Winter Games could be heading back to Calgary
An International Olympic Committee executive says hosting the 2026 Winter Games is a low risk for Calgary.
Calgarians, however, await a price tag to decide that for themselves.
Detailed costs aren’t expected to be announced before September. A plebiscite measuring the public’s interest in a games bid is scheduled for later this year.
Christophe Dubi answered questions from Calgary’s business community at a chamber of commerce event Tuesday.
The IOC’s Olympic Games executive director says it is unrealistic to demand financial details while the bid corporation - chaired by Calgary real estate entrepreneur Scott Hutcheson - and governments are still crunching the numbers.
“When you consider a project like this, you want to have all the details at once,” Dubi acknowledged. “That’s an expectation we have as citizens.
“You want to have it all from the very beginning. At this point in time, there is a lot of work that is currently being done, including the bidco and the local institutions and the three political levels to have all the numbers right into the detail and backed up with the right assumptions. This is something that takes time.”
Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics. Cross-country skiing and biathlon were held in nearby Canmore, Alta. The communities have yet to decide on bidding for the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.
An initial estimate in June 2017 pegged the cost of hosting at $4.6 billion, with games revenue covering almost half.
Since then, the IOC committed to giving the successful 2026 host city US$925 million (C$1.2 billion) in cash and services to lower costs.
The 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., cost roughly $7.7 billion.
All impact studies done to date on a Calgary bid will be part of the cost analysis, Hutcheson said.
“It’s really important to get the right numbers before us and not worry so much about the timelines,” he said. “Any deal that we get, will be a deal that we want. If we don’t want that deal, we won’t proceed with it.”
The deadline for bid books is January 2019. IOC members will vote on a host city in the fall of 2019.
Should Calgary reject a 2026 bid, Dubi said “No harm done. If the citizens do not wish to bid for the games and continue the candidature, well, we’ll continue with the other cities.”
Stockholm, Sapporo, Japan, Erzurum, Turkey and Milan and Cortina, Italy, are among the cities interested in 2026.