Vancouver View: IPC Checkup, Post-Olympic Stadium Plans

Good Marks for Paralympic Checkup

The International Paralympic Committee chief executive says VANOC is doing a good job of preparing for the 2010 Winter Paralympics.

Xavier Gonzalez led a nine-member IPC delegation reviewing ceremonies, budget, media operations, broadcasting, transport, ticketing, venues and a 15,000 kilometer torch relay. The team spent three days last week for the IPC's third checkup on the organizers of the March 12 to 21, 2010 Winter Games for athletes with a disability.

"From my point of view there is not today any major issue," Gonzalez said on Friday. "There is a lot of things we are working to put together."

The visit ended Saturday when Gonzalez with a tour of mountain venues, including Whistler. The IPC needs 600 hotel rooms in the ski resort, but is seeking relief from the high rates hoteliers want to charge.

"We are trying to find a solution to that," Gonzalez said, without specifying what that might be.

Whistler was supposed to host the entire event, but will instead be the site of closing ceremonies and skiing competitions. Sledge hockey was moved to the UBC Winter Sports Centre and wheelchair curling to the Hillcrest curling venue when Whistler cancelled a rink development because the estimated cost tripled to more than $60 million.

Gonzalez's next stop is Beijing where the IPC will meet the Beijing Organizing Committee for the final review before the Sept. 6-17 Summer Paralympics. Gonzalez said plans to run the Paralympic torch through Sichuan province may be reconsidered after more than 20,000 people were killed in a Monday earthquake.

"We are very sad and have expressed our condolences to the Chinese government and BOCOG. Next week we are in Beijing and the torch relay is one element," he said.

"All these aspects will be taken into consideration, if there is any change that may need to be had."

Gonzalez said he is impressed by the increased accessibility for people with disabilities in Beijing before the Paralympics.

"It's a big city and it will take a while to cover it all, but the Paralympic Games have given a big impulse to the changing infrastructure," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez also remarked on the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling that gives South African double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius the go-ahead to seek entry in the 2008 Olympics. The court faulted the studies that implied Pistorius gains a mechanical advantage from his prosthetics.

"The science that had been put together was not conclusive, but we also respected the right of the IAAF to establish their own eligibility," Gonzalez said.

"From us, the focus is on the Paralympic Games. If Oscar comes to the Paralympic Games, I'm sure that he will have tough competition too."

B.C. Place Gets a New Life, before and after the Olympics

Vancouver's Olympic stadium is getting a new retractable roof -- after the 2010 Games.

But the stained, leak-prone roof of the 25-year-old, 60,000-seat stadium will get a makeover before the Games as part of a two-phase plan announced May 16.

"We are actually doing the reverse of what we thought we would be recommending," said David Podmore, chairman of the taxpayer-owned stadium operator B.C. Pavilion Corporation.

"We did think, when we first started our analysis, that we would be recommending replacement of the roof pre-2010 and refurbishment of the interior and public areas of the building, post 2010."

Tendering will begin this fall before the first phase proceeds, pending a business plan and government approval. Neither Podmore nor B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell would comment on the estimated cost.

Phase one includes upgrades to suites, seating, washrooms and concession stands before the Games open on Feb. 12, 2010. The structure will be reinforced to prepare for the air-supported fabric roof's replacement by 2011 with a German-designed retractable fabric roof. Podmore said 36 masts, each 50 meters long, will be erected around the stadium to support a roof system similar to that used by Frankfurt's 55,000-seat Commerzbank Arena.

Campbell called B.C. Place a catalyst for urban redevelopment that turned Vancouver's core into "one of the most livable, exciting downtowns not just in North America, but in the world."

It will be the most-watched venue of the 2010 Winter Olympics when it hosts opening, closing and nightly medals ceremonies.

The brakes on Podmore's original fast-track plan to replace the roof before the Games may have been applied as late as the May 14 provincial cabinet meeting. An architect's renderings displayed at the news conference depicted the renovated stadium with a retractable roof and 2010 Games decorations.

"We were better to take the first steps of that installation prior to the Games," Campbell said.

"To assure not just that we could do this in an orderly way, but we could do it at a time post-2010 when we think the budgets will be better."

B.C. Place Stadium opened June 19, 1983 and cost taxpayers $126 million. The first event, a North American Soccer League game between the Vancouver Whitecaps and Seattle Sounders, was a sell-out the next day.

Anti-doping Lab Decision Soon?

An announcement on the choice of an anti-doping lab for 2010 may come out before long, according to a VANOC leader.

