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Whistler Olympic Park has busy first year of operation

More than 32,000 skier visits reported, including events and athletes
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Out of the Gates The Whistler Olympic Park held 14 events this year, including the Canadian cross-country championships.

With only one sign on either side of the highway and a gravel entrance beside a highway crew work yard, the Whistler Olympic Park started out with a low profile in Sea to Sky this past December.

However, it didn’t take long for the public to discover the park. By the end of the season, the park was selling 500 tickets on a Saturday while hosting hundreds of others that had purchased season passes.

VANOC director of Nordic sports and Olympic Park manager John Aalberg said the first season in operation went better than they ever expected.

“We’re pretty happy with the year, our numbers look good,” he said. “Obviously we would still like to grow in the next few years and after the Games, but it was a very good start without much marketing at all.”

Aalberg says the park boasted more than 32,000 skier days in just over four months of operation. That figure includes athletes taking part in various events, school groups, and other groups using the park for training. During the cross-country national championships, with 700 athletes and coaches taking part, Aalberg estimates there were more than 1,200 people using the venue on the weekend.

It’s too early to make projections, but Aalberg says the numbers bode well for maintaining the park as a legacy after the 2010 Games.

“We will be using this year and next to look at the money questions and operational budgets,” he said. “Right now our costs are a lot higher because we’re preparing for the Games and we’re running events every week or every other week. With a couple of years in operation we’ll be able to look at the numbers and get a good idea of what our post-Games costs will be and our expected revenue.”

Like other Olympic and Paralympic venues, Whistler Olympic Park is also backed by the 2010 Games Operating Trust endowment fund. It’s unknown how much the Olympic Park will receive annually from the $133 million fund, but Aalberg says everything will be done to make the park self-funding in the long term.

“Just looking at the numbers for this year, and the reputation it’s starting to get, it looks very good for the future,” he said.

“I’ve seen quite a few Olympics, this will be number six for me including two as an athlete, and this is my fourth as an organizer. Looking back at those examples I think, and everybody agrees, that this is the best (Games) in terms of legacy planning and focusing on building something that will benefit not just Olympic athletes but also the recreational community, school kids, athletes and so forth. Just by being able to build 55 kilometres of trails, when only 15 (km) are needed for the Games, that’s a huge commitment from VANOC to building a legacy. We’ve also had a legacy fund in the bank the past four years, and I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

Aalberg says there is a focus on business development and increasing user numbers for the Olympic Park. There are currently just over 40 km of trails available, including the competition trails, and another 14-plus will be added this summer to bring the total to 55 km. With Callaghan Country’s trail network, which are accessible by a combination pass, there will be over 100 km of cross-country trails in the Callaghan watershed, plus more than 32 km of trails in Lost Lake Park.

Aalberg says that word is already getting out about Nordic skiing opportunities in Whistler, and that there are plans to start marketing the facility this year.

The park has also embraced different markets, putting in snowshoe trails and a 4 km loop where people can ski with their dogs. Next winter, the opening of the day lodge will open up possibilities like hosting corporate events and tours.

This summer, park staff are looking at ways to draw people to the facility, including adding mountain bike trails.

“Now that we have some winter experience running the park we’re starting to look at what can be done in the summer. Obviously mountain bike trails would be easy, and we’re looking at building singletrack trails,” he said. “There are a lot of trails in this area, so we have to determine what the best kinds of trails would be.

“And obviously we’re looking at this place as a better event centre than anything else around here, like a centre for summer running races. We already have a couple scheduled, and a road criterium scheduled, and I’m sure we’ll see mountain bike races scheduled as well. There are also opportunities to do things a little differently, like a mountain bike biathlon or running biathlon, or programs where tourists can learn to shoot or take tours of the ski jumps. We’re looking at everything.”

Aalberg adds that cross-country skiing will be a major focus, with the longest season of any of the local trail networks. In some years there is enough snow by the end of October to ski, and the national team is training at the facility through to the end of May.

Another success for the facility has been the enthusiasm of local cross-country groups and the emergence of the Squamish-based Callaghan Local Organizing Committee (CALOC) in providing volunteers, officials and support for events. Clubs from Vancouver to Pemberton have gotten involved as well, helping the Olympic Park to host 14 events this year.

Next year the park will host an equal number of events, including six World Cup or World Championship competitions, as well as provincial and national level competitions.

“Initially our strategy was to develop a group in Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, but we’ve had to divide up our forces a bit and make Squamish the headquarters for Nordic skiing, Whistler for alpine, and Pemberton for the sliding centre,” said Aalberg. “We still get strong support from the Whistler Nordics and Spud Valley Nordics in Pemberton, but now we also have a lot of people from Squamish and Vancouver.”

Aalberg says 420 volunteers gave their time this year, which is a good base for the Games and for building a legacy after the Games as well.

As for snow, 2008 was an average year for the Olympic Park based on 30 years of snow data. However, because most operations were based in trailers that had to be shoveled off, Aalberg says it was a challenge for employees.

“In December we were scrambling to open the venues and new stuff, and there was a lot of shoveling going on,” he said. “We had to learn from experience how to keep the roads clear and everything groomed, and by the end of the winter we more or less had everything figured out. When the new buildings are open and the trailers are gone, snow will be less of an issue for us, and we also saw the plowing got better as the season went on.”

Aalberg says the priority is preparing for the Games in 2010, but there is also a strong focus on making locals and visitors feel that Whistler Olympic Park is their park.

“From the very start we were asked to look at legacies as well as the Games themselves,” he said. “I think so far we’re off to a good start at building the kind of legacies that will live for a long, long time after the Games are over. From what I’ve seen in this first year, I really feel that this place will take on a life of its own.”