Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #2454
FROM THE ATHLETE'S CENTRE TO THE SLIDING CENTRE, WE INSPECT THE WHISTLER OLYMPIC VENUES
This is part 2 of our current series with a focus on the 2010-related activities in Whistler:
A process is now underway to select final names for the VANOC venues, a process supervised for VANOC by David Guscott, the executive vice-president of Corporate Strategy and Government Relations for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). It's a complex process that involves officials of VANOC, Whistler, IOC, some companies and the Squamish and Lil'Wat aboriginal bands. It's said to be a long, complex process, "with a lot of people who have to sign off on it." Some will have specific names only when they are Olympic facilities, and the names will then change once the Games are over, indicating there are corporate sponsorships involved. Olympics and Paralympic Games have to be "marketing clean," and that includes facility names. Even General Motors Place in Vancouver, where the medal ice hockey games are to be played, will be renamed for the Games, even though GM is a sponsor of the 2010 Olympics. In some cases, facilities within each site will also be named. For example each of the three stadia at the Whistler Nordic Centre will be named, to help with wayfinding, among other things.
VANOC CEO John Furlong says much of the accommodation crunch for VANOC in the Whistler area has now been resolved. "We're way past the hurdle we had a few months ago," he says. "The media issue has been resolved, most of the partners accommodations have been resolved. We basically need to have every room, so that we have the highest level of availability for any one of the people [who are putting on the Games, or reporting on them] who want to come here. It's going well. We're in a pretty good place -- we've already passed the commitments we gave to the IOC, but now we are adding on to that because more people want to come that we thought would want to... we need to press on to get every room we can into the plan."
WHISTLER OLYMPIC VILLAGE ATHLETES CENTRE
A VANOC timetable indicates that if it is able to award a general contractor to build the High Performance Athletes Centre at core of the Whistler Olympic Village on time by mid-August, it is expecting construction work to begin in the first week of September. It has called a site meeting for proponents for tomorrow -- where it will be talking about such things as the project's scope, the status of back-fill materials, concrete supply, nearby construction, dovetailing operations with other aspects of the Olympic Village construction, and cash allowances.
The C$19-million building -- VANOC's component is C$16 million, plus some funds from Whistler for a gymnasium -- uses a system of insulated concrete wall panels that are pre-cast. VANOC has contracted a company called Surespan Structures of Duncan, on Vancouver Island, a subsidiary of the Surespan Group headquartered in Vancouver -- for the design, fabrication, delivery and erection of the wall panels.
The contractor is expected to have an electrician stationed at the Duncan plant to ensure the walls work with the electrical plans before they are cast. The panels are planned to be erected in the last three weeks of November, with the rest of the work expected to take place on those panels until late January, when the rest of the remaining construction program begins. Only the main construction program is on the critical path, according to the schedule.
VANOC's timetable predicted the work involving the main aspects of the LEED standard, to which it is being built, finalized starting in late June and taking about a month to complete. Occupancy of the building is scheduled by July 25, 2008, so that it can be used for test events during the 2008/2009 winter.
WHISTLER OLYMPIC VILLAGE
The area that will eventually be the Village, which is designed to serve 3,050 athletes and their support teams, is a large, flat, groomed location with roads and utilities roughed in. However, plans are fully developed, with Whistler-style duplexes and four-plexes ready to be erected. Within sight of the Whistler Olympic Village's construction clearing is an ancient cliff composed of distinctive hexagonal basalt columns; Village construction executives expect that basalt-like designs are likely to be one of the Village's themes. To the east of the Village are major BC Hydro power lines and towers. VANOC has no plans to do anything with them to improve the view during the 2010 Games, however, Village construction managers feel they won't be particularly noticeable from a pedestrian view because of the way housing will be constructed and arrayed along the eastern edge of the Village. There is also a large, open-pit gravel operation that's exterior terraces are visible from the Village on the northern exposure, but managers say the operation is not in use during the winter, and expect the terraces to be covered in a blanket of snow during the Games.
WHISTLER ALPINE CREEKSIDE
The BC government has cleared the way for providing its half of the cost of VANOC's upgrading work on the venue, which VANOC expects to cost just over C$27.6 million.