VANOC chief medical officer Dr. Jack Taunton said the decision is coming "soon" but would offer no other comment.

B.C. Children's Hospital and the neighboring Child and Family Research Institute are on the shortlist. VANOC sponsor Teck Cominco recently poured $25 million into expanding the two facilities.

B.C. Children's president Larry Gold and CFRI executive director Dr. Stuart MacLeod did not return repeated phone and e-mail messages.

The item could come up at the next closed-door Vancouver 2010 board meeting. But the agenda for this week's meeting is not specific.

VANOC budgeted $4.12 million for anti-doping and proposed sending urine and blood samples on a daily basis to a World Anti-Doping Agency accredited lab in Laval, Quebec. The International Olympic Committee rejected a similar proposal for a faraway lab for the 2002 Games.

Two of B.C.'s largest private drug-screening labs, Cantest and B.C. Biomedical Laboratories, unsuccessfully offered their facilities to VANOC.

"That would be our gift to the Olympics," said Cantest chairman Dr. Don Rix.

Paralympic Relay Plans

Vancouver city hall is spending nearly $300,000 on the Beijing Paralympic torch relay's first international stop.

After it is lit at Beijing's Temple of Heaven, one of the torches will be flown to Vancouver on Aug. 28. The proposed relay route goes from city hall to Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden in Chinatown. It will be carried across False Creek by boat and around B.C. Place Stadium, site of the 2010 Winter Paralympics opening ceremony. The relay continues Aug. 29 to Whistler.

Regardless of whether protesters target this relay, security is expected to be heavy because it affords local crowd control and traffic police their best chance to practice for the 2010 Winter Olympics' torch relay.

London, England, Sochi, Russia and Hong Kong are other international stops.

...Briefs

A vote on the controversial proposal to use a community arena for Olympic hockey training was delayed until June 11 at the earliest.

Directors of Britannia Community Services Centre decided May 14 that they didn't have enough information to proceed due to a lack of details on renovations, security, an energy audit and a replacement Zamboni. Vancouver 2010 wants to use the Britannia rink because it is closer to the Vancouver Olympic Village than the $50 million UBC Winter Sports Centre.

The proposal was opposed by most attendees of a May 5 public meeting. The neighborhood around Britannia Rink was the only voting district to oppose the Vancouver 2010 bid during the 2003 civic plebiscite.

A Vancouver anarchist is claiming responsibility for a fire set in protest of Sea-to-Sky highway works. A pick-up truck belonging to Peter Kiewit Sons Co. construction was set on fire at a private residence in Vancouver on May 7. An anonymous 2010 Winter Olympics foe bragged about the incident on an anarchist blog called mostlywater.org. The motive was Kiewit's contract to expand the Sea-to-Sky highway, "the main artery for the Olympics."

Vancouver Police Const. Jana McGuinness would not release details "as the investigation is ongoing."

The unknown author of the blog entry misspelled both Kiewit and Harriet Nahanee, the late Squamish Nation protester jailed for blocking Kiewit crews at the Eagleridge Bluffs phase of Olympic highway construction in May 2006.

A silver medal figure skater is urging Canadian athletes to think twice about going to the Beijing Games.

"[China] doesn't exemplify the Olympic code," said Elvis Stojko, two-time Olympic silver medalist and a three-time men's singles world champion.

Stojko spoke on Vancouver's CKNW radio the day after leading the Toronto stop on the Human Rights Torch Relay. The event drew attention to China's mistreatment of Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners.

"It's not attacking (Chinese people), it's the regime they're under," Stojko said.

Stojko admitted that the plight of Canadian aboriginals is a domestic human rights issue leading to the Vancouver Games.

"Our country's not perfect either," Stojko said.

The relay began Aug. 9, 2007 in Athens and comes to Vancouver Art Gallery on May 25.

Spirit Train

Canadian Pacific, a VANOC sponsor, is rolling its Spirit Train across Canada beginning Sept. 21 and arriving in Montreal Oct. 18. The Vancouver 2010 promotion, announced May 9, will stop in 10 cities for concerts by blues-rocker Colin James.

The Spirit Train announcement in Winnipeg was cited as a reason why VANOC delayed its announcement to May 12 of Aggreko's $25 million deal to supply power generators and temperature regulators to Vancouver 2010.

VANOC vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade said Aggreko announced the contract May 9 via the London Stock Exchange, eight hours ahead of Vancouver.

"Aggreko did not want to conflict with the previously scheduled CP Rail Spirit Train announcement," Smith-Valade said.

Written by Bob Mackin

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