In a Tuesday NBC Nightly News story, reporter Ron Mott actually
acknowledged that the decision to use "environmentally friendly" ice
resurfacing machines "that kept breaking down" had led to lengthy
delays for speed skating competitions at the Winter Olympics in
Vancouver. In the piece on problems at the games, Mott reported:
In the past two days, men's speed skating was slowed to a standstill because of poor ice conditions, further complicated by the environmentally friendly machines, used in place of the tried and true Zamboni, that kept breaking down. A Zamboni is being brought in from Calgary.
On USAToday.com, Tom Weir explained [1] the malfunctions, "that delayed the women's 3,000 meters Sunday and which threatened to postpone the men's 500 Monday were unprecedented at Olympic speedskating," and were caused by Canada putting "green" interests ahead of reliability:
The problems suffered by Olympia brand resurfacers brought into question the decision of the Vancouver Olympics to be as green as possible, and use electric-powered machines to groom the ice. To prevent further problems, a traditional, propane-powered Zamboni has been trucked in from Calgary.