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No soft landing for Whistler's ski jumps

I was fortunate enough recently to be out at Whistler Olympic Park on a bluebird day. The ski trails were beautiful, the scenery amazing and the smiles on the faces of those sharing the trails could not have been wider.
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I was fortunate enough recently to be out at Whistler Olympic Park on a bluebird day.

The ski trails were beautiful, the scenery amazing and the smiles on the faces of those sharing the trails could not have been wider.

And yes, I even got to shoot in the biathlon range.

I have to admit that it has been a few months since I have been out there and I had forgotten what an amazing venue it is.

As I skied around I recalled with colleagues — it was an office excursion — what it was like during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The buses were everywhere, spectators lined up for food, drinks, to see the athletes, for transportation, to see the ice sculptures — you name it there was a line-up for it.

But it was exciting.

While I reported from several events, by far and away my favourite was the ski jumping. The very vocal Europeans — some clad in just breeches, flag-capes and interesting hats — always stole the show. While they cheered on their favourite athletes, they also cheered everyone especially our Canadian contingent.

Leading up to the Games the media reported frequently on the rising cost of the venue.

In the Bid Book Olympic Park was slated to cost $102 million but according to the Vancouver Organizing Committee's final financial report (http://www.2010legaciesnow.com/vanoc_final_financial/) the venue finally came it at $122.4 million.

Of that, according to Whistler Sport Legacies, $30 million was spent on the ski jumps — this includes the jumps, the chair lift, the refrigeration plant, and the snowmaking system.

When the jumps were first proposed and built there was an assumption that they would become part of the competition and training circuit — though they were frequently called out as the "white elephant" of Games venues in the media. In other words the 140-and 106-metre jumps would be permanent structures after the Games. After all, who would spend $30 million on a sporting structure and then tear it down?

One of the questions most frequently dodged at the time by Olympic officials was what the real fate of those jumps would be. It soon became apparent, as a downward spiraling economy hit Canada, that they would be "temporary," though no one really knew what that meant. It was assumed that they would be dismantled after the Games.

Then during a venue update in January 2010 it was revealed that a deal was in the works to keep the jumps open on a seasonal basis – basically, they would operate for one month a year. I remember the information just slipping out as dozens of reporters were gathered in a tent at the venue for the briefing.

As the information was casually mentioned, those of us who covered the Games full-time did a double take – had we heard right?

Were the jumps to be saved?

At the forefront of the fight was Brent Morrice, Chairman of Ski Jumping Canada. At the time he said: "[Dismantling the jumps] never made sense to us."

"We have been fighting this since Day 1."

The best jumpers fly two football fields in length and can reach speeds of 88 km/h as was seen at the 2009 test event for the Games. The venue was packed for that event and its very success lent weight to the argument to keep the jumps open.

"It is going to take a lot of work," said Morrice, at the time and it has.

So much work and money, in fact, that plans to host an event last year never materialized.

But this week ski jumpers are back at the venue for the Canadian Nationals — including the women. You may recall the vocal and bitter battle Canadian women ski jumpers ought to have their sport included in the 2010 Games – but it was not to be.

This is the first time since the Games the jumps have been used in competition.

But keeping the jumps operational is not easy or cheap. The refrigeration unit must be maintained, the stairs that run up and down the side of the jumps must be cleared for events and there needs to be avalanche control and snow management on the side hills. The jumps also need a winch cat, left behind by Olympic organizers to groom the slopes.

That the nationals are here in Whistler is due in part to new funding from Own the Podium after it was decided by the International Olympic Committee to admit women ski jumping for the next winter Games in Sochi in 2014. Chronically underfunded for years, Ski Jumping Canada's OTP funding more than doubled to $294,000 for the 2011-12 season, primarily because of the belief that the Canadian women have a shot at a medal in Sochi.

As it turns out, the technology used in the jumps in Whistler is similar to that used in Sochi — and it is far advanced from the one jump used in Calgary for training.

Many jumpers who train on the jump built for the 1988 Calgary Olympic Games would love to make the Callaghan jumps their training ground.

"We try to jump at Calgary as much as we can but with the chinooks it's hard," Canadian national team head coach Gregor Linsig told the Province, referring to the warm winter winds that blow through Calgary. "The facility is pretty old. We have no cooling system in Calgary so the snow melts with one chinook and we're back to ground zero. We do the best we can. That's the only hill we have so we try to use it.

"We say every day, 'imagine if we had these (Callaghan) hills in Calgary.'"

Morrice told the Province that it costs between $50,000 and $60,000 to hold the competition this weekend — and that's about the annual funding needed too to run the jumps for one month a year.

I'm sure the event will be a success, which just leaves me asking the same question I did throughout the years I covered the 2010 Games — what was the value in spending $30 million in taxpayers money for ski jumps that are never used?

If we've gone to the expense of building them maybe we need a better plan for how we take advantage of the investment for the future.