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Olympic goals for 2008

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics finished 2007 with a flurry of announcements and good-news headlines. And VANOC deserves hearty congratulations for many of its accomplishments.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics finished 2007 with a flurry of announcements and good-news headlines. And VANOC deserves hearty congratulations for many of its accomplishments.

But VANOC is also managing information and the 2010 Olympic story that is being told, at the same time it is guarding details that would help the people of British Columbia prepare for the Olympics. A brief review.

The 2010 mascots were introduced in late November and have to be considered an unqualified success. Miga, Quatchi and Sumi got plenty of media attention — some positive, some negative but as long as their names were spelled correctly….

Much more important than the media and its limited attention span was the fact the mascots were a hit with children. It was no coincidence the trio was introduced just before Christmas, and retailers and taxpayers should be thankful for the gift. VANOC is counting on $46 million in revenue from the characters.

When the second, online phase of the mascots is introduced in 2008 look for further development of the Quatchi character. He dreams of becoming a world-famous goalie, which also happens to be the position played by the Vancouver Canucks’ most recognizable player, Roberto Luongo — who, coincidently, is the only Canuck likely to be a member of Canada’s 2010 Olympic hockey team.

The programming for the 2008 Cultural Olympiad was announced a few days after the mascots were introduced: 300 performances in partnership with 60 arts and cultural organizations, including the Whistler Arts Council. Who could say anything negative about support for the arts and culture?

In mid-December the first event at Whistler Olympic Park, as the Nordic centre is now called, took place. The Coast Cup cross-country race was a low-key event but it provided another photo opportunity for VANOC.

That was followed by the first clandestine run down the sliding track by Pierre Lueders and Justin Kripps. The photos released by VANOC depicted another triumph for the organizing committee.

Early in the new year the test events in Whistler ramp up, providing more success stories, including the first leap off the ski jumps in the next week or so.

VANOC has been praised — in this space and in more famous publications including the Globe and Mail and Vancouver Sun — for its smooth, controversy-free operations, including getting most of the Olympic venues done early. In the case of the three Whistler venues and the Cypress venues, they have been completed a full two years before the Olympics. It is a significant accomplishment, which seems all the more impressive when measured against the venue construction of the last two Olympics, in Torino and Athens.

It has also been part of the Canadian Olympic Committee’s plans since at least the time the Vancouver-Whistler Olympic bid was shortlisted early in 2003 that the venues would be finished early. Having the dubious distinction of being the only country to host two Olympics and not win a gold medal at either one, the COC wanted to make sure Canadian athletes have every advantage going into 2010, including being able to train on the tracks and rinks prior to the Games.

VANOC has also been credited with bringing the venues in on budget, but that depends on which budget you look at. As acting Auditor General Arn van Iersel reported in his September 2006 review, “The capital cost of the venues was estimated in VANOC’s June 2005 Version 1 Business Plan as $543 million.” At that time, approved venue capital contributions amounted to only $470 million. The province refused to approve the business plan and asked VANOC for updated estimates. The revised total came in at $580 million, which led to a request for, and approval of, an additional $110 million for venue construction.

VANOC has also done well in sharing some of the capital costs of staging the Games with the cities of Richmond and Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler. Only portions of the athletes’ villages and speed skating rink are VANOC projects. The three municipalities are willing partners because of the community benefits the villages and arena will leave after 2010.

But these communities will also be hosts during the Games, and details on what exactly that will mean, particularly for Whistler, continue to be scarce.

Moreover, VANOC has some history of guarding details until it suits them. Whistlerites will recall that the revised estimate for parts of the athletes’ centre that Whistler was contributing to came out in July, after Whistler council had approved a development permit for the project in June. In early August VANOC was saying the budget for the entire athletes’ centre was $22 million. Later in August a Partnerships B.C. report — written in April — was released that said the cost of the athletes’ centre would be $36.5 million. A coupe of months later that estimate was revised to the current $46 million.

Figures for accommodation are also troubling. Earlier this month VANOC’s vice president of accommodations, Nejat Sarp, said the organization had secured 4,000 of the 5,000 rooms it needs in the Sea to Sky corridor. That’s the same number Sarp said were secured last March.

The message coming from VANOC and from Tourism Whistler is that with VANOC requiring only about half of Whistler’s 10,000 rooms there will be space in Whistler for spectators and tourists during the Games. But the VANOC numbers don’t include, among others, security personnel, medical staff, unaccredited media, corporations and foreign government delegations. No one is saying how many security people will be needed in Whistler, but in the post-911 world the Salt Lake Olympics had more than 10,000. The Torino Olympics had 15,000 police.

The point is until VANOC has met all of its accommodation requirements everyone else is planning for the Olympics by guessing and extrapolating tidbits of information.

The 2010 Olympics are slowly starting to resonate with people, and with the test events over the next three months they will become more tangible. The hope is that in addition to the pictures and headlines from the test events 2008 will bring more details about who will be here in 2010 and how they will move in, out and through the valley.