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Calgary 2026


SkiFreak

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5 hours ago, FYI said:

The IOC is guilty of a lot of things, but 'fleecing' bidders? Beijing, Rio & Sochi did it cuz they wanted too. And in Rio's case, it was more of a *the Brazilians bit off more than they could chew* (hosting two-mega international events within two years time). It's easy in hindsight to say that those cities are the culprit. But in 2001 when Beijing was bidding for 2008, the case of - *it's finallly time to bring the Olympics to the world's most populous nation* was incredibly strong. And for 2022, it was really about *which bad bid of two would be the better bet*. As for Sochi, their initial budget was $12 Billion. I don't think even the IOC at the time forsaw that the Russian's costs would ballon to an over-exaggerated $51 Billion (which a lot of it was wasted on graft & typical Russian corruption, not the IOC's pockets, per se). 

Can the IOC improve more on the costs? Sure they can. I think the Norwegians were right when they balked at all of the IOC's perks & "must haves" to be treated like royalty. OTOH, though, the IOC is now starting to give some money towards the operational costs. But then again, I sometimes see that as them perhaps just starting to pay for some of their own perks. But how much should the IOC really 'offset' for the Games? Should they really be flipping all of the bill for infrastructure improvements that a city might need or want. In the sense of avoiding white elephants, I'm all for that. But if a Beijing or Sochi want to build an Olympic Park from scratch, then that's there business I suppose. I just feel sorry for the average Chinese & Russians who would have no say in the matter regardless. But also as the saying goes around here, if ya can't really afford to bid, then you shouldn't be bidding ITFP.

I was talking more about cities who have to pay money up front to even present an application, then pay again if accepted as a candidate. Those cities will never see a return on the investment, sucked up into IOC coffers. This is why I grow cynical about the bid process and start to find myself agreeing more and more with critics of the IOC. I love the idea of the Games, how it can inspire, but I’m starting to see more and more the price for the party. Athens, Beijing, Sochi and Rio are just the big examples of the excess. 

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1 hour ago, mattperiolat said:

I was talking more about cities who have to pay money up front to even present an application, then pay again if accepted as a candidate. Those cities will never see a return on the investment, sucked up into IOC coffers. This is why I grow cynical about the bid process and start to find myself agreeing more and more with critics of the IOC.  

A lot of that money, though, is spent on the evaluation visits & evaluation reports conducted by the IOC themselves. Where else do you think that money for those operations comes from otherwise? Seriously doubt that there's a lot left over from that for the IOC coffers once all of that is said & done.

1 hour ago, mattperiolat said:

I love the idea of the Games, how it can inspire, but I’m starting to see more and more the price for the party. Athens, Beijing, Sochi and Rio are just the big examples of the excess. 

I still don't see, though, how your initial point (from above), has to do with the 'big examples of the excess'. When again, hindsight is 20/20, & each one of those bids had their own compelling reasons as to why they initially got chosen at the time.

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4 hours ago, FYI said:

A lot of that money, though, is spent on the evaluation visits & evaluation reports conducted by the IOC themselves. Where else do you think that money for those operations comes from otherwise? Seriously doubt that there's a lot left over from that for the IOC coffers once all of that is said & done.

I still don't see, though, how your initial point (from above), has to do with the 'big examples of the excess'. When again, hindsight is 20/20, & each one of those bids had their own compelling reasons as to why they initially got chosen at the time.

The IOC has not been conducting above board business with bids for quite some time. We know of a past history of bribes to bring the Games to certain cities, most famously SLC. That money doesn’t just disappear. Plus, the IOC does make money off sponsorship and has done so for decades. So, even if bid bribes are a thing of the past, you can still make money of cities that have no business bidding, but the IOC will gladly take the money, please and thank you. It’s not FIFA, thank goodness, but it’s scummy as all hell.

The excess really is more about the excessive spending cities like Athens, Beijing and Sochi did to host. The IOC loves a legacy program and some infrastructure reform and new venues make sense since the profile of the city changes thanks to the Games. But we have now reached a point where it’s out of hand. Granted, the IOC is not making any organizing committee spend the money on the plans, but they are less likely to win the Games without the big plan. IOC will make money off the Games anyway, what do they care what happens when the Games leave town? Not their problem, didn’t make the town do it... except they kind of did in the bidding process.

