OLYMPIC APPETITE
Recurring theme of ‘reusable venues’ loud and clear for a Calgary Games bid
Sam Edney calls himself a “legacy baby.”
Were it not for the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary, he might never have tried luge and he certainly wouldn’t be where he is today: a three-time Olympian who’s stood on a World Cup podium and won three world championship medals.
So it’s probably no surprise that he’d love to see Calgary, his hometown, bid for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. But the reason he supports the bid goes beyond the city.
“Calgary could be the Olympics that kind of changes, I want to say, the direction that the IOC and the Olympic movement is going with over budgets,” Edney, 33, said at a gathering of Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic medal hopefuls in Calgary last month. “It’s just kind of ballooned into this massive undertaking that a city has to undergo to host an Olympics and I think that Calgary can again, as they changed the Olympics in ’88, I think they could be a city that really changes the Olympic movement again in 2026.”
Calgary used the 1988 Olympics to build a cluster of sports facilities — including a sliding track and speedskating oval — that evolved into a training centre for Canada’s elite athletes. Those legacy venues have been maintained over the years and most would be reused during the 2026 Games, fitting with Agenda 2020, the International Olympic Committee’s attempt to reduce the soaring costs attached to hosting the Games.
The Calgary Bid Exploration Committee has estimated the Olympics would cost about $4.6 billion, with revenue offsetting almost half that. By comparison, the 2010 Games in Vancouver cost more than $7 billion while the 2014 Games in Sochi cost more than $50 billion. The committee is expected to make its final recommendations on a possible bid to Calgary city council on July 24.
Canada’s Olympians — those who have benefited most from the legacy — were unanimous last month in their support of another Calgary bid.
The Olympics is becoming a very big, expensive venture for any country that wants to undertake it and the positive about Calgary is we have all the facilities,” says biathlete Scott Gow, a bronze medallist in the 4x7.5-km relay at the 2016 worlds. “Even with Vancouver, Vancouver was great, but they had to kind of build a lot of stuff from the ground up, whereas with Calgary it’s already here.”
Jesse Lumsden, a two-time Olympian in bobsleigh who won a silver medal at the 2017 world championships, calls the Calgary bid a “no-brainer.”
“Calgary could really benefit from these Games, Alberta could really benefit from these Games after the last couple of years that this province has had, and the IOC could benefit from having them in Calgary,” says Lumsden, who also works in business development in the slumping oil and gas industry.
“They could re-set that bar of what the standard is and should be. All they need to do is look at ’88 and the legacy that it’s created over the years. We’re still training in facilities that were built for ’88, competing on these facilities. The infrastructure is in place. It’s not going to be a money pit, like Sochi or Rio. We know we have the ... ability to sustain these for community use.”
Lumsden, a university football star and CFL player before he tried bobsleigh, also believes the bid would offer an opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to create other legacies, such as a new stadium.
Bobsleigh star Kaillie Humphries, a two-time Olympic champion, says hosting another Games would also help ensure the continued development of Canada’s winter athletes. The Calgary Olympics inspired a generation of young kids to take up sport, while the investment in elite sport prior to the Vancouver Games helped lead Team Canada to a record 14 gold medals in 2010.
“I’m a product of the ’88 Games, as is pretty much every single Canadian that is on the Olympic team now, of some type,” she says. “You know, having the Games here, you’ll start to see the wave in about 10, 15 years, of you know, what Vancouver brought. So if Calgary can get the Winter Olympics again, it would be phenomenal and I would absolutely love it. I’m born and raised here, so it would be cool, but I’m inspired from this and who knows what it could bring if we get it.”
Manny Osborne-Paradis, a bronze medallist in super-G at the world championships this year, agrees.
“It would be great for all the young athletes,” says OsborneParadis, 33. “I’ve been able to have such a successful career because of how much money was brought in for Vancouver and I think there’s a lot of Olympians who have had great careers because of that. So it would build up a whole other generation of great athletes that would have a lot easier of a time to follow their dreams.”
While Osborne-Paradis says he won’t be competing in 2026 — unless there’s “seniors racing” — Humphries, 31, says she may extend her career if Calgary wins the 2026 Games.
“I would love to still be competing at that point,” she says. “It’s physically possible. I mean I’d be 40 at that point, I’d be up there, but in our sport it is possible, I’ve seen quite a few of our men’s team do it. But I think it would be absolutely amazing.”
She’s not the only athlete who feels that way.
“If Calgary gets a Games, then I can’t retire,” says para alpine skier Kurt Oatway, 33, who was ranked No. 1 in the world in downhill in 2016. “Back in 1988, I was four years old. So most of the Olympics went over my head at that time, but it’s kind of one of those things where you sort of remember it but not really remember it, but you see the legacy. When you get a little bit older you see all the facilities and you can go back and watch the old video. Where all the alpine events were held, I grew up skiing that hill as a kid, as a young athlete, and to race at a home Games in your hometown, not many people get to do that.”
“It would make me ski until I will be 33 years old,” says moguls star Mikael Kingsbury, 24, a silver medallist in Sochi who’s won a record 42 gold medals on the World Cup circuit. “If I can compete at the Olympics at home, I’ll be there. I’ll be old, but I’ll be there.”
There also are intangible benefits to hosting a Games, says reigning Olympic moguls champion Justine Dufour-Lapointe, including the way it can bring a country together.
“I remember Vancouver was so much fun, so unique to see all the Canadians gathering around, supporting Team Canada,” she says. “Everyone in the street was wearing something with Canada on it, and it was just so magnificent to see that unity together, that joy, that happiness.”
Para-snowboarder Alex Masse, 22, has a lasting reminder of how a singular event can bring people together. In Whistler ahead of the 2010 Paralympics, he watched from there as Canada beat the U.S. to win gold in men’s Olympic hockey.
“My nephew’s actually named Crosby, after Sidney Crosby, because he scored that golden goal,” says Masse. “We were trying to figure out a name for him and that puck went in the net and we were like, OK, he’s Crosby. That’s it. No one argued it.”