Calgary must be cautious

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is right again, this time on his “warm and fuzzy” quip about the possibility of Calgary bidding for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

The popular mayor said he understands how excited everyone is about Canada’s record 29 medals in last month’s Games, but cautions cooler heads need to prevail before committing to a $4.6-billion project. Calgary and Vancouver have hosted Winter Olympics.

More famously, Montreal was put on the international map when it hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics. The only problem was it took nearly 30 years to pay it off... and Canada failed to win a single gold medal.

According to the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), the 2010 Olympics “broke even.” There are doubts because the Olympic village was a disaster. There was tremendous negativity about the Games until Sidney Crosby saved the day with his golden goal in the men’s hockey final. That made everything better.

Can we predict the status of Alberta and Canada’s economy, eight years in advance? It seems risky.

There’s little evidence to suggest that visitors to an Olympic Games will return another time. Spectators came to Vancouver because of the Olympics.

The economic downturn in Greece began after Athens hosted the 2004 Olympics. Fans travelled to Greece, enjoyed themselves, thought it was cool, but never came back.

Some of the facilities built for Pyeongchang will be destroyed at the conclusion of the Paralympics. These facilities are too expensive to operate.

Don’t let me be misunderstood — the Olympics are great for so many reasons, look no further than Okanagan goldmedalists Justin Kripps and Kelsey Serwa.

What the International Olympic Committee needs to seriously consider is a permanent site — Greece for the summer Olympics (it is, after all, their event) and somewhere in North America for the Winter Games.

All of the infrastructure, volunteer base, security, roads, public transit, and facilities will be in place.

It may ruin the Games’ global philosophy but it will save nations from going bankrupt for the sake of hosting a two-week festival (plus 10 days of Paralymic Games.)

The downside of all of this — the IOC big shots will no longer get all-expense paid trips to bid cities.

Risky to bank on the economy in eight years

—James Miller Valley Editor