According to the BC government's contribution agreement -- signed in March by the minister in charge of the province's Olympic aspects, Colin Hansen, and by VANOC's corporate secretary, Dorothy Byrne, and just made public -- the BC government was to pay VANOC up to C$13.86 million in three staged payments, depending on the flow of VANOC's invoices and supporting documentation: up to C$7.67 million for work completed up to the end of the BC government's fiscal year, last March 31; by the end of last June, up to C$5 million more, plus any amounts still to be recovered under the March 31 payment regime; and the balance of C$1.9 million when the certificate of completion is issued by the contractors now working on the site.
A spokesman for the BC Olympics Secretariat says the payments have been made in full to date, and the certificate is expected to be issued "by the fall," but she wouldn't be more specific than that. There's no word yet on the status of the federal government's share, C$13.77 million.
The venue, too, is expected to be ready by winter for the public and test events. The construction work will be finished in September, with testing and commissioning in October, and ready to ski, assuming it's cold enough, from November 1st.
Rod MacLeod, VANOC's project manager for Creekside' venue construction, also adds that there are two snow tunnels, one under the men's course and one under the women's course.
"The intention," he says, "is either for the racing coming up between now and the Olympics, or in the venue's legacy mode afterwards, you can have the skiing public use everything that's here, and have the racers use the area as well."
One of the tunnels began life about seven years ago, but built with volunteer labour. "It was barely adequate for what it was used for, certainly not Olympic calibre," says MacLeod, "but at the end of our construction, there will be two Olympic, World-Cup level, ski tunnels."
MacLeod also says VANOC hopes to be able to modify the existing chairlift to be able to add some quad chairs -- removing some of the gondolas and putting the chairs in their place -- which will allow Paralympic sit skiers to ride up the hill with their equipment without assistance. "Basically, the engineers have looked at it, they tried some stuff last spring after the mountain closed for the season, and they'll come back this winter. They'll get people who are disabled to try to ride it, to make sure it's going to work. But that's the goal, to have those types of skiers be self-sufficient."
MacLeod also says the new snowmaking system that VANOC has installed will extend the mountain's season both earlier and later. "That's part of the legacy as well," he says. "The whole tourism infrastructure of the resort [Whistler] is going to be improved."
WHISTLER NORDIC CENTRE
The project manager of the C$119.7 million venue's construction, Doug Ewing, expects the facility -- where 35% of the Olympic medals, and 50% of the Paralympic medals, will be awarded by the end of the 2010 Games -- should be open to the public this winter, following two years of work in the Callaghan Valley. The events connected with biathlon, ski jumping, cross-country skiing and Nordic combined are to be played out at the Centre.
About 15% of the 260-hectare (531 acre) site has been affected by the work. The long concrete form of the biathlon stadium target area, with its two-metre-wide eyebrow snow shield, a half-roof, to protect snow from piling up in front of the targets during the competitions, has been poured and is awaiting finishing with wood, so that targets, between 4.5 centimetres and 11 centimetres wide, and adjacent "lead catchers" can be mounted on it, and to catch ricochets from the concrete backstop. Not far from it, a Whistler-themed technical building, made of laminated wood beams to support the roof, is framed and roofed, but still open to the elements. "It's one of dozens of structures that are coming out of the ground right now," Ewing says. Max Saenger, VANOC's biathlon manager, says, "We'll be installing a fully electronic, state-of-the-art, medal target system that will be put in later in the fall. It has computer sensors to mark where the hits are when the athletes are shooting."
The three adjacent stadiums, which will hold about 12,000 spectators each, are under construction now, along with the wastewater treatment plant and the day lodge, which will be used as the basis for the resort aspects of the facility after the 2010 Games are finished (temporary bleachers means that of the 12,000, 4,000 seats in each stadium will be temporary. "The Nordic Centre is about being out and in the landscape," he adds.
There is a walk of about 15 to 20 minutes for spectators and, later, others, to connect the biathlon area to the ski-hill areas. There are about 15 kilometres of trails for the cross-country skiing and biathlon competitions, within the one square kilometre (about 250 acres) that takes in the venue at the Centre. More recreational trails, each as wide as a two-lane road, outside of the square kilometre are about to start construction and are also to be finished by winter. There will be about 50 kilometres (31 miles) of trails by the time the project is completed.