The Games and the IOC are in a bad place. You’d have to be deaf, dumb and stupid to not see that now. I’m just damned if I know how to fix it.

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5 hours ago, mattperiolat said:

The IOC has not been conducting above board business with bids for quite some time. We know of a past history of bribes to bring the Games to certain cities, most famously SLC. That money doesn’t just disappear. Plus, the IOC does make money off sponsorship and has done so for decades.

These are totally separate issues though from your initial point of - "cities who have to pay upfront to even submit an application". And of course the IOC makes money off sponsorship deals. The IOC is also a business in addition to being a sporting organization. Still see no relation to that from your initial argument.

5 hours ago, mattperiolat said:

So, even if bid bribes are a thing of the past, you can still make money of cities that have no business bidding, but the IOC will gladly take the money, please and thank you. It’s not FIFA, thank goodness, but it’s scummy as all hell.

This really isn't accurate. For years the IOC had the process of winnowing out the cities (like Havana, Baku, Doha, Leipzig, Seville, Lille, etc) that actually had no business bidding in the first place by a process called the "short-list". So at that point, those cities were told, - "look, you really have no shot at this. So before you spend anymore money on your campaign, you really need to pack it up & go home". And even now, the IOC has introduced a Dialouge Phase, where cities can actually talk to the IOC first to gauge whether even submitting an application is in the best interest of both parties, that'll save those cities even more money now. So if the IOC was really about just taking all of these cities monies, then they would've done that all along, but they didn't.

5 hours ago, mattperiolat said:

The excess really is more about the excessive spending cities like Athens, Beijing and Sochi did to host. The IOC loves a legacy program and some infrastructure reform and new venues make sense since the profile of the city changes thanks to the Games. But we have now reached a point where it’s out of hand. Granted, the IOC is not making any organizing committee spend the money on the plans, but they are less likely to win the Games without the big plan. IOC will make money off the Games anyway, what do they care what happens when the Games leave town? Not their problem, didn’t make the town do it... except they kind of did in the bidding process.

The spending for Beijing & Sochi was grandiose, but at the same token, was that really all the IOC's fault? Ever heard of the saying "it takes two to tango". China & Russia thought they had to prove something to the World, & pulled out all the stops to do so & didn't care about the expense it took. 

But for Athens (& really for Rio, too), it was a lot more of a gray-area. Athens had squandered away a lot of their lead-time in preps for the 2004 Games, & by the time the IOC gave the Greeks a stern warning that they needed to get their as$es in gear or else, that's where their problems began. Squeezing all that work around-the-clock in only three years to meet all the deadlines in time & the result was overspending on all fronts. So was that the IOC's fault? No, it wasn't. It was the Greeks.

5 hours ago, mattperiolat said:

The Games and the IOC are in a bad place. You’d have to be deaf, dumb and stupid to not see that now. I’m just damned if I know how to fix it.

The Olympics are not in a bad place in terms of viewership interest, broadcast revenue & atheletes holding the Olympics in a high regard as the pinnacle of their careers. What the IOC is on shaky grounds about now is cities (particularly in Western Europe) not lining-up anymore as they once did to host their mega-event. 

Is the IOC perfect? No, far from it (but one would also have to be pretty naive to swallow all the doom & gloom the media paints on the subject these days, bcuz it's just easy to jump on that bandwagon, especially when there's no real context most of the time behind it). But tell me what organization in the world is perfect.

Is the IOC in denial? Yes, I think that they have their head in the sand a lot. But again, name an organization out there that doesn't. And apparently, the IOC can't be all that evil if both Paris & Los Angeles still wanted to get into bed with the IOC to host 2024 & 2028 respectively, & Salt Lake (of all places due to the bribery scandal) "overwhelming" supports another Winter Olympics there in 2026 or 2030. Go figure.

