Taking sport to the community

Despite Canada’s long traditions in winter sports, only a few Canadians had brought international and Olympic medals home prior to Calgary 1988. Though the XV Olympic Winter Games yielded a mere five medals for the hosts, their staging led to the creation of new facilities and research centres, the upgrading of existing venues, increased investment, greater support for athletes, and developments in sports medicine. Taking full advantage, the nation’s skiers, skaters, snowboarders and bobsledders began to excel.

When the Olympic Winter Games returned to Canadian soil, in Vancouver in 2010, the country’s athletes topped the medal table for the first time ever. Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018 brought top-three finishes for Team Canada too. Across the last three Olympic Winter Games, some 61 of Canada’s combined total of 80 medals were won by athletes who have trained or competed in Calgary, while 171 athletes of the country’s 225-member team at PyeongChang 2018 used the city’s training facilities.

Between them, the athletes who have come through the Canadian Sport Institute (CSI) Calgary have won 421 world championship, Olympic and Paralympic medals since it opened in 1994, 143 of them gold. These athletes benefit from the CSI’s world-class Olympic and Paralympic training environments, and its expertise in biomechanics and performance analysis, mental performance, nutrition, and strength and conditioning. Further support comes in the shape of the CSI’s life services, counselling, career and transition workshops and injury rehabilitation programmes. The CSI was the first of seven such centres to be set up across the country.

Since 1988, Canada’s elite sportswomen and men have also had access to the specialist clinics and services of the University of Calgary Sport Medicine Centre. Ranging from athletic and massage therapy to nutrition and physiotherapy, these services are delivered by a multidisciplinary team of health professionals that includes orthopaedic surgeons and sports medicine physicians. The centre has helped Calgary establish itself as one of Canada’s leading sports research cities. Its experts also teach physicians, therapists and surgeons across the country and the world, and engage in research that continues to take sports medicine forward.

Further assistance for talented young athletes comes through the Fuelling Athlete and Coaching Excellence (FACE) programme and the National Sport School (NSS), which offer them support services that are central to their career and post-career development. More than 3,000 Canadian athletes and coaches have been able to develop their careers and pursue their post-secondary education through FACE, while many of Canada’s elite student athletes have achieved excellence in both their academic and athletic careers thanks to the NSS. Its supportive and innovative learning and training programmes have provided a platform for several Canadian athletes to attain success at the Olympic Games, including the short-track speed skater Alanna Kraus, a women’s 3,000m bronze medallist at Salt Lake City 2002.

Like Kraus, many Canadian elite athletes have honed their skills at WinSport’s portfolio of venues. It comprises Canada Olympic Park, the Calgary Olympic Oval – both of which hosted events at Calgary 1988 – the Bill Warren Training Centre in Canmore and the Beckie Scott High-Performance Training Centre, which opened in 1994 and 1989 respectively.  

Many of the nation’s winter sports teams train at Canada Olympic Park, including its sliding teams, while the Oval is Speed Skating Canada’s official training centre. Canada’s elite cross-country skiers train in the summer months at the Beckie Scott High-Performance Training Centre and regularly access the Bill Warren Training Centre for training and technical support, along with the country’s top biathletes.

WinSport allocates CAD 5 million a year to maintaining and developing Canada Olympic Park and CAD 4 million annually to making its world-class facilities available for major sporting events and for training for Canada’s elite winter sports athletes.

A significant part of the revenue generