By Clare Ogilvie
Economic development, regional growth, and turning a small summer resort into a year round destination are some of the most important legacies of hosting the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid.
That’s the conclusion of a just released report on the Lake Placid Games commissioned by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC).
It is one of three reports, which will be released in the coming weeks on past Olympics. The next two reports will focus on Calgary and Salt Lake City.
“(VANOC wanted) to show what the long term benefits would be to a community,” VANOC’s vice president Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management Cathy Priestner Allinger said of the study.
“Short term benefits are a little more obvious, but that post-Games piece is something we often don’t think about until after and this was an opportunity to share that experience.”
Lake Placid hosted two Winter Olympics, one in 1932 and one in 1980.
While it is difficult to compare the experience of Lake Placid to what may lie ahead for metropolitan Vancouver and Whistler, long recognized as a top ski destination globally, there are lessons to be learned.
After the 1980 Lake Placid Games it was decided that the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) would be created and it would run all the venues associated with the Games, including the bobsled/luge track, two ski venues, a speed skating oval, ice sheets, cross country tracks, and ski jumps.
This is a unique arrangement, as in most other Olympic host sites many of the venues are owned by private interests.
That is certainly the case for Whistler, where the alpine venue is on Whistler Mountain, which is owned by Intrawest. It’s the same story in Vancouver, where for example, top ice-hockey games will be played at GM Place.
Keeping all the venues under one umbrella in Lake Placid has, “allowed for a tremendous amount of economic development in the region,” said Ted Blazer, ORDA’s CEO, from Lake Placid this week.
“We continue to bid for national and international events, we host international competitions and at the same time those same venues, where all the competitions take place, are open to the general public for their utilization.”
Blazer estimates that ORDA’s activity brings in about US$356 million annually to the area and Lake Placid now hosts about one million visitors every year. (About 2.1 million visitors come to Whistler each year.)
ORDA employs about 1,300 people and has an annual operating budget of US$30 million. The main funding sources are the state of New York, the town itself, and tickets and events sales.
Since the Games the state has also funded over US$60 million in improvements and support to ORDA.
Currently the plan for post 2010 is to use a $110 million endowment fund to help run the bobsled track, the Nordic centre and the Richmond Skating Oval. It is not clear how the fund, which the federal and provincial governments created and which has been earning interest for several years, will be divided among the venues.
The fund, and the activities at these venues will be managed by the Whistler Legacies Society, which was to have its first meeting last Friday in Vancouver.
The society has several members, including the Resort Municipality of Whistler, VANOC, the provincial government, Squamish Nation, Lil’wat Nation, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee.
Lake Placid is also designated an Olympic Training Centre by the U.S. Olympic Committee. The USOC pays ORDA for the use of its facilities and, according to the report, in 2006 86 per cent of the U.S. team at the Torino Winter Games had gone through training at Lake Placid at some point in their careers.
There are other OTC in the U.S. as well, with the main one located in Colorado Springs.
Many Canadian athletes train at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, a legacy of the 1988 Winter Olympics in that city. The Canadian Olympic Committee does not endorse training venues, leaving it up to individual sport organizations to choose where their athletes train.
At this point it is unclear how much of a legacy the 2010 alpine venue will be following the Games as it is part of a busy commercial operation. Historically Whistler’s weather has not co-operated with early season World Cup alpine events, and the World Cup tour now comes to North America in November and December.
Lake Placid hosts an average of five World Cups every year.
Priestner Allinger said discussions are taking place between national sport organizations and Whistler-Blackcomb.
“We certainly see a lot of training opportunities that will come out of it and if you look at the additional snow making that will be on the mountains it will create some great opportunities for both training and competition,” she said.
“The other part of the legacy is the equipment and when you look at all the safety netting and equipment that is required for high performance training all of that will be left and that will be huge for Alpine Canada and Whistler.”
As for the bobsled /luge track Priestner Allinger said it will be very popular for training, competition and public use.
“We fully expect it will continue to hold major world class competitions,” she said.
“It is very technical so in terms of training it will be a venue that will be definitely used a lot post Games.”
And the fact that Calgary’s Olympic venues are only a short plane ride away will not detract from using Whistler and Vancouver’s venues said Priestner Allinger.
“Having the facilities close together is not at all a problem,” she said.
“It is a value added. When it comes to getting world-class competitions we now have another stop on the circuit.
“We have worked closely with each of the national sport organizations to look at what their long term development and high performance plans were and you are going to see all of them back in Vancouver and Whistler because they are state of the art, world class facilities and there is enough going on in the sport that we will be able to use both sites very effectively.”
The legacy of the ski jumps is less clear. Currently the plan is to use them seasonally after 2010, but the reality is the sport has few competitors and is not heavily funded. It may be impossible to run both Whistler and Calgary’s jumps long-term. However, keeping the Whistler location going may help attract world-class events in that sport.
“I’m not sure they would be decommissioned, there might be some other options for using the structures,” said Priestner Allinger.
“That is what we are looking at, what other possibilities there might be if ski jumping is not going to occur there.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee’s CEO Chris Rudge agrees that having two sets of Olympic venues in Canada will be good for sport. And, he said, legacies are already flowing to sports, and athletes and communities don’t need to wait for the Games to end to feel them.
“We are already experiencing the legacy of these Games,” he said.
“At the end of the day the greater legacy is going to be in richness of sport development if these Games provide the kind of surplus we hope and believe they can get, like Calgary did, and that will mean money into sport development.”
Having an athletes’ centre in Whistler is another important legacy as it offers affordable accommodation to athletes in training as well as other facilities such as a gym, workout areas and so on. ORDA has used its athlete facility to draw not just athletes from winter sports but also gymnasts in training and even boxers.
So while the Lake Placid model may not overlay Whistler and Vancouver’s models the report has other valuable suggestions for helping to find success in 2010.
One, said Blazer, is to groom your volunteers.
“There are a lot of professional people involved but it is the volunteers who will be with you after it is over,” he said.
“You have to make sure there are people in the community to learn the ropes and know how to handle things from a volunteer and sport basis after the Games are over.”
Other lessons included making sure there are activities associated with the Games that you do not need to be a ticket holder to enjoy and ensure transportation runs smoothly and efficiently.
And when it comes to long-term post-Games success the venues must be marketed and promoted to get the most out of them for their host communities.
That, said Priestner Allinger is top of mind for the Whistler Legacies Society.
“We definitely want to look at revenue opportunities for these facilities,” she said.
