Winter Olympics - The Beauty, The Glory and the Cost

[boarderboy]

I really love the Winter Olympics. I'd love to live in Vancouver, too. (But the Canucks are too smart to let an old fart immigrate.)

But these games are gonna cost the city, (maybe the country, too?) a mint in the long run.

Here are the grim details

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/sports/olympics/25vancouver.html?hp

note the following,

"Well before the Games began, the global recession pushed several of the Games’s sponsors, including Nortel Networks and General Motors, into bankruptcy. Whistler Blackcomb, the resort that is hosting the Alpine skiing events, will soon be sold at auction.

Security costs, first estimated at $165 million, are now headed toward $1 billion."

And concealing a glorious cauldron behind a chain link fence?

There has to be a better way!

BB

[skatha]

Of course, there's a better way-take the excess money out of the equation!

Does the NFL lose money on the Superbowl? NO...reason, they select cities to host that already have the facilities in place. Do you really think any of those new, shiny venues were in place in Vancouver when Vancouver submitted it's bid? No.....

Look at what's happened to the venue in Sarajevo...it was shelled in the 90s during the war.

Look at the Park City venue since 2002-how much money is it making to recoup costs? And the 2002 Olympics made money!

Would it take some of the charm out of the Olympics not to have a new venue selected every 4 years? Yes, for about 5 minutes....Would it enable the Games to survive not having to depend on deep pocketed sponsors? Absolutely.

As my ex-husband (who works in Rio) said, when Rio was awarded the Olympic Games for 2016. "It's going to take a major miracle for it to happen and, if you thought Mexico was bad when it came to governmental officials requiring bribes to function, you haven't seen anything when it comes to the corruption in Rio"

I'm not going to go into the corruption of the IOC.....let's just say, they are as likely as a US Congress member to cut off the supply of contributions

[Allee]

Does the NFL lose money on the Superbowl? NO...reason, they select cities to host that already have the facilities in place. Do you really think any of those new, shiny venues were in place in Vancouver when Vancouver submitted it's bid? No.....

Look at what's happened to the venue in Sarajevo...it was shelled in the 90s during the war.

Look at the Park City venue since 2002-how much money is it making to recoup costs? And the 2002 Olympics made money!

Most of the facilities in Vancouver are not shiny and new. The Pacific Coliseum was already there. Cypress and Whistler were already there. The Callaghan Valley was already a well used X-C ski area. The sliding centre is new, agreed, and the Richmond Arena is big and expensive. However, Richmond is going to become a much needed community addition after the Games - the long track being replaced with two hockey rinks (of which there are never enough in Canada), and basketball and volleyball courts. Yes, they put in the Canada Line, but every local I spoke to said that's one of the smartest things they've done for years. And yes, the cost of the Sea to Sky Highway was horrendous, but you have no idea how badly that needed doing - on a pow day in Whistler, half of Vancouver heads for the hills, and I can't even imagine what it must have been like before that road went in. Up front cost = long term benefits, and without the Games these projects would never had had enough steam to get off the ground. When "they" start quoting costs, they always include the costs of capital infrastructure as if it's an expense - and that's not the case.

It's very true that a lot of the recent Olympic cities have been left with white elephants after the Games. Athens for sure, Sydney to a certain extent. But let's take Calgary (88 Winter Games) as an example of getting it right. They built Nakiska from scratch specifically for the games, but it's now a thriving commercial ski hill for RCR. They built the Canmore Nordic Centre from scratch, and that's now a year round venue that hosts world cup mountain biking and XC events, as well as being a training ground for some of the worlds best XC athletes. Even better, it's a provincial park so it's free for the public to XC on trackset trails in winter, and ride some world class maintained mountain bike trails in summer.

They built Canada Olympic Park from scratch. That's now the home of the Canadian Olympic Development Association and the heart of a number of Olympic sports in Canada. It holds world cup snowboard, freestyle aerials, moguls, and sliding sports competitions on a regular basis. The Olympic Hall of Fame and museum there is awesome. In the summer it's a within city limits, lift accessed mountain bike park, zorbing park, zipline (run off the old 90 metre ski jump which is now also a conference centre), all round fun venue for the public. In the winter it's a perfectly acceptable little ski hill that you can knock around for a couple of hours after work, as well as having a great progression terrain park. Most of Calgary learns to ski and ride here because there's no need to leave the city. It also has public days on the sliding track, where you can sign up to ride the bobsled or luge.

