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Calgary's Potential 2026 Winter Olympic Bid

Are you in favour of Calgary's Potential Olympic Bid in 2026?

  • Yes

    Votes: 31 60.8%

  • No

    Votes: 13 25.5%

  • Unsure

    Votes: 7 13.7%
  • Total voters
    51
To me, the opportunity and desire to host an Olympic games has changed for most cities. Yes, it stimulates economic activity for the host city in the short to medium term and there are permanent facilities left that can be repurposed. However, there is also great waste and redundancy in some cities. Just look at what happened to the facilities after the last summer games in Athens. As a country, Greece almost went bankrupt as they were not able to cushion themselves through the great recession. Because of the massive cost and commitment required, there are few cities (or even countries) in the world that can afford to host these. I think it is time that more permanent locations be considered. Perhaps the host city holds them 3 or 4 times ( a period of 12-16 years) and then a new host city is awarded.
 
The problem with that concept is 1/2 the cost is the athletes village and security. Being able to open an athletes village for two weeks worked in 88 - extended spring break for the university. Now it is 6 weeks with the paraolympics and break in-between. Each is a recurring cost.

If we did the villages as our only affordable housing investment, maybe it could work? Delivery of supply would just be very lumpy.
 
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CalgaryTiger said:
On twitter Dan Barnes: "Luge Canada says that $10 million in Alberta government funds originally allocated to a sliding track rehab project in Calgary has been diverted to WinSport's day lodge project "without advising the impacted sports," which would include bobsled and skeleton."

Could argue it's better spent on the lodge, but still this likely spells the end for the track.
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The fed money too, in a roundabout way. The Winsport Board has made a series of what I would characterize as odd decisions. The decisions are the board's to make I guess.
 
darwink said:
The fed money too, in a roundabout way. The Winsport Board has made a series of what I would characterize as odd decisions. The decisions are the board's to make I guess.
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There are hundreds of thousands of skiers in Calgary. There are maybe hundreds of luge/skeleton/bobsledders. The bobsled track is interesting and unique but I can see why the board is spending limited resources on the facilities that actually get used by the general public.
 
zagox said:
There are hundreds of thousands of skiers in Calgary. There are maybe hundreds of luge/skeleton/bobsledders. The bobsled track is interesting and unique but I can see why the board is spending limited resources on the facilities that actually get used by the general public.
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Growing up in a family quite involved with luge it makes me sad to see the failure of winsport to follow through with the sliding track plans. The track in Calgary was really convenient for young athletes to learn the sliding sports. Losing the track here hurts the further growth of sliding sports.
 
Part of the reason funding from the sliding track was diverted is because Winsport couldn't raise enough money to pay for all of it, so the government money was diverted to the lodge instead of being cancelled all together.

The sliding track will be back, I have no doubt. Just might take another 5 years to secure new funding.
 
Mountain Man said:
Winsport couldn't raise enough money to pay for all of it
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Yeah, they asked for and received a certain amount of money, but had underestimated the total amount. I believe the board at the same time was dealing with the operational cash flow projections of their last capital spend being a bit of an over estimate, so perfect storm to cut back and refocus on revenue generating activity.

I get that the board has to weigh the long term Olympic legacy with the general activities, it just seems that the board is slowly being pulled further and further from the Olympic activities.
 
From what I remember from watching it on the news last week, they were responsible to raise a certain amount themselves for the Provincial contribution to be applied. They couldn't raise the money needed, and instead of losing the commitment from the Province, they decided to just put it to the lodge. Not a bad decision IMO, that lodge is pretty dated.

The second part of your post is why I keep saying they should be going after modern events like X-games, aside from the Olympics, who cares about bobsled or ski jumping?
 
X-Games draws bigger crowds in the last 10 years than it did before, it's definitely a major draw still. Last years was bad (35.7k) but the previous one in 2020 drew 111 500 people in Aspen. Calgary was going to host them in 2020-2022 but Kenny pulled the provincial funding pretty much the second he came into office. Then pretty much the next day was talking about trying to increase tourism to the province! smh

Winter X Games attendance
 
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The main benefit imo is tv coverage, much like the defunct bike race, tour of alberta. Unfortunately the NDP pulled the plug on the latter, and then... launched a tourism promotion campaign.

Almost like maybe the beareaucrats at Tourism don't especially appreciate the promotional opporutunities of televised international sport no matter which party is in power.
 
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