CONE OF SILENCE CONTINUES TO SURROUND OLYMPIC BID
The murky process of picking the host for the 2030 Winter Games moved silently forward a few steps this week with the visit to Vancouver of an International Olympic Committee “technical team.”
The three-person team didn't speak to journalists or political leaders either here or in Salt Lake City, where the trio took a look at that city's proposal for hosting in 2030 or, alternately, 2034. Later this month, a team is scheduled to travel to Sapporo, which is also hoping to be the 2030 host. Whether it will be the same three people isn't clear.
No date has been set for a technical team to visit Spain. July 24 is the date that has been set for a plebiscite on the Pyrenees-barcelona bid. But that vote may not be necessary. The president of the Spanish Olympic Committee recently told local journalists that there are “insurmountable differences” between the regional governments of Catalonia and Aragon.
The bare-bones plans of all four countries “exploring” (to use the IOC'S term) the possibility of hosting the Games is to use as many existing sports venues as possible. All four have hosted the Games in the past.
What little has been shared about a potential Vancouver/ Whistler bid is that it is being led by the Squamish, Musqueam, Tsleil-waututh and Lil'wat leaders and that it is intended to fit into national, provincial and municipal commitments to reconciliation.
So far, the privately funded Canadian Olympic Committee is paying for the feasibility study, committing staff time as well as an estimated $2.5 million for consultants to devise a concept plan. Canadian committee vice-president Andrew Baker is the chief “explorer” and led the IOC technocrats' tour.
“We talked about the concept overall,” he told Postmedia on Friday morning. “They saw a lot of legacy venues in action and provided helpful feedback.
“It is a very solid technical venue plan. We knew that from the start, but they reinforced that this is a great opportunity to leverage and build on it.”
They did talk about where athletes' villages might be built, venue upgrades and additions, although it's possible that more venues will be needed since there were only 86 events in the 2010 Games; now there are 109.
But Baker said it is too early to let the rest of us in on the secret — including the four First Nations leaders and the mayors of Vancouver and Whistler.
“Ultimately, we are hoping to be able share concept with partners in the June range — the initial concepts,” he said. “And it is a starting point for a conversation with partners and the community and that will inform final costs because, ultimately, it is an evolving process and costs will evolve.”
The cone of silence isn't unique. It's just more suffocating here.
The state of Utah has already endorsed the Salt Lake City bid and estimated the costs at US$2.2 billion. Japanese media have reported that the estimated cost of the Sapporo bid is between $2.4 billion and $2.6 billion.
Like Vancouver, their plans emphasize the reuse and upgrading of facilities built for the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City and for the 1972 and 1988 Olympics held in Sapporo and Nagano.
Baker refused to say whether Vancouver's costs would be similar, saying only that costs are “evolving.”
“Hosting is opportunity to enhance and accelerate longterm planning for communities and the value it can bring to their constituents,” he said, adding that detailed financials were not part of the discussions with the IOC team. But Baker said, “Ultimately, the IOC is very focused on reducing cost and complexity of the Games.”
Of course, it is not clear what is included in those estimates, and it's fair to say that past Olympic estimates have been notoriously low — especially when it comes to the cost of security.
Beijing budgeted US$3.8 billion for the 2022 Winter Games, but credible reports put it at nearly 10 times that. In 2010, the Council of Foreign Relations set Vancouver's indirect and direct spending at US$8.9 billion. Of that, $1 billion was for security costs that had originally been budgeted at $175 million.
And while the work so far has been funded by the Canadian Olympic Committee, on April 28, its CEO David Shoemaker and Mary Conibear from the technical committee registered as lobbyists with the goal of asking the province to “commit staff resources to building a Games concept with us.”
Should it evolve into a bid, the applications noted that it “could impact a host of government policies, including Indigenous relations, the environment, housing, economic development and others.”
While the “continuous dialogue” goes on in this non-race, Vancouver is widely considered the front-runner.
It has the cachet of being the first Indigenous-led bid. Its venues are newer than those being proposed for use by the others. Plus, Canada is an inoffensive, safe country in a time zone that is great for NBC, the broadcaster that provides the lion's share of the IOC'S revenues.
But don't let the Canadian Olympic Committee's seemingly relaxed timeline for providing even the most basic of cost and concept plans deceive you. The committee and the other explorers expect the IOC to make a decision by next spring.
That means that if a closeddoor decision in June endorses the concept and costs, there will be very little time for public discussion or debate, and likely no time for a plebiscite.
And that's just the way the IOC likes it.