Beijing.

"You can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as Beijing is over, we'll be going out full force" to promote Whistler as an Olympic venue, says spokeswoman Michelle Leroux.

Meantime, the Olympics, when it comes to Whistler, continue to cook away — to the tune of $240 million worth of construction — just on a decidedly slow boil, from a visitor's viewpoint.

The most visible sign of the Games is the $100 million Whistler Sliding Centre, the sprawling bobsled/luge/skeleton track being built at the base of Blackcomb. The finish area for the track, which already is taking shape in a gully at lower levels of the ski runs, is only about a block from Whistler Village's main plaza. But it's largely out of sight, unless you ride one of the lower gondolas in winter, or a zip line in summer, and get high enough to see it.

Construction will continue here until 2008, but it's not likely to be noticed much by skiers and snowboarders. The land was largely unused before. And heavy equipment rolling in and out of Whistler Village is hardly something new: New hotels and lodges have been under construction here for decades.

The Sliding Centre, in fact, is likely to become more visible after the Olympics. If it follows the example of previous tracks, it's likely to offer tourist rides on enclosed luge sleds once the Games have come and gone, and will continue as a training venue and, likely, World Cup racing track for decades.

The only other visible sign of pending Olympism in the village itself: slope work and a new building above Whistler Creekside, where men's and women's downhill, super G, slalom and giant slalom races will finish in a temporary horseshoe-grandstand area near the Creekside base. Again, this will be accomplished with nearly no interruption of existing ski runs. And the grandstands at the base won't be assembled until the summer of 2009.

Whistler's other Olympic construction is outside the village. Just south of town, at the site of the town's former landfill and transfer station, work has begun on the Whistler Olympic Village, which will be temporary home to skiers and sliders from around the globe, and later will revert to Whistler housing. You're not likely to see the bustle at this sight unless you go looking for it.

The same can be said of the sprawling new cross-country ski/ski-jumping venue being carved from rough, forested land in the Callaghan Valley, southwest of Whistler. It's at the end of a gravel road built specifically for the project, and there is no public access.

None of these venues are likely to be open to the public until fall 2008, at the earliest. Vancouver Games organizers have pledged to have all the venues — including the snowboard and freestyle ski venues at Cypress Mountain, and new buildings for hockey, speedskating and curling in the city of Vancouver itself — ready by the end of '08, giving Canadian athletes a home-snow or home-ice advantage by having at least one full winter to train on them.

In the interim, they're heavy construction sites, and even media tours have been very limited.

So what's likely to be a Whistler visitor's closest brush with the 2010 Games? Three things come to mind, the first being potentially unpleasant.

Construction on the cliff-hanging, often-clogged Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler continues, with the goal of making it mostly multilane by 2010. That means construction delays at times, although many are in the middle of the night.

Be patient and plan accordingly. For updates on wait times and other information, refer to British Columbia's Sea to Sky Highway information page: www.seatoskyimprovements.ca.

Once you're past all that, consider the Olympic pleasantries:

For starters, stop by the Whistler 2010 Info Centre in Whistler Village, near the Brewhouse restaurant. It's open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with Olympic information and visitors on hand toÁ answer questions.

If that just whets your appetite and you're handy on skis or a board, head on up the mountain to ski some of the same terrain the world's best skiers will be cruising in 2010 (see "Sample these Olympic runs — this winter").

It's not really the Olympics. But it, like Whistler itself, is as close to the real thing as you can get until that rapidly approaching flame-lighting date in February 2010.

WINTER OLYMPICS GAMES

Vancouver/Whistler,
British Columbia

Dates: Feb. 12-28, 2010

Paralympic Winter Games dates: March 12-21, 2010

Number of Olympic athletes and officials: 5,000

Number of Paralympic athletes and officials: 1,700

Countries participating: 80

Countries participating: 40

Test events begin: winter 2008-2009

2010 Games events tickets available: 1.8 million

Ticket sales begin: fall 2008

More information: www.vancouver2010.com

SAMPLE THESE OLYMPIC RUNS

Beat the Olympic crowds (by a few years) and try out some of the same ski runs on which the world's best will compete in 2010. You can do it this winter: