Calgary Rejects 2016 Olympic’s

It’s not a cheap venture to host for any City, given all the stipulations that are in place such as the one at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic with the removal of the name of Olympic Pizza as it contained the word Olympic.

Isn’t this stretching this a “tad” too far for the Olympics given the amount of money and what we hear about the corruption of the games, regarding money payments given or taken?

Let’s not forget that the City of Calgary last hosted the 1988 Olympics that saw 57 Nations compete that saw the Canadian team consist of 112 members (82 men, 30 women) with the team winning 5 medals consisting of 0 Gold, 2 Silver and 3 Bronze, but the brights spot was that Brian Orser was Canada’s Flag Bearer who won his second Silver in the Men’s Single event.

Next we hear about the City of Calgary having a  referendum for a vote as to the actual hosting of the 2026 Games, which was turned down by a 54.6% of the votes, meaning that the No vote also means more than $1.4 billion in federal funds is also off the table.

Great news to the taxpayers, but not so great news for the Olympic Athletes who work and train long hours to even reach this level, never mind the politics of who makes the team or not.

In total there were more than 300,000 ballots cast to see if Calgarians were in favor of hosting the 2026 Olympic Winter Games and due to the refusal to given the “City Fathers” a resounding yes vote, they were turned down in hopes of chasing their Olympic dream.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) released a statement stating “its focus is now finding “the best possible host” for the 2026 Games and bid books from Italy and Sweden.”

They continued in the statement by mentioning “The IOC takes note of the decision regarding the candidature of Calgary for the Olympic Winter Games 2026,” an IOC spokesman said. “It comes as no surprise following the political discussions and uncertainties right up until the last few days.”

The IOC mentioned “it sympathizes with Calgary Olympic bid boosters especially the Calgary 2026 committee, the Canadian athletes, who have so enthusiastically been a driving force behind this project” and members of Calgary’s business community who hoped the bid could be an economic springboard for the city.”

In addition the committee also consoled “the Paralympic Movement and the members of the First Nations who fought so hard for the Olympic project and it is disappointing that the arguments about the sporting, social and long-term benefits of hosting the Olympic Games did not sway the vote.”

The result of the vote are non-binding, so not the City Council needs to formally vote to scrap the bid and the Provincial and Federal Governments were clear their financial support of the Games was contingent upon the endorsement of Calgarians in a public vote.

Alberta Culture and Tourism Minister Ricardo Miranda said Edmonton will honour the plebiscite results and withdraw the $700 million the province offered to contribute.

Ricardo Miranda mentioned “We know this is a much different world than it was 30 years ago and the benefits of the Games had to be weighed against the potential costs and the voices of Calgarians had to be heard.”

Shannon Phillips, Provincial Minister of Environment and Parks told the media “hosting the Games would have come with “a tremendous amount of benefits and a tremendous cost,” adding it’s up to the other levels of government “to make decisions accordingly” now that the provincial money is off the table.”

“At the end of the day, there’ll be some very disappointed athletes (in Calgary) and I think that’s too bad,” Phillips said. “Certainly some folks in the economic development realm — hotels and the tourism industry — will be disappointed but, at the end of the day, Calgarians did not feel that this was something they could afford at this time and we have to respect that.”