The cross-country section of the Nordic centre is expected to be the main money-maker for the Centre after the 2010 Games are done and the Whistler Legacy Trust takes over its operation. VANOC's executive vice-president of Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management, Cathy Priestner, says, "That's where we have the day lodge, and that's where we'll run the [community] programs out of. There's a lot of spill-over from the trails, the range, and it will be part of the business operation beyond the competitions. The technical building near the shooting range is mainly for competitions."
The one aspect of the Whistler Nordic Centre that seems to have VANOC hesitating is the ski jump section. The two jumps are, theoretically, temporary. But VANOC has put a great deal of money and work into creating the area for them -- about 80,000 cubic metres (2.8 million cubic feet) of granite was removed last year to create the slopes to the right configuration -- and whenever questions are asked about the timetable for removing them, which should be in place by now if it was going to be done, all of the senior VANOC officials we spoke to, without exception, demurred or changed the subject.
At this point, it seems unlikely VANOC will spend any money to take the superstructure of the two jumps, the K-125 and the K-95, apart -- it is held together by bolts, with the pieces lifted into place by a 375-tonne crane. The last of three shipments of superstructure parts is due to make its trek from the Greater Vancouver area the first week of August.
Will they be removed, and the ground reconditioned? "No, not necessarily... It's not a matter of us taking them out," says Priestner. "The decision we made was to not unveil the development aspect of the program, and the future use of the jumps is really yet to be determined... What we don't have up here are the development jumps." Those would be necessary to get beginners interested in the sport. The Alberta government has recently invested millions to upgrade the Calgary facilities, including its development ski-jump program. What remains for BC after the Olympics are two professional-grade ski jumps, with slopes of about 38.5 degrees, making them, beside double black-diamond runs, in essence, for professionals only. As Priestner puts it, "There's the ability to keep the jumps. If there's ever the desire to run a World Cup, that's possible, or it's possible that it could be for other uses that are being reviewed right now. The sort of Zip-trekky things you might be able to do with them." The [newly formed] Whistler Legacy Society, she says, is just starting to get into looking at what might be done with them after the Games, to see how they might contribute to the revenues, if not the surpluses, of the legacy facility.
All that's for the future, although not far in the future. The first skiers are due to start using the WNC in January. Right now, equipment is yo-yo-ing up the grades to continue work on the jumps, which will only be used in the winter. Trees removed from the ground cover, along with other shrubbery, was turned into compost, the rock was used in a number of areas for trail making. VANOC's manager of ski jumping, John Heilig, says the WNC is the only set of jumps in the world where there is a refrigeration unit buried under the landing area to keep the slope, which is a sheet of ice when it's in use, frozen.
"That's a real innovation," he says. There are also going to be permanent video-based distance-measuring systems in place, and an in-run grooming system. "There are lots of things here that are state of the art for ski jumping in the world," he adds.
About 650 Olympic athletes and about 150 Paralympic are expected to train and compete at the Centre each day the Games are underway. Between this winter and the 2010 Games, there will be three test events on the site. Underground power is now being installed at the site.
WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE
Although delayed by record snow falls in the area that forced VANOC to clear snow before it could start its construction season, according to Jan Jansen, the Director of Whistler Outdoor Venues, says the 1.4 kilometre track, build from the bottom uphill, will be ready for use this winter. The entire project has a budget of C$104.9 million, making it more than twice as expensive as first budgeted. All 368 footings and bout two-thirds of the track has now been completed, with the superstructure already in place for the rest of it, and the seven venue buildings are also under construction at the base. "We've completed 17 of the 23 sections of the concrete work on the track," says Jansen. "But the job isn't done once the concrete is done. There's a lot of other activity going on, such as the weather protection system [for the track] going into place, installations such as the lights and awings, insulation -- we've got pipes that need to be insulated under the track. The most advanced buildings are the refrigeration buildings, which feeds the 100 kilometres of pipe in the track, and the ammonia plant has been constructed inside that building." Lehto expects the concrete work to be done by September 11. The buildings will be complete the end of October. We'll be ready to make ice in mid-to-late November." The track has to be within three millimetres over a one-metre length at any point to meet specifications, since any roughness translates directly into unhappy sliders.
The director of the Whistler Sliding Centre, Craig Lehto, says 24 medals will be awarded to events held at the sliding centre. He says that of all the venues, it's most important to have this one opened as early as possible because each track in the world is different, and being open early allows the Canadian team in particular to train on it. "It's going to be a challenging project for the athletes."
