Clock ticks on Toronto Olympic bid
SPORT: Cost of hosting has many opposed to 2024 run
Mark Tewksbury and Elaine Tanner are both three-time Olympic medallists in swimming for Canada.
But when it comes to the question of whether Toronto should bid for the 2024 Summer Games, the two couldn’t be more on more opposite sides of the pool.
Tewksbury, 47, believes Toronto needs to shake off the disappointments of the past — especially the unsuccessful bid in 2001 for the 2008 Olympics — and boldly pursue these Games.
Tanner, 64, feels Toronto should forget the idea completely and spend the estimated $50-$60 million a bid would cost on other priorities.
Together, they represent the debate that divides Torontonians as the clock ticks down to Tuesday’s deadline for Mayor John Tory to sign off on an official letter of interest to the International Olympic Committee. Or not. “I am a pro-sport person,” says Tanner, who captured two silvers and a bronze at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. “But there are other big-time sporting events — like the world’s in swimming or the world track and field games or the world’s in skating, to name a few — that Toronto could go after with no bigdollar budgets.
“With so many social issues to address, cutbacks in critical services in the GTA and Ontario the $15-$30 billion costs for a big splash to benefit only the few does not make economic sense.”
Tanner lives in Collingwood, Ont., in the summer and fall, and she winters in White Rock, B.C.
“History has shown us over the decades with the Olympics that only the special-interest groups and IOC benefit,” she says. “There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in their passionate sales pitch about how we all will benefit. I have seen what happened to Vancouver, my hometown and province — so be very wary, Toronto.”
Tewksbury, of Calgary, just returned from a holiday in Barcelona, the same city where he won Olympic gold in the 100-metre breaststroke at the 1992 Summer Games.
Barcelona is largely seen as the poster child for a Summer Olympics gone right.
“Barcelona shows what smart civic planning can do for a city after the Games,” Tewksbury says. “I remember going to Barcelona many times before the Olympics. It was a city that was run down and it certainly doesn’t have the tourist reputation that it does today.
“Today, it’s one of the most desirable tourist destinations in the world.”
Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Budapest and Hungary have all informed the IOC of their intention to bid for the 2024 Games.
“I think it’s really fair to look super hard at the number and go in with eyes wide open,” Tewksbury says of Toronto’s concerns over costs. “What is happening as due diligence is perfect.
“But at the same time, you can look at the numbers but you have to look at what is Canada’s place in the world. How do we want to be seen internationally?”
In Tanner’s mind, the Olympics of today do not hold up to the ideals of the Olympics of the past.
“The original vision of the Olympics was not intended to bankrupt the host city or the people who pay for them,” she says. “Let them take their five-ring circus and put their tent up somewhere else.”
Toronto has unsuccessfully bid for the Olympics five times, with the most recent and arguably most cutting rejection coming in 2001 for the 2008 Summer Games.