 

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Not really, polling has shown there is pretty broad support for hosting the Olympics. But not on any terms. Which is the stance of Nenshi as well. We are open to hosting, but we need a few things to line up. 

The Olympics have to make sense for Calgary. They need to fit into Calgary's long-term plans and goes and be structured in a way that supports the continued legacy of 88 with the support of the city, the province and the federal government. And from what I've heard the COC is working the government pretty hard on this matter. I don't think the government has announced who is going to Korea on behave of Canada but there are a few ministers (Qualtrough, Joly, Hehr) that would signal the Feds are coming on board. And I think that will be the biggest tipping point, if the Federal Government signs off or using the infrastructure bank and sports funding to help pay for a good chunk of Calgary's costs. Nenshi won't say no to oversized spending for Calgary. And remember this would be a good news story for Alberta leading into a federal election where Trudeau would like to pick up more seats in Calgary and Edmonton. 

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On 1/16/2018 at 10:07 PM, Nacre said:

Just from talking briefly from Flames fans in Vancouver, my perception is that Calgarians are both surprisingly well informed about the Olympics and opposed to a bid. Is this fairly accurate SkiFreak, or incorrect?

I think that's false.  There are a ton of arm chair experts around here that don't understand the situation fully or don't use the 88 legacy facilities and are familiar with the venues' status or conditions. Lucky for me, I've pretty much used them all (except for the ski jumps and bobsled track). Last night on Facebook I saw some pretty dumb comments attached to an article that I responded to with a lengthy comment, more or less encouraging people to get out there and use the facilities. For instance, the oval has a $2 skate on Monday nights that I go to almost every week. (next Monday there is a free skate for the Family Day long weekend). The last poll I saw had a 68% approval rating of getting the games back.

Anyway, today is...

The 30th Anniversary of Calgary 88!

Here's a couple more recent articles:

CBC: What's left of the '88 Calgary Olympic Games, 30 years later (with video)

And as you know, we have our local delegation visiting PyeongChang including reps from the provincial government, the city, along with Mayor Nenshi.

CBC: Calgary would do 'great job' hosting Olympics, but that's not the question, says Nenshi

There were a few other articles that were interesting from the IOC's visit a couple weeks ago. I'll dig those out in the next post.

If anyone is interested, over the next couple weeks, WinSport is hosting some Calgary 88 30th Anniversary events. I've already got my ticket for the party on Feb 23 (it's free). And there is stuff happening this Family Day long weekend coming up. Here's details for the various events:

WinSport Events: Celebrating Calgary 88 30th Anniverary

It's the 30th anniversary today, so cue the theme song...

 

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Calgary will probably have a referendum, and if I lived there I'd vote no. The economic "recovery" feels a bit sketchy and pipeline delays are problematic, I think keystone is all hung up again and the one going west is also an issue now isn't it? The economy is fragile.......it's too risky to commit resources and time to a snow-fairy-sports show.

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  • 3 weeks later...

In the news today:

CBC: Calgary city council asked to pitch in $2.5M more to pursue 2026 Olympic bid

Quote

An update on the dialogue stage of the city's potential bid — which is set to be presented to council on Wednesday — shows the city has received confirmation of financial support from both the federal and provincial governments.

 

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29 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Calgary 2026 should name Eddie the Eagle and the Jamaican bobsled team, as its Goodwill Ambassadors (the Eagle and the Rastrafarians!)  and the prize is in the BAG!! 

I’m waiting for some bright spark to do an Eric the Eel movie so we can see Hollywood do Sydney. It’s either that,or “I, Marion”.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Caught it as breaking news this afternoon while I was skiing out at Nakiska...

CBC: Federal, provincial governments fund creation of Calgary Olympic bid corporation

Dust off the Hidy and Howdy costumes. I may be offering to rent my futon for 2026 soon. :rolleyes:;)

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So a condition of financial support is a referendum has to be held. I'm sure the IOC is thrilled by that prospect. If the city votes no then I could see the IOC reaction to Calgary being even more hostile than their reaction to Oslo in the 2022 race especially if no bid from Europe (not counting Turkey) emerges

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