Sports community to council: Give Games some consideration
Don’t stop the conversation before it’s had a real chance to get started.
That was the message to Calgary city councillors from prominent members of the city’s sporting community on Friday.
With councillors deciding earlier this week to hold a vote on whether to proceed with a bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics, approximately 20 current and former Olympians held a press conference at Canada Olympic Park urging politicians to continue with public engagement and further studies of the impact of a potential bid.
“For me, it’s just due diligence and good process at this point to let it continue,” said 1992 Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Mark Tewksbury. “Allow external money (from the federal and provincial governments) now to come into this exploration. Allow it to become a bid corporation.
“Take it out of the hands of city councillors with some leadership that can be 100 per cent committed to exploring this and getting back with the answer of if it makes sense.”
While the group of Olympic and Paralympic athletes — which included bobsledders Kaillie Humphries and Jesse Lumsden, as well as speedskaters Denny Morrison and Gilmore Junio — were generally in support of Calgary hosting the 2026 Olympics, they insisted Friday ’s press conference was not meant to encourage the city to formally bid.
Instead, it was meant to request that councillors allow Calgarians to participate in a plebiscite on whether or not to move forward after a full financial picture has emerged.
Earlier this week, councillors chose to hold a drop-dead Olympic vote on Monday that could prevent the exploratory process from moving forward.
After remaining mostly silent about the bid, the Olympians quickly mobilized to contact councillors and organize Friday ’s event.
“If you look at the grand scheme of things, any great idea needs the proper due diligence,” Lumsden said. “Any great idea or concept needs to be looked into by a great group of people, and it needs to have a good return. If done properly, Calgary can do that. We’ve done it before.
“People are scared of the IOC. That might be one of the speed bumps or hurdles we need to deal with if we want to see these Games come into fruition, but it’s not even about that at this point. It’s about doing the due diligence and exploring how well we can put a bid together, how good it would be for the city, not just from an economic standpoint, but from a human capital perspective.”
Among the athletes who assembled at Canada Olympic Park on Friday were native Calgarians, as well as transplants from other cities who have chosen to set roots down in Calgary specifically because of the sporting infrastructure that remains as a legacy of the 1988 Olympics.
That includes Canada Olympic Park, the Olympic Oval and the Canmore Nordic Centre, all of which continue to be invaluable training resources for Canada’s high performance athletes, while also serving as community hubs for non- Olympians and Paralympians.
Those facilities are aging, though, and will require new investment if Calgary wants to remain one of the centres of Canadian amateur sport.
As two-time Olympian Jeff Christie explained, that’s part of the reason why so many in Calgary’s sporting community felt it was important to have their voices heard.
“We’re not saying we have to bid for the Olympics, we’re saying we’re already halfway through the process to see if it’s feasible and to see if it’s financially responsible,” said Christie, who describes himself as a third-generation Calgarian.
“Why stop that halfway through? Let’s finish that process and understand. It’s easy to say it could go badly, but what if it could go right?
“Why don’t we finish this exploration phase and find out if it could be a massive boon for this city. It could not be, but we don’t know that yet.”