Olympic Oval Volunteers Carry Forward Calgary Legacy

(ATR) Organizing Committee Calgary chair Alice Humeny tells Around the Rings her volunteer group of event bidders and organizers is a "living legacy" of the 1988 Winter Games.

"I’m from a track and field background, and I never thought I would be involved in speed skating for 25 years," she says.

"However, after my exposure to it and after the events kept coming here, it became a very challenging and very rewarding volunteer experience, so I would say OCC is a very real living legacy of the 1988 Olympic Winter Games, and we get that comment from countries all over the world."

28 and Counting

Humeny and her 200-plus fellow volunteers are coming off their busiest week in a while.

Saturday and Sunday’s sprint world championships featured 65 skaters from 20 countries racing one 500m and one 1,000m each day with gold medals awarded to Stefan Groothuis of the Netherlands on the men’s side and Jing Yu of China on the women’s.

Despite the world stage, Humeny suggests these logistics are quickly becoming routine.

"We’ve been doing this since the preview event in 1987," she tells ATR.

Last weekend’s was, in fact, the fourth sprint world championships and 28th total World Cup or world champs since 1987.

"That’d be all-around championships, world single-distances, world sprint championships," she clarifies.

"Of course, the World Cups will have both sprint and distance."

Anticipation Pays Off

Innsbruck 2012 last month marked the first Olympics of any kind since Albertville 1992 to return to speed skating’s roots and host events outdoors.

The move came 24 years after Calgary 1988 was, in turn, the first to welcome athletes indoors.

"Ourcore committee was part of the sport committee of OCO'88. At that time, Calgary Oval was one of [three] in the world that was covered and therefore we anticipated we wouldbe consistently awarded championships or World Cups," Humeny explains.

"So we formed a standing committee and then incorporated as a not-for-profit society, so our organization is a not-for-profit society that bids for, on behalf of Canada, and organizes World Cups and world championships."

Organizing Committee Calgary has no full-time staff and only a few part-time contracts – media relations, social events, business development, logistics and administration – that are hired out to OCC veterans of 10 years or more.

The volunteers too share a wealth of experience. Some, like Humeny, have been doing this ever since ‘87, and only occasionally does she see a short-term show.

"More than 85 people have received 10-year pins,and we just honored people with 20-year pins a couple of weeks ago," she says.

"It’s partly because the events keep coming here, so we just kept organize them year after year and we attend events in other countries to see how it’s done there. We’ve attended organizers’ courses so that we are in discussion with others in the world so we can help make these events standardized for TV purposes, so yeah it’s been a lot of fun."

A Different Looking Legacy

Humeny suggests the fact that she – a track and field athlete by training – is even interested in speed skating is testament to a different sort of Games legacy.

"We tend to think of light-rail transit and building and bridges and facilities, which are certainly legacies of Olympics, but another big part of legacy is the community spirit and people being exposed to new experiences," she tells ATR, adding that of OCC’s nine executive committee members, only one came up through speed skating.

"That’s something that people tend to forget, that there are a number of living legacies that continue after the Games."

Written by Matthew Grayson.

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