Bidding for the Games -- Countdown to 2016, Pan Am Bids, Denver Explores Vancouver, Rugby World Cup

Ontario to Launch 2015 Pan Am Bid, Name President

The bid committee for the Toronto/Greater Golden Horseshoe 2015 Pan American Games will officially launch their bid to host the Games today.

A ceremony is scheduled for 4:00 pm local time at a Toronto club with chairman of the bid; Former Ontario Premier David Peterson headlining the event. Joining Peterson will be Michael Chambers, president of the Canadian Olympic Committee, and the Mayor of Toronto, David Miller. Provincial officials will also attend the event.

On Tuesday, Peterson announced the appointment of a new President and Chief Operating Officer, Jagoda Pike, former publisher of the Toronto Star.

"Jagoda Pike's demonstrated passion, energy and innovative leadership style is a true asset to our efforts to bring the Pan Am Games to Ontario," said Peterson.

This is not Pike’s first experience with bidding for an international sporting event. Pike chaired Hamilton Ontario’s bids for the 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The moves by the Ontario bid come just days before next week’s meeting of the Pan American Sports Organization in Acapulco, Mexico. The PASO meeting will be the first official public appearance of cities bidding to host the Pan American Games. PASO is expected to decide on a 2015 host next year.

The other cities to bidding for the 2015 Pan Ams include Caracas, Venezuela and Lima, Peru.

Denver Group Looks at Vancouver Olympics

A Colorado business group is meeting Thursday with VANOC CEO John Furlong and Premier Gordon Campbell as part of their work to determine if Denver should bid for the Winter Olympics.

Metro Denver Sport Commission chairman Rob Cohen said Vancouver and Denver are both popular multicultural tourist destinations set among mountains.

"You guys have a very heavy Asian population, we have a very heavy Hispanic population," Cohen said.

"Both are environmentally conscious, forward-thinking communities. We're both communities looking at real estate development and long-term infrastructure. Two very different (healthcare) systems but interesting things we can learn from each other."

Denver cannot formally bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics until the United States Olympic Committee seeks expressions of interest from U.S. cities. That isn’t likely to happen before the fate of Chicago’s 2016 summer bid is determined by the IOC at Copenhagen in 12 months. A group in Reno-Tahoe is also studying a possible 2018 bid.

"(Chicago 2016 is) our national bid and we support the Chicago bid," Cohen said. "If there's an opportunity to look at an Olympic Games, and that' s something the USOC wants to do for the Winter Games, we would love to talk to them and be considered."

Denver remains the only city in Olympic history to disown the Games when state voters rejected paying for the Games in a referendum held two years after it won the right to host the 1976 Winter Olympics.

"What happened here in 1972 for the 1976 games is part of Denver's history. We can't run from that," Cohen said. "But I believe Denver is a very different community, the world is a different place from what it was in 1972 and hopefully people would look at that from different perspectives."

Eight Bids for Rugby World Cups

The International Rugby Board has received eight intentions to tender for the 2015 World Cup and another eight for the 2019 edition. Australia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Scotland, South Africa and Wales appear on both lists. England wants to try in 2015 only; Russia will aim for 2019.

Only Jamaica dropped its intentions after seeing the official tender document.

"For the first time the IRB will award two tournaments at the same time. This provides longer term certainty for the hosts, Rugby World Cup Limited and the tournament’s commercial partners. It also ensures that future development investment initiatives in the Game worldwide can continue to be underwritten by the tournament and planned accordingly," says IRB chairman Bernard Lapasset.

Written By Maggie Lee, Ed Hula, and Bob Mackin.