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Games’ legacies come in many forms

Most people realize the 2010 Winter Olympics could make Whistler the centre of world attention for a two-week period nine years down the road, but many have questioned what the town will have to put up with to host the Games.

Most people realize the 2010 Winter Olympics could make Whistler the centre of world attention for a two-week period nine years down the road, but many have questioned what the town will have to put up with to host the Games.

Terry Wright, general manager of bid development for the Vancouver Whistler 2010 Bid Corporation, didn’t provide all the answers during the third in a series of fireside chats Tuesday, but he did provide some context and details about the philosophy behind the bid and the direction it’s going. Unfortunately fewer than a dozen members of the general public were at the Whistler Mountain Ski Club cabin to hear him speak.

"We work from the premise that, win or lose you want to be sure you leave a legacy," Wright said of the bid corporation. The shape and form of that legacy was the focus of Wright’s remarks.

Wright has been in the event business for nearly 20 years, starting with Expo 86 where he survived Jimmy Pattison’s early purge of managers and was in fact promoted by Pattison. He went on to be involved in Expo 88 in Australia and has since worked with organizing committees for several Commonwealth Games, Pan-Am Games, last summer’s Olympics in Sydney and this summer’s World Track and Field Championships in Edmonton. In his current position with the Vancouver Whistler 2010 Bid Corporation his job is to pull together the bid book, which must be submitted to the International Olympic Committee by June 2002.

Wright said virtually every project he’s worked on has left a housing legacy. The Games provide leverage opportunities for housing and other community amenities, and he used Victoria’s Commonwealth Games and the Pan-Am Games in Winnipeg as examples. In Victoria an athletes’ village was built that became student housing for the University of Victoria after the Games. Camosun College in Victoria was about to buy 400 computers at about the same time the Games organizing committee needed 600 computers. A deal was struck where the organizers used the computers for the Games and then turned all 600 over to the college when they were done.

When Winnipeg hosted the Pan-Am Games it wasn’t housing that was needed but a nursing school. The organizing committee and provincial governments got together and built a nursing school, which was used as accommodation during the Games.

When it was pointed out that Whistler needs employee housing now, not in 2010, Wright suggested that the housing might be aimed at teachers, police officers and middle managers – people who probably couldn’t afford to move to Whistler in nine years, but whose services will still be required.

"If we have to build temporary accommodation, we’ll do it. But if we’re spending that money anyway, why not spend it on a permanent facility?" Wright said.

Accommodation is one of the big challenges with the Whistler end of the bid, Wright acknowledged. In addition to 3,000 athletes and trainers, Whistler will have to accommodate sponsors, media and the "Olympic family" of approximately 600 people – heads of sports federations and national sports organization. Some sort of temporary village, for media perhaps, could be built at the landfill site, Wright suggested. The Olympic family and sponsors could use existing hotel accommodation, although Whistler’s stratified condos and hotels present an organizational a problem.

A suitable site for an athletes’ village is an issue, Wright admitted. A central kitchen/eating facility for the athletes would likely be a temporary facility.

Wright suggested there may be leverage opportunities with Lot 1 in Village North, the sports/cultural site the municipality hasn’t had the money to develop.

"Both the community and the Olympics need space," Wright said.

Housing could be part of the Olympic legacy but the key idea behind the legacy is sustainability – financial, environmental and sporting.

"I don’t think there’s any doubt we can help develop a better sustainability road map for the Olympics," Wright said, noting that one of the 33 working groups looking at various aspects of the bid has suggested a green office policy be implemented from the start. That type of policy can help set the standard for future Olympics, Wright noted.

Transportation between the Lower Mainland and Whistler is also an obvious issue, but something that needs to be addressed regardless of whether the Olympic bid is successful. Wright said there are a number of working groups and committees looking at transportation issues both within the bid corp. and in the Ministry of Transportation and Highways.

Sports programs are the first legacy of the bid, through the LegaciesNow program. Approximately 20 per cent of the $20 million bid budget is going to sport development in communities across B.C., Wright said.

Asked about financial legacies to maintain sports facilities after the Olympics, Wright said there are three facilities that don’t sustain themselves: the ski jumps, the speed skating oval and the bobsleigh/luge track. Three things are needed to keep those facilities alive. The first is an endowment left behind by the Games to maintain the facilities. In Victoria, the Commonwealth Games left a $4 million endowment to the main swimming pool.

The second thing is to design the facilities for the long term, not just the two weeks of the Games. Wright said that in Victoria nearly every facility had temporary seating that could be removed after the Games. In Sydney, one wall of the Olympic swimming pool was left open so more seats were available during the Games. After the Games the extra seats were removed and the wall closed in.

The third thing is to maintain programs that utilize the facilities – getting kids into bobsleigh and luge, ski jumping and other sports. A 10-20 year plan to build the sport is also needed.

Wright pointed out the recent success of Canada’s speed skaters is due in large part to the speed skating oval built for the Calgary Olympics.

Wright also mentioned that the bobsleigh and luge track appears to be less of a post-Games issue than the speed skating oval, as the international federation governing bobsleigh and luge would like to see at least two more tracks built in North America so it can have a North American circuit. Also, at Salt Lake City and Calgary, bobsleigh rides with a professional driver are popular tourist attractions.