WANT TO check out the sites for the Vancouver Olympics 2010, but cannot attend the Winter Games? You can do that now through a virtual tour of the Olympic sites via search engine giant Google's new service.

One can take this virtual tour on a special games page that has been put by Google. This page is highly interactive and even allows users to place themselves on ski slopes, like the Dave Murray Downhill (where the Men's alpine skiing event will take place) and the catch the scenic views as they descend. You can also catch the views from the 7th Heaven Chairlift on Blackcomb at Whistler peak.

These online tours were filmed by Google through the 3D Street View Camera system that they placed on a snowmobile. Dan Ratner, Senior Mechanical Engineer at Google explained the process. He said, “We were able to put this together over the course of a few weekends using extra pieces for our Street View cars, some 2×4s, some duct tape and a lot of extra hard drives."

He adds, "We got in touch with the folks at Whistler Blackcomb Mountains and Whistler Resort Municipality to discuss our slightly crazy idea and fortunately they were just as enthusiastic. In fact, they even suggested we also photograph the roads and paths of Whistler Village and Whistler Creekside, so we piled the snowmobile and a trike into a trailer and made our way up to Whistler.”