RESOURCES
Nigel Bester, President
Mark Smith, Vice President
Surespan Structures Ltd.
3721 Drinkwater Road
Duncan, BC V9L 6P2
Toll Free: 1.800.748.8177
Phone: 1.250.748.8888
Fax: 1.250.746.8011
<surespan@surespanstructures.com>
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on July 31, 2007
Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2453
VANOC'S ACCOMMODATIONS DEPARTMENT BEGINS ASSIGNING HOTEL ROOMS
VANOC has begun the process of assigning hotel rooms to corporate sponsors, part of its Accommodations program. It has also begun working on acquiring sponsorships for its Torch Relays, a program that's not included in the standard sponsorship agreements.
LOOSE LIPS SINKS APC PLANS TO RAID EMERSON'S OFFICE
A small group of Vancouver-based activists calling themselves the Anti-Poverty Committee were prevented this morning by security from raiding the city's constituency offices of David Emerson, the minister in charge of the Canadian government's aspects of the 2010 Olympics. One of the activists, David Cunningham, says, "We had informed several media institutions that this action would be happening. Unfortunately, they got too close to the target and, I believe, tipped our hand." Cunningham says the next raid is unlikely to include advance information to media. Since the point of the APC's raids is to gain publicity for the group and its cause, it's unlikely the decision will include all media. The APC continues to allege VANOC failed to keep its promises about construction of social housing, despite the fact the group knows its incorrect.
FLY FISHING CONFESSION CATCHES EXEC VEEP OFF GUARD
The things one learns as one rides a construction bus with VANOC executives: VANOC's executive vice-president of Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management, Cathy Priestner, says she loves fly fishing. Even her colleague Dave Cobb, VANOC's executive vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, said "What?!" when he heard that.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on July 31, 2007
Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #2452
TIME BEGINNING TO PRESS ON VANOC FOR DECISION ON INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER-EQUIPMENT SPONSOR
One of the problems with VANOC being somewhat ahead of the typical schedule for Winter Olympics in some aspects of its operations is that some international sponsors of Olympic Games are not yet ready to negotiate a new package deal of the 2010 and 2010 Olympics and Paralympics.
That's in part because they're distracted by preparations and activations involving previous packages, such as the 2008 Beijing Games that will open a year from now. Negotiations with international sponsors -- such as Lenovo, Panasonic, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak and others -- are handled by the International Olympic Committee through its The Olympic Partners (TOP) program.
VANOC is getting increasingly concerned about the length of time Lenovo is taking to decide whether the China-owned personal computer company will agree to sponsor the hefty computer requirements of the 2010 Games. "The computer side is really causing us concern. Lenovo should have made a decision by now, in our opinion," says Dave Cobb, VANOC's executive vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications.
The company, which bought some of IBM's personal computer manufacturing business in New York several years ago, had claimed it would make a decision about the 2010/2012 package the IOC is offering within six months after the 2006 Torino Games, it's first involvement with winter games, completed in March, 2006, and VANOC CEO John Furlong expected late last year it would make the decision by the end of the calendar year. There's still no confirmation yet on what Lenovo is going to do, according to Cobb and, he notes, time is pressing.
VANOC's timetable calls for computer technology to be "locked down" this year because of the amount of testing and pre-Games test events it has to support, and it's been forced to already start purchasing some of its computer requirements this year with cash, when it would prefer to use value-in-kind. "We'd prefer not to buy any at all. Purchases are relatively small so far, but it's going to really cost us soon," he says.
Cobb confirms that ManuLife, the American-based life-insurance giant that became a worldwide Olympic sponsor as a result of its merger with another insurance company, John Hancock, in 2004, will not be supporting the 2010 Games. John Hancock had supported the Olympics since 1993. The company does business as Manulife Financial in Canada.
Johnson & Johnson, which provides personal health products and which sponsored the Canadian team in the recent PanAm Games, says it will make a decision on whether to support the 2010 Games shortly, but notes that the Torino Winter Games was its first Olympics and its assessment of that experience is only just nearing completion.
