Calgary Builds on Its Olympic Legacy

With Canada poised to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, the '88 Games have not been fogotten

When you visit a city that hosted the Summer Olympic Games, you might be shown a stadium that was used for track and field, a pool complex built for swimming and diving or watercourse used for rowing. But by and large, summer host cities are so huge that the Olympic legacy dims with time. Not so with the Winter Games, where ski runs in use all winter, bobsled tracks that snake down mountains and ski jumps that punctuate the sky like explanation points are enduring landmarks of the Games. I've seen it in Innsbruck, Lake Placid, Cortina d'Ampezzo, St. Moritz, Salt Lake City and environs and also now in and around Calgary.

Calgary hosted the Games in 1988, and in addition to being friendly neighbors with British Columbia, the province directly to the west which is hosting the 2010 Games two months from now, Calgarians are vicariously sharing the Canadian pride and joy of the Games -- and also reminiscing publicly about their own a generation ago.

Case in point: Dale Alward (below), who came to Calgary as a young man with intentions to return to the Maritimes but who was so captivated by the Olympic spirit and energy more than two decades ago that he has never left. He is a guide at the 627-foot Calgary Tower and enjoys nothing more than to point out Olympic venues, share his encyclopedic Olympic information and talk about the Games. Even if I weren't already an Olympic nut myself, I would have found his enthusiasm contagious.

The indoor Olympic Oval is still in use, both for speedskating training and for top-level compeitions like this weekends men's and women's World Cup. Skaters blaze around the oval in a combination of fluid motion and athletic power. This World Cup weekend features three days of speedskating competitions on ice known to be fast. In the lobby area are glass cases displaying speedskating trophies and sculptures. Our itinerary included a Friday visit to the Oval for three races. Weekday attendance was modest, but several school groups were seated in a section at one of the turns. The kids had been given noisemakers, which they used enthusastically, and also cheered every competitor -- especially the Canadians. Outside, a mini-Olympic-style torch blazes for special events -- even in the midst of a blizzard.

Nothing is more symbolic of the 1988 Games than Canada Olympic Park right on the western outskirts of Calgary. In 1988, this small hill within sight of the Rockies hosted ski jumping, bobsledding, luge and the demonstration sport of freestyle skiing. Since then, COP has added a 22-foot snowboarding halfpipe, the Canada Olympic Museum, the Canada Winter Sports Institute (called WinSport), the Ice House (a refrigerated facility where bobsledders and lugers can practice their starts), and for summer, mountain bike trails and a zipline. Planned for the near future, an ice complex with three NHL-size rinks by December 2011.

The Alpine skiing events in 1988 were held at a nearly mountain called Nakiska, still in use as a day-trip ski area fom Calgary, and the cross-country skiing in a former mining town called Canmore. The afteruse and Calgarians' pride after all this time is a fine and inspiring Olympic legacy.