Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Quarterly report says Games on time, on budget

But opposition critic calls VANOC’s transparency into question

By Clare Ogilvie

Olympic organizers spent more money on Whistler venues than any others the latest quarterly financial report shows.

Venue development expenses totaled $46.5 million for the three months ended Oct.31, 2006 and $34 million for the three months ended July 31, 2006.

“In both quarters the largest part of these expenditures related to work at Whistler Alpine, the Whistler Nordic competition venue and the Whistler Sliding Centre,” states the report released by the Vancouver Organizing Committee Tuesday in Vancouver.

“The overall increase of $12.5 million over the preceding quarter reflects the high level of construction activity during the three months ended Oct.31, 2006 on two of the outdoor venues, the Whistler Alpine venues and the Whistler Nordic competition venue.”

VANOC CEO John Furlong said organizers were committed to finishing most of the venues as soon as possible to get Canadian athletes on them.

“Our venue team has made excellent progress and we have finished the Cypress Freestyle venue ahead of schedule and we continue to be on time and on budget with the rest of our program,” he said.

“This will be a very big year for us (2007). Seven more venues will be completed by this time next year and our Canadian athletes will be making plans to come out to train in Vancouver to prepare for the Games.”

To date the total spent on the Whistler Nordic venue is $49 million, with $20.3 million spent on it in the last quarter. The total cost is expected to be $115.7 million.

Work on the $99.9 million Whistler Sliding Centre on Blackcomb Mountain cost $14.9 million this quarter, with the project to date consuming $44.2 million.

About $7.9 million was spent on the Alpine venue on Whistler Mountain at Creekside. Most of the money for the $26.2 million venue was spent on site preparation and snowmaking equipment.

Furlong also told reporters via teleconference that more than 80 per cent of Canadians know about Vancouver and Whistler’s hosting of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

That’s up from 69 per cent in 2005, said Furlong.

“That is a huge number and we know that our efforts to cross the country sharing the stories of Canada’s Games in 2010 contributed to that,” he said.

But despite that awareness provincial NDP Olympic critic Harry Bains questioned how open VANOC is and pointed to the organization’s plan to release “elements” of its business plan in the New Year.

“The only way to make these Games successful is if they are open and transparent, so for (VANOC) to say that only elements of the business plan will be released is very, very disturbing,” said Bains decrying the postponement of the release of the business plan until 2007.

But Furlong was adamant that the public would know everything it needs to.

“All of the salient points of the plan will be made public,” he said, adding that the plan is based on thousands upon thousands of pages of research and reports.

In his opening remarks he said: “We take seriously our responsibility to update our partners, stakeholders and the public on communicating not only what we are doing from a management and planning standpoint but also how we are doing it.

“We will continue to work hard to maintain the publics trust and awareness and that means honesty transparency and accountability in the work that we are doing here at Vancouver 2010.”

But, said Bains: “The public is the one who will be left holding the bag at the end of the day and the public deserves to know the entire plan and see the entire picture so they can compare what they have been told and what is actually delivered.”

The report also highlighted the success of the sponsorship program, with VANOC bringing in $115 million last year alone.

With three years still to go before B.C. hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics organizers have already raised $565 million in sponsorship. If you count sponsors’ commitments to ancillary programs the total jumps to at least $667.5 million.

The venue construction budget remains at $580 million, including a $66.8 million contingency fund. VANOC has spent $182.4 million on venues so far, according to its financial report.

A contingency plan will also be built into its $1.7 billion operations budget. That budget is drawn from private sources such as ticket sales, merchandizing, and the IOC broadcast rights, which are still under negotiation.

Furlong said VANOC is in discussions with the IOC around the business plan and budget and once those are complete full discussions will take place around broadcast revenues.

“(Our) next discussions with the IOC take place mid-January and our goal is to have this all completed probably somewhere in late February,” said Furlong.

“As we approach the end of 2006 and the three-year countdown to the 2010 Winter Games we are on track and on budget.”