The roll-over of international sponsors in the TOP program, says Cobb, "is late for us, but it's not necessarily late for them. It's still two-and-a-half years until our Games. In any other type of sponsorship, it would be very early to renew. Usually you do it in the last year of the agreement, but because we need computers now, the delay is affecting us. So we need them to be quicker than they may like to be."
VANOC is also waiting to hear whether Panasonic and Kodak, which provides medical-health technological support for athletes, will renew their sponsorships. "We still have a little bit of time there, and the same with Panasonic, but it's getting closer."
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on July 31, 2007
FROM THE ATHLETE'S CENTRE TO THE SLIDING CENTRE, WE INSPECT THE WHISTLER OLYMPIC VENUES
This is part 2 of our current series with a focus on the 2010-related activities in Whistler:
A process is now underway to select final names for the VANOC venues, a process supervised for VANOC by David Guscott, the executive vice-president of Corporate Strategy and Government Relations for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). It's a complex process that involves officials of VANOC, Whistler, IOC, some companies and the Squamish and Lil'Wat aboriginal bands. It's said to be a long, complex process, "with a lot of people who have to sign off on it." Some will have specific names only when they are Olympic facilities, and the names will then change once the Games are over, indicating there are corporate sponsorships involved. Olympics and Paralympic Games have to be "marketing clean," and that includes facility names. Even General Motors Place in Vancouver, where the medal ice hockey games are to be played, will be renamed for the Games, even though GM is a sponsor of the 2010 Olympics. In some cases, facilities within each site will also be named. For example each of the three stadia at the Whistler Nordic Centre will be named, to help with wayfinding, among other things.
VANOC CEO John Furlong says much of the accommodation crunch for VANOC in the Whistler area has now been resolved. "We're way past the hurdle we had a few months ago," he says. "The media issue has been resolved, most of the partners accommodations have been resolved. We basically need to have every room, so that we have the highest level of availability for any one of the people [who are putting on the Games, or reporting on them] who want to come here. It's going well. We're in a pretty good place -- we've already passed the commitments we gave to the IOC, but now we are adding on to that because more people want to come that we thought would want to... we need to press on to get every room we can into the plan."
WHISTLER OLYMPIC VILLAGE ATHLETES CENTRE
A VANOC timetable indicates that if it is able to award a general contractor to build the High Performance Athletes Centre at core of the Whistler Olympic Village on time by mid-August, it is expecting construction work to begin in the first week of September. It has called a site meeting for proponents for tomorrow -- where it will be talking about such things as the project's scope, the status of back-fill materials, concrete supply, nearby construction, dovetailing operations with other aspects of the Olympic Village construction, and cash allowances.
The C$19-million building -- VANOC's component is C$16 million, plus some funds from Whistler for a gymnasium -- uses a system of insulated concrete wall panels that are pre-cast. VANOC has contracted a company called Surespan Structures of Duncan, on Vancouver Island, a subsidiary of the Surespan Group headquartered in Vancouver -- for the design, fabrication, delivery and erection of the wall panels.
The contractor is expected to have an electrician stationed at the Duncan plant to ensure the walls work with the electrical plans before they are cast. The panels are planned to be erected in the last three weeks of November, with the rest of the work expected to take place on those panels until late January, when the rest of the remaining construction program begins. Only the main construction program is on the critical path, according to the schedule.
VANOC's timetable predicted the work involving the main aspects of the LEED standard, to which it is being built, finalized starting in late June and taking about a month to complete. Occupancy of the building is scheduled by July 25, 2008, so that it can be used for test events during the 2008/2009 winter.
WHISTLER OLYMPIC VILLAGE
The area that will eventually be the Village, which is designed to serve 3,050 athletes and their support teams, is a large, flat, groomed location with roads and utilities roughed in. However, plans are fully developed, with Whistler-style duplexes and four-plexes ready to be erected. Within sight of the Whistler Olympic Village's construction clearing is an ancient cliff composed of distinctive hexagonal basalt columns; Village construction executives expect that basalt-like designs are likely to be one of the Village's themes. To the east of the Village are major BC Hydro power lines and towers. VANOC has no plans to do anything with them to improve the view during the 2010 Games, however, Village construction managers feel they won't be particularly noticeable from a pedestrian view because of the way housing will be constructed and arrayed along the eastern edge of the Village. There is also a large, open-pit gravel operation that's exterior terraces are visible from the Village on the northern exposure, but managers say the operation is not in use during the winter, and expect the terraces to be covered in a blanket of snow during the Games.
