OLYMPIC PRIDE
BANFF AND CALGARY HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE HONOUR OF HOSTING SEND-OFF AND WELCOME-HOME CELEBRATIONS FOR CANADIAN ATHLETES COMPETING IN THE 2014 SOCHI WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES.
Alberta will provide the send-off and welcome-home committees for Canadian athletes competing at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.
The Canadian Olympic Committee announced Wednesday the province would put on the 2014 Celebration of Excellence. Banff will host the pre-Games Canadian Olympic Team Block Party on Jan. 11 and Calgary will host the post-Sochi Hall of Fame Gala and Parade for the returning athletes in early May.
The before and after parties have become a tradition for Canada’s Summer and Winter Olympic athletes since the inaugural celebrations around the 2006 Turin Winter Games — the brainchild of Canadian Olympic Committee president Marcel Aubut.
“I really believe in what they are doing … in achieving so much for the country for free,” Aubut told a crowd of dignitaries and about 50 children at Wednesday’s announcement.
Olympic competitors, who often make little money from their exploits, deserve the same recognition as Canada’s most celebrated professional athletes, he said.
“We are not promoting the athletes 365 days a year … like NHL players. They deserve to be treated like a Stanley Cup team.”
Gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer and Calgary native Mark Tewksbury, the Canadian team’s chef de mission to last year’s London Olympics, stressed the importance of honouring Olympians.
“When I was an athlete, this kind of thing never happened,” he said.
“The athletes (get) to hang out and have the best time with each other. It (means) so much to the team. We unite as an Olympic team just on the eve of the Olympics. That team is together for the Olympics. At the closing ceremony we’re watching like the rest of the world, by noon the next day the team has gone. The Olympic experience is over for them. To come back together a month or two later to share the memories and … to reconnect is amazing.”
Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi said the city’s own hosting role in the 1988 Winter Olympics made it the perfect setting for the 2014 welcome home party.
“Calgary is the centre of winter sport in this country. It is the home to many of the Canadian winter athletes.
“It is going to be so incredibly special 26 years later to have the honour of welcoming our sporting heroes back from all of their victories in Russia.”
The Olympic team will first reassemble in Ottawa for a Parliamentary reception in late April, before embarking on a “Heroes Tour” from Edmonton to Calgary, visiting hospitals and schools.
The Heroes Parade will make its way through downtown Calgary on May 2, before the city hosts the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame gala dinner that evening.
The gala — when athletes will be inducted into the Canadian sporting pantheon — is expected to raise millions of dollars for the Canadian Olympic Foundation.