Does Calgary really want the Olympics?

Others have spurned the IOC. Will Cowtown?

CALGARY, ALBERTA — Hobbled by a reputation for gross expense and corruption, the International Olympic Committee has become a mendicant, shuffling from nation to nation, shaking its cup and asking if anyone might be interested in bidding on the 2026 Winter Games.

The Norwegians, the greatest of all Winter Olympic countries, found too many expenses and too much potential environmental damage. Pass. In Innsbruck, Austria, which hosted the 1976 Winter Games, the burghers shook their heads and voted no. A canton in Switzerland, home of the IOC, voted to bolt the door.

So Olympic officials turned their eyes to Calgary, the lively Canadian city that hosted the 1988 Winter Games. They murmured softly and smiled sweetly and asked: Might you like to bid?

Calgary officials nodded, yes, they might like that indeed. And the IOC officials, well-heeled princelings beneath their tattered robes, smiled so broad.

This is a city brimming with optimism. Mayor Naheed Nenshi is a quick-witted urban wonk, and the city has a diverse and educated population. Its most recent public work is a breathtakingly beautiful public library that arrived on time and under budget. Hizzoner walked into a debate recently and a later interview with me intent on selling all on his vision before a referendum Tuesday on whether to take the plunge.

“The International Olympic Committee does worry me and keep me up a bit at night,” Nenshi said. “But this is an outstanding deal for Calgary.”

Nenshi and his supporters propound Canadian exceptionalism: We would stage these Games as we do everything, which is to say on budget and without corruption or toleration of doping.

You are tempted to root even as you wince. So many optimistic cities and nations have walked this path only to tumble down the Olympic stairs of inflated hopes, spiralling costs and corruption bruises.

Quite a few in Calgary share my skepticism. This city will hold a plebiscite Tuesday on whether to submit a bid, and boosterish sorts admit to jumping nerves before the referendum.

The city is mired in an oil and gas slump, and 25 per cent of its downtown towers are vacant. A survey group hired by the city surveyed more than 7,000 people and found decidedly more with a negative view of the Olympic bid. Of late, a councillor who was allied with the mayor in pushing the Olympics announced that he could no longer support a bid.

“There are too many unanswered questions and an incredible amount of risk,” the councillor, Evan Woolley, said at a public debate on the plebiscite.

No Olympics since 1968 has met its budget. Vancouver went a modest 13 per cent over (although its athletes’ village went belly up afterward at a cost of

$100 million), while other cities had grand mal seizures. London and Sochi ran over by 76 per cent and 280 per cent.

When Tokyo signed on for the 2020 Summer Games, officials sounded remarkably like those in Calgary. They promised to deliver a frugal Olympics for about $7.3 billion.

Then they adjusted estimates to $12 billion. Of late, the number has soared to $25 to $30 billion.

Oops.