WHISTLER ALPINE CREEKSIDE
The BC government has cleared the way for providing its half of the cost of VANOC's upgrading work on the venue, which VANOC expects to cost just over C$27.6 million.
According to the BC government's contribution agreement -- signed in March by the minister in charge of the province's Olympic aspects, Colin Hansen, and by VANOC's corporate secretary, Dorothy Byrne, and just made public -- the BC government was to pay VANOC up to C$13.86 million in three staged payments, depending on the flow of VANOC's invoices and supporting documentation: up to C$7.67 million for work completed up to the end of the BC government's fiscal year, last March 31; by the end of last June, up to C$5 million more, plus any amounts still to be recovered under the March 31 payment regime; and the balance of C$1.9 million when the certificate of completion is issued by the contractors now working on the site.
A spokesman for the BC Olympics Secretariat says the payments have been made in full to date, and the certificate is expected to be issued "by the fall," but she wouldn't be more specific than that. There's no word yet on the status of the federal government's share, C$13.77 million.
The venue, too, is expected to be ready by winter for the public and test events. The construction work will be finished in September, with testing and commissioning in October, and ready to ski, assuming it's cold enough, from November 1st.
Rod MacLeod, VANOC's project manager for Creekside' venue construction, also adds that there are two snow tunnels, one under the men's course and one under the women's course.
"The intention," he says, "is either for the racing coming up between now and the Olympics, or in the venue's legacy mode afterwards, you can have the skiing public use everything that's here, and have the racers use the area as well."
One of the tunnels began life about seven years ago, but built with volunteer labour. "It was barely adequate for what it was used for, certainly not Olympic calibre," says MacLeod, "but at the end of our construction, there will be two Olympic, World-Cup level, ski tunnels."
MacLeod also says VANOC hopes to be able to modify the existing chairlift to be able to add some quad chairs -- removing some of the gondolas and putting the chairs in their place -- which will allow Paralympic sit skiers to ride up the hill with their equipment without assistance. "Basically, the engineers have looked at it, they tried some stuff last spring after the mountain closed for the season, and they'll come back this winter. They'll get people who are disabled to try to ride it, to make sure it's going to work. But that's the goal, to have those types of skiers be self-sufficient."
MacLeod also says the new snowmaking system that VANOC has installed will extend the mountain's season both earlier and later. "That's part of the legacy as well," he says. "The whole tourism infrastructure of the resort [Whistler] is going to be improved."
WHISTLER NORDIC CENTRE
The project manager of the C$119.7 million venue's construction, Doug Ewing, expects the facility -- where 35% of the Olympic medals, and 50% of the Paralympic medals, will be awarded by the end of the 2010 Games -- should be open to the public this winter, following two years of work in the Callaghan Valley. The events connected with biathlon, ski jumping, cross-country skiing and Nordic combined are to be played out at the Centre.
About 15% of the 260-hectare (531 acre) site has been affected by the work. The long concrete form of the biathlon stadium target area, with its two-metre-wide eyebrow snow shield, a half-roof, to protect snow from piling up in front of the targets during the competitions, has been poured and is awaiting finishing with wood, so that targets, between 4.5 centimetres and 11 centimetres wide, and adjacent "lead catchers" can be mounted on it, and to catch ricochets from the concrete backstop. Not far from it, a Whistler-themed technical building, made of laminated wood beams to support the roof, is framed and roofed, but still open to the elements. "It's one of dozens of structures that are coming out of the ground right now," Ewing says. Max Saenger, VANOC's biathlon manager, says, "We'll be installing a fully electronic, state-of-the-art, medal target system that will be put in later in the fall. It has computer sensors to mark where the hits are when the athletes are shooting."
The three adjacent stadiums, which will hold about 12,000 spectators each, are under construction now, along with the wastewater treatment plant and the day lodge, which will be used as the basis for the resort aspects of the facility after the 2010 Games are finished (temporary bleachers means that of the 12,000, 4,000 seats in each stadium will be temporary. "The Nordic Centre is about being out and in the landscape," he adds.
