Toronto 2015

[intoronto]

Volunteer launch is tomorrow.

[intoronto]

Games apparel:

http://trimarksportswear.uberflip.com/i/259279

[intoronto]

Promotional video:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/izw4m1aor89yznm/United%20We%20Play_Large%20720p.wmv

[ktoles]

I'm looking forward to a successful games for Toronto, perhaps to launch them towards a 2028 or 2032 bid.

[kamesite]

Greetings ,, this is my first post

Does anyone has all of the Qualification Manuals??

or a link to this please.

I have some, but there's a lot that i haven't.

Thanks a lots !!!

Sebastian V

[intoronto]

Greetings ,, this is my first post

Does anyone has all of the Qualification Manuals??

or a link to this please.

I have some, but there's a lot that i haven't.

Thanks a lots !!!

Sebastian V

Which sports do you have? I can direct you to ones that you don't have.

[intoronto]

Velodrome.

Source: Official website.

[intoronto]

Chevrolet Beach Volleyball Centre (part of the Exhibition Place cluster)

Source

[ofan]

Chevrolet Beach Volleyball Centre (part of the Exhibition Place cluster)

Source

From those photos it looks like racquetball/squash is outside too.

[intoronto]

From those photos it looks like racquetball/squash is outside too.

Looks like training bv courts to me. Apparently squash and racquetball are indoors to the building just northeast of bv.

Anyways it appears the top US swimmers will compete in Toronto. However nothing is confirmed at this point.

[ofan]

Looks like training bv courts to me. Apparently squash and racquetball are indoors to the building just northeast of bv.

Anyways it appears the top US swimmers will compete in Toronto. However nothing is confirmed at this point.

Top swimmers are good and bad news. Good for the Games quality themselves. Bad for team Canada.

[baron-pierreIV]

So where will OC and Closing C be? Am visiting Torinto June 13-14.

[ofan]

So where will OC and Closing C be? Am visiting Torinto June 13-14.

Rogers Centre.

[intoronto]

Torch relay will only tour Ontario over 41 days (symbolic of the nations competing).

[intoronto]

Torch relay logo:

[Victor Mata]

Intoronto, I've been trying to check some info on Toronto 2015 relay but the official page doesn't seen to be updated to the last of the news you've brought about it. I remember reading about a 70 day country-wide relay. This is now reduced to Tenochtitlán - Ontario for 41 days or the whole journey is 70 days from which 41 will be Ontario-only?

[intoronto]

Intoronto, I've been trying to check some info on Toronto 2015 relay but the official page doesn't seen to be updated to the last of the news you've brought about it. I remember reading about a 70 day country-wide relay. This is now reduced to Tenochtitlán - Ontario for 41 days or the whole journey is 70 days from which 41 will be Ontario-only?

I think the 41 is only Ontario based. The torch relay likely won't leave Ontario when it hits Canadian soil, though the Canadian government about a week ago announced funding for extending the route (so I assume that means beyond Ontario)? The journey from Mexico would be additional days.

[intoronto]

Velodrome:

Source

[intoronto]

Athlete's village is 85% complete.

[intoronto]

TORONTO 2015 Games Creating Sports Tourism Boom in Ontario

Province hosting 45+ sport competitions in lead-up to largest international multi-sport Games in Canadian history

TORONTO, May 14, 2014 /CNW/ - They may be more than a year away, but the TORONTO 2015 Games are already creating an unprecedented sport tourism boom across Ontario.

Starting this weekend, 45-plus sports competitions — more than half are international in scope — are coming to 16 communities over the next 11 months, including: Toronto, Ajax, Brampton, Burlington, Guelph, Hamilton, Innisfil,London, Markham, Milton, Minden, Mississauga, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Oro-Medonte, St. Catharines and Whitby.

"The opportunity to compete on home soil is such a huge boost for Canadian athletes like myself," said Zak Madell, 19, a rising star in wheelchair rugby from Okotoks, AB. "I hope the people who come out to cheer us on this weekend in London will also be in the stands cheering us on in 2015 to the first-ever gold medal ever awarded in my sport at a Parapan Am Games!"

The events, which range from a single day of competition to up to nine days of elite-level action, are set to draw up to 12,000 athletes like Madell from across Canada and around the world, as well as thousands of spectators.

First up are the Canadian national championships in taekwondo and bowling (Toronto), wheelchair rugby (London) and team handball (Mississauga and Toronto), as well as the 2014 NORCECA World Championship Qualification Tournament for men's and women's indoor volleyball (Mississauga).

"According to the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance, sports tourism is worth $3.6 billion a year in Canada and it's growing," said Saäd Rafi, chief executive officer of the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games Organizing Committee (TO2015). "Ontario has never before hosted so many international and national championships — and that's in addition to the TORONTO 2015 Games.

"Already, the impact of the economic and sport legacies of these Games is being felt in Ontario communities," he said. "With the world-class venues we're creating, the trained volunteers and the welcoming spirit of these communities, the Games are acting as the catalyst to perfectly position Ontario to attract even more of these lucrative and prestigious events in the future."

The Honourable Bal Gosal, Minister of State (Sport), added: "Hosting the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games will generate significant economic benefits, including a potential increase in sport tourism. With these competitions, we are already seeing the benefits. We are proud to be making investments into the building of world-class facilities that will serve our elite athletes, as well as the citizens of the Greater Golden Horseshoe region for years to come."