The jewel in the crown is the Olympic Oval. 20 + years after it was built, it's still known as the fastest ice in the world, is home to a huge number of competition speed skaters from a number of countries, and has been developed into a high performance multisports centre for the University of Calgary's Kinesiology department.

Ask anyone in Calgary if they think that Winter Olympics were one of the best things that ever happened to this city, and the answer is always "hell, yes".

Having said all that, times have changed since 1988, that's for sure. While I'm a total Olympics fangirl and I love the ideal of the Olympic movement, I do agree with the general sentiments about the crass commercialism and the IOC. Plus the timing, coming on the heels of the recession, is just really unfortunate. But I was in Vancouver last week, and it was amazing. The vibe and energy coming off the streets and the venues was inspiring. I met so many incredible and interesting people from all over the world, and had such a good time, I wished I could stay for a year. I think in general, Vancouver is going to have a hangover when it wakes up, but right now, it's time to party, and make some great memories.

And finally - putting the flame behind a chainlink fence - the biggest bunch of BS EVAH. Up close, that thing is absolutely beautiful, and the whole fence debacle is a crying shame. I also had my SBX ticket cancelled in the Cypress screw-up, but them's the breaks. I think it was probably better on TV anyway.

[BlueB]

Up close, that thing is absolutely beautiful,

You gotta be kidding? The thing is horrendous! It looks like made of recycled ducting or something... It looked good on TV and I had a shock when I saw it up close! My whife thinks pretty much the same.

As for the costs and sponsors, it's a joke too. It is always financed by the hosting country/community, just wrapped and candy-coated. My son will still be paying for your party of the lifetime... Profits always go to the selected mighty few and are normally money-loundered. Whistler-Blackcomb fiasco is a part of the scheme :(

Richmond Skytrain line was the wrong line to get the building priority. Ask anyone in Coquitlam/Port Coquitlam/Port Moody/Burnaby.

Sea-to-Sky highway improvements - nice. New ice rinks - nice.

Snow making gear at Cypress - nice. Monster lodge, nice but unnecessary...

[skategoat]

I've been to Whistler many times and I've never had an easier time getting there. I took the Canada Line for $8.00, then my cousin picked me up at the Seabus Terminal for the easy drive to Whistler. Beauty.

In Toronto, it costs you a $50 to take a cab just about anywhere from the airport. It's robbery, pure and simple.

Still, $700 million for the Sea to Sky highway improvements? Ouch.

For cost overruns, I wonder if we'll ever find out what it cost to helicopter and truck all that snow to Cypress.

As for the cauldron, there were no fences around the one in Whistler.

[skatha]

My friends from Atlanta hated the Summer Games being there in 1996.

Houston, as a municipality, broke even with the Superbowl in 2004. The added revenue was offset by security costs. It should be interesting to see how Vancouver absorbs the cost of the extra police and EMS coverage.

Vancouver, as a resort town, of sorts, and a port has access to more cash and better facilities, than, say...Sochi, which will have to build all the facilities not involved with snow....

[boarderboy]

My friends from Atlanta hated the Summer Games being there in 1996..

Went down there to meet an old friend who came over (I swear this is true) as the physiotherapist for the British ping pong, or is that "table tennis" (?), team.

Saw no actual events but was part of the crowd outside several venues. We have a singular ability to commercialize the potentially sublime into maddening, mundane ugliness.

The Olympics I'd most like to have seen in person - Lillehammer or Nagano, hands down.

BB

[skategoat]

Nice thing about being in Whistler was the isolation from the madhouse that was Vancouver. Talking to some of the old timers from Europe, it was a lot like the earlier, smaller Winter Games.

I think the split venue worked well. No reason not to do that in the future. Skating events in the big city, snow events in the mountain town. As long as they are within a couple of hours it would work.

Toronto is hosting the 2015 Pan Am Games. I was always against hosting the Summer Olympics due to the scale and disruption to a working city. But, the Pan Am Games would be a nice size.