There is a walk of about 15 to 20 minutes for spectators and, later, others, to connect the biathlon area to the ski-hill areas. There are about 15 kilometres of trails for the cross-country skiing and biathlon competitions, within the one square kilometre (about 250 acres) that takes in the venue at the Centre. More recreational trails, each as wide as a two-lane road, outside of the square kilometre are about to start construction and are also to be finished by winter. There will be about 50 kilometres (31 miles) of trails by the time the project is completed.
The cross-country section of the Nordic centre is expected to be the main money-maker for the Centre after the 2010 Games are done and the Whistler Legacy Trust takes over its operation. VANOC's executive vice-president of Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management, Cathy Priestner, says, "That's where we have the day lodge, and that's where we'll run the [community] programs out of. There's a lot of spill-over from the trails, the range, and it will be part of the business operation beyond the competitions. The technical building near the shooting range is mainly for competitions."
The one aspect of the Whistler Nordic Centre that seems to have VANOC hesitating is the ski jump section. The two jumps are, theoretically, temporary. But VANOC has put a great deal of money and work into creating the area for them -- about 80,000 cubic metres (2.8 million cubic feet) of granite was removed last year to create the slopes to the right configuration -- and whenever questions are asked about the timetable for removing them, which should be in place by now if it was going to be done, all of the senior VANOC officials we spoke to, without exception, demurred or changed the subject.
At this point, it seems unlikely VANOC will spend any money to take the superstructure of the two jumps, the K-125 and the K-95, apart -- it is held together by bolts, with the pieces lifted into place by a 375-tonne crane. The last of three shipments of superstructure parts is due to make its trek from the Greater Vancouver area the first week of August.
Will they be removed, and the ground reconditioned? "No, not necessarily... It's not a matter of us taking them out," says Priestner. "The decision we made was to not unveil the development aspect of the program, and the future use of the jumps is really yet to be determined... What we don't have up here are the development jumps." Those would be necessary to get beginners interested in the sport. The Alberta government has recently invested millions to upgrade the Calgary facilities, including its development ski-jump program. What remains for BC after the Olympics are two professional-grade ski jumps, with slopes of about 38.5 degrees, making them, beside double black-diamond runs, in essence, for professionals only. As Priestner puts it, "There's the ability to keep the jumps. If there's ever the desire to run a World Cup, that's possible, or it's possible that it could be for other uses that are being reviewed right now. The sort of Zip-trekky things you might be able to do with them." The [newly formed] Whistler Legacy Society, she says, is just starting to get into looking at what might be done with them after the Games, to see how they might contribute to the revenues, if not the surpluses, of the legacy facility.
All that's for the future, although not far in the future. The first skiers are due to start using the WNC in January. Right now, equipment is yo-yo-ing up the grades to continue work on the jumps, which will only be used in the winter. Trees removed from the ground cover, along with other shrubbery, was turned into compost, the rock was used in a number of areas for trail making. VANOC's manager of ski jumping, John Heilig, says the WNC is the only set of jumps in the world where there is a refrigeration unit buried under the landing area to keep the slope, which is a sheet of ice when it's in use, frozen.
"That's a real innovation," he says. There are also going to be permanent video-based distance-measuring systems in place, and an in-run grooming system. "There are lots of things here that are state of the art for ski jumping in the world," he adds.
About 650 Olympic athletes and about 150 Paralympic are expected to train and compete at the Centre each day the Games are underway. Between this winter and the 2010 Games, there will be three test events on the site. Underground power is now being installed at the site.
WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE
Although delayed by record snow falls in the area that forced VANOC to clear snow before it could start its construction season, according to Jan Jansen, the Director of Whistler Outdoor Venues, says the 1.4 kilometre track, build from the bottom uphill, will be ready for use this winter. The entire project has a budget of C$104.9 million, making it more than twice as expensive as first budgeted. All 368 footings and bout two-thirds of the track has now been completed, with the superstructure already in place for the rest of it, and the seven venue buildings are also under construction at the base. "We've completed 17 of the 23 sections of the concrete work on the track," says Jansen. "But the job isn't done once the concrete is done. There's a lot of other activity going on, such as the weather protection system [for the track] going into place, installations such as the lights and awings, insulation -- we've got pipes that need to be insulated under the track. The most advanced buildings are the refrigeration buildings, which feeds the 100 kilometres of pipe in the track, and the ammonia plant has been constructed inside that building." Lehto expects the concrete work to be done by September 11. The buildings will be complete the end of October. We'll be ready to make ice in mid-to-late November." The track has to be within three millimetres over a one-metre length at any point to meet specifications, since any roughness translates directly into unhappy sliders.