The more than 45 events will provide a unique window for sports fans and community members interested in the Games to get to know the sports (34 of the 51 Pan Am and Parapan Am sports); venues (19 of the 32 competition venues, including sneak peeks of 12 new and renovated facilities); and most importantly the athletes, many of whom are hoping to qualify for the TORONTO 2015 Games through their performances at these competitions.

All but two of the competitions are owned and managed by their respective National Sport Organizations, with additional financial support provided by TO2015 to help bring or keep the events in Ontario.

The Organizing Committee is using the events to test a variety of operational areas, such as athlete transportation, accessibility, overlay, timing and scoring, field of play and volunteer services. The testing is crucial to ensure athletes can perform at their best in 2015.

These sport competitions are also a great springboard to volunteering at the Games. TO2015 will use these competitions to recruit sport volunteers engaged in these events, as well as spectators, athlete family members and friends, for the ultimate volunteer experience.

For additional information on these upcoming competitions, visit TORONTO2015.org/test-events, or the website of the respective National Sport Organization.

Pan American Games

Following the success of the XVI Pan American Games Guadalajara 2011, ESPN Deportes, ESPN and ESPN2 will provide exclusive, multimedia coverage of the XVII Pan American Games Toronto 2015 in English and Spanish. The networks plan to dedicate over 150 hours of Olympic-type coverage around the event.

Considered the Olympics of the Americas, the event will take place July 10-26, featuring 36 Summer Olympic sports, such as soccer, boxing, swimming, gymnastics, volleyball, cycling, judo, etc. More than 6,000 athletes, representing 41 nations from the Americas, are expected to compete in Toronto. This is the third time that Canada hosts the event, and the first held in the providence of Ontario.

In 2011, ESPN Deportes' 125 hours of live coverage of the Pan American Game from Guadalajara delivered the highest ratings across all Spanish-language cable networks through the 17 days of the tournament. The ESPN Deportes telecasts, in addition to ESPN2's coverage of select events, reached 19 million viewers.

There we have it the Pan Am Games will be on ESPN in the USA!

[intoronto]

Source

[dave199]

Source

It's freaking ugly..lol

[intoronto]

I agree lol! Though I think the middle white part is supposed to be windows.

[Victor Mata]

Why, that's the typical PanAm architecture. Good job Toronto, that's the spirit of our continental games!

[intoronto]

Field of Play: Pan Am test drive begins

Nathaniel Miller was once one of the world's elite water polo players.

He's calling from Montreal, an Olympic city, and he wants to talk about Toronto, a place that someday hopes to host the Games.

Miller is now retired and the chair of the Athlete Advisory Council for TO2015 and next year's Pan American and Parapan American Games. He's pointing to this weekend's kickoff of 45 test events over the course of the next 14 months as an obvious chance to build a little buzz in the high-performance sports community in the Golden Horseshoe.

"It's always a challenge," Miller says of the Toronto area where major, professional sport is king. But then again he knows that TO2015 and the Pan American project is bound to have a lasting effect.

"We saw the legacy of the multi-sport Games in Calgary and Vancouver and before that, Montreal," Miller stresses. "The legacy is that a generation of high performance athletes grows out of Games which unfold close to home."

Miller won three bronze medals at three editions of the Pan American Games, including Winnipeg in 1999, Santo Domingo in 2003, and winding up with Rio de Janeiro in 2007. He's also competed at the Olympics in Beijing and won professional titles playing for teams in France and Brazil.

He's well campaigned at the top level of the sporting landscape, but rarely has he seen venues as promising as the ones being constructed for TO2015. Miller even suggests these Games have the potential to significantly raise the bar for high-performance sport in the Americas.

"Our facilities reflect the level of sophistication in Toronto," Miller claims. "As opposed to other Games I've attended all of these venues are brand new or completely refurbished.

In particular, the aquatics facility at Scarborough College is state-of-the-art and cutting edge which is essential for our flagship region in terms of population. Add to that these Games are on time and on budget and that's a very rare thing in Pan American history."

Sneak peek of TO2015

So when five major events unfold on this long weekend in May, the region's sports fans will get a taste of what's in store just over a year down the line.

They'll be able to see elite, indoor, volleyball in Mississauga at the NORCECA world championship qualifying tournament where the Canadian men have recently made enormous strides on the international stage.

The Canadian Wheelchair Rugby championships in London, Ont. will showcase a rugged sport which will make its Parapan Am Games debut at TO2015. Canada is among the world leaders, led by superstar David Willsie of Dorchester, Ont.

National championships in taekwondo and bowling will use the Pan American Games, competition ready, venues in Toronto and team handball which is an Olympic fixture and strangely addictive sport will be on display in Mississauga and Toronto.

"It's a chance for fans to get an intimate look at the venues and athletes who might become Olympic heroes in 2016 before they actually get to the big screen," Miller notes.

But the former captain of Canada's national water polo team, who long toiled on the precipice of major international success, sees the threshold of TO2015 as something far more significant than an occasion to expose the so-called "niche" sports to a developing fan base.

"TO2015 is a huge opportunity to tap into the wealth of young, athletic talent in the GTA, our largest area of population," Miller says. "It's an area of the country which has lagged behind in the production of high performance athletes in these kinds of sports in the past."

In other words, as the summer season begins in earnest on the Victoria Day long weekend, TO2015 will be embarking on a significant test drive over the course of 45 similar events.

The Golden Horseshoe is about to host more major international championships than ever before in the region's history. And they will all occur well in advance of the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games.

Down the road organizers are counting on discovering that Canada's most populace and diverse region has the chops to become a major player on the high-performance field of play.