Calgarians should be cautious of bid for 2026 Winter Olympics
The Calgary bid exploration committee hasn’t made a final determination about the feasibility of hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics, but Monday’s interim report presented some ways it could possibly work.
Ultimately, though, we need to separate the question of whether Calgary could be a good host city from the question of whether we want to do business with the International Olympic Committee.
At the end of the day, the latter question is the one that really matters.
There’s probably no shortage of great ideas on how a Winter Olympics in Calgary could be executed efficiently and effectively. In reality though, it’s the IOC’s show and they get to call the shots.
Calgary’s final decision on an Olympic bid is still months away, but the decision made last week by Stockholm, Sweden, should be a major red flag. Unfortunately, the bid exploration committee’s interim report didn’t really address it.
Like Calgary, Stockholm was considering a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. And like Calgary, Stockholm had been intrigued and impressed by the IOC’s so-called Agenda 2020, a set of reforms that ostensibly would emphasize a more affordable and sustainable Games, including the reuse of existing facilities.
However, as it turns out, there’s not a lot of substance in Agenda 2020. Stockholm has withdrawn from consideration because the IOC can’t give them specifics on how much of a financial contribution might be forthcoming. The specifics of Agenda 2020 were supposed to have been ready by last August, but won’t be released now until November at the earliest.
If we’re not going to see the specifics of Agenda 2020 until then, how can Calgary truly assess what it might mean for the costs and risks of a potential bid here?
As Stockholm’s vice-mayor put it, “when there are great risks that the Stockholmers will have to foot the bill, we believe saying no is the most responsible thing to do in this situation.”
Given how much Agenda 2020 has been part of the conversation in Calgary, this shouldn’t go unnoticed. Even Mayor Naheed Nenshi conceded that “the reason for them dropping out is very relevant,” but that “we have to row our own boat.”
Indeed, Calgary’s priorities shouldn’t be determined by the actions of just one other city. But the shortcomings in Agenda 2020, the IOC’s continued resistance to compromise, and the growing list of cities walking away from the Olympic bidding process, should all give Calgary pause.
Earlier this year, Budapest withdrew its bid for the 2024 Olympics, following in the footsteps of Boston, Rome and Hamburg. In 2014, the IOC found itself with only two candidates for the 2022 Winter Olympics after Oslo, Stockholm, Munich and Krakow all walked away.
Even before Stockholm’s decision, though, the bid exploration committee was warned about the pitfalls of dealing with the IOC and the empty promises of Agenda 2020.
Chris Dempsey, who was one of the leaders of the No Boston Olympics movement — and the co-author of a forthcoming book on why cities are passing on the Olympics — was invited to give a presentation to the bid exploration committee in March.
Among the points he emphasized was that Olympic bidding is more like an auction, not a race, and that Agenda 2020 is simply a marketing ploy and not any sort of meaningful reform.
Dempsey also noted how IOC reforms introduced in 2002 included very similar language, but instead led to the two most expensive Olympics ever (Beijing in 2008 and Sochi in 2014).
Additionally, the IOC expects a candidate city to guarantee to cover any shortfall in the budget, meaning that we’d essentially be signing a blank cheque. Dempsey cited the example of the Athens 2004 Olympics, which netted the IOC a profit of nearly US$1 billion, but left Greek taxpayers saddled with more than $8 billion in debt.
Hopefully, the bid exploration committee’s final report and recommendations in July will have a more thorough accounting of these matters. Calgarians deserve to know what we’re really getting into.