The director of the Whistler Sliding Centre, Craig Lehto, says 24 medals will be awarded to events held at the sliding centre. He says that of all the venues, it's most important to have this one opened as early as possible because each track in the world is different, and being open early allows the Canadian team in particular to train on it. "It's going to be a challenging project for the athletes."
RESOURCES
Nigel Bester, President
Mark Smith, Vice President
Surespan Structures Ltd.
3721 Drinkwater Road
Duncan, BC V9L 6P2
Toll Free: 1.800.748.8177
Phone: 1.250.748.8888
Fax: 1.250.746.8011
<surespan@surespanstructures.com>
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on July 31, 2007
Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2453
VANOC'S ACCOMMODATIONS DEPARTMENT BEGINS ASSIGNING HOTEL ROOMS
LOOSE LIPS SINKS APC PLANS TO RAID EMERSON'S OFFICE
FLY FISHING CONFESSION CATCHES EXEC VEEP OFF GUARD
The things one learns as one rides a construction bus with VANOC executives: VANOC's executive vice-president of Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management, Cathy Priestner, says she loves fly fishing. Even her colleague Dave Cobb, VANOC's executive vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, said "What?!" when he heard that.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on July 31, 2007
Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #2452
TIME BEGINNING TO PRESS ON VANOC FOR DECISION ON INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER-EQUIPMENT SPONSOR
One of the problems with VANOC being somewhat ahead of the typical schedule for Winter Olympics in some aspects of its operations is that some international sponsors of Olympic Games are not yet ready to negotiate a new package deal of the 2010 and 2010 Olympics and Paralympics.
That's in part because they're distracted by preparations and activations involving previous packages, such as the 2008 Beijing Games that will open a year from now. Negotiations with international sponsors -- such as Lenovo, Panasonic, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak and others -- are handled by the International Olympic Committee through its The Olympic Partners (TOP) program.
VANOC is getting increasingly concerned about the length of time Lenovo is taking to decide whether the China-owned personal computer company will agree to sponsor the hefty computer requirements of the 2010 Games. "The computer side is really causing us concern. Lenovo should have made a decision by now, in our opinion," says Dave Cobb, VANOC's executive vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications.
The company, which bought some of IBM's personal computer manufacturing business in New York several years ago, had claimed it would make a decision about the 2010/2012 package the IOC is offering within six months after the 2006 Torino Games, it's first involvement with winter games, completed in March, 2006, and VANOC CEO John Furlong expected late last year it would make the decision by the end of the calendar year. There's still no confirmation yet on what Lenovo is going to do, according to Cobb and, he notes, time is pressing.
VANOC's timetable calls for computer technology to be "locked down" this year because of the amount of testing and pre-Games test events it has to support, and it's been forced to already start purchasing some of its computer requirements this year with cash, when it would prefer to use value-in-kind. "We'd prefer not to buy any at all. Purchases are relatively small so far, but it's going to really cost us soon," he says.
Cobb confirms that ManuLife, the American-based life-insurance giant that became a worldwide Olympic sponsor as a result of its merger with another insurance company, John Hancock, in 2004, will not be supporting the 2010 Games. John Hancock had supported the Olympics since 1993. The company does business as Manulife Financial in Canada.
Johnson & Johnson, which provides personal health products and which sponsored the Canadian team in the recent PanAm Games, says it will make a decision on whether to support the 2010 Games shortly, but notes that the Torino Winter Games was its first Olympics and its assessment of that experience is only just nearing completion.
The roll-over of international sponsors in the TOP program, says Cobb, "is late for us, but it's not necessarily late for them. It's still two-and-a-half years until our Games. In any other type of sponsorship, it would be very early to renew. Usually you do it in the last year of the agreement, but because we need computers now, the delay is affecting us. So we need them to be quicker than they may like to be."
VANOC is also waiting to hear whether Panasonic and Kodak, which provides medical-health technological support for athletes, will renew their sponsorships. "We still have a little bit of time there, and the same with Panasonic, but it's getting closer."
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on July 31, 2007