By Andrew Ng
Just months after closing the 2006 Ontario Summer Games, Ottawa is confident that its recent success will be more than enough to win the right to host again in 2008.
“I think the biggest thing is that we have proven success,” says Pat Reid, chair of the 2008 organizing committee. “On all the things we promised, we over delivered.”
The committee is so confident that the new bid is very similar to the one submitted for the 2006 games. They will ask for financial contributions of $600,000 from the province and $200,000 from Ottawa and will use the same 30 venues with little to no upgrading.
“We had an evaluation of venues and they all came back fantastic,” Reid says. The report also claims the city is capable of running national events such as the Canada Summer Games.
The upgrades for 2006 only included the addition of protective cages to some baseball dugouts and importing 10 tonnes of sand to Mooney’s Bay for beach volleyball.
Reid says having Ottawa host again would allow representatives from other cities to observe how they should prepare for an event such as the Summer games.
“I’m not sure other communities have the facilities and infrastructure to put on what we put on,” he says. He adds the condition of Ottawa’s facilities and the proper planning of events allowed the city to make the games more “athlete-centred.”
Ottawa held an opening ceremony that didn’t overlap with any events so that all athletes could participate. The committee also created an operations manual, which outlined how to successfully run the games. These were distributed to communities hoping to host the games in the future.
Finally, Reid says “every cent of any profit”– $10,000 after all expenditures in 2006 – goes back into sports as required by the Sport Alliance of Ontario.
The bid for the 2008 Summer Games received city council’s support at the Sept. 27 meeting It receives a lot of local support because it provides a launching pad for young athletes.
Brian Adams, seasonal club manager of the Ottawa Rowing Club, says the Ontario games are very important for local sports.
“It helps produce young athletes and it gives us a goal to reach. They get to represent their province and then represent their country. It’s a stepping stone,” he says.
Local businesses also see the benefits of having 3,000 young athletes come to the city. “In the local community, there are obvious impacts with over 3,000 participants going to hotels, restaurants and taking advantage of city services,” says Leo Tardioli, president and CEO of technology firm iFathom.
Tardioli says his company has received a lot of recognition since his information technology was used during the 2006 games for registration, scheduling and updating results and statistics. The economic return for hosting was between $3.2 million and $3.5 million, he added.
Reid is also pushing more sports organizations to recognize the importance of the games in general. Track and field events weren’t run for several years after previous host cities used inadequate facilities. The sport returned to Ottawa because the track at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility was considered “first class.”
Reid says the provincial government wants to raise the profile of the games to a level comparable to those held in Quebec and British Columbia. Holding the Ontario Summer Games in a well-prepared city like Ottawa is just the first step but the chair of the organizing committee says a certain level of government support is necessary.
“We’ve gone to the Ministry (of Health Promotion) and told them you have to show them, impress them,” Reid says. “If you want them to be meaningful in terms of sport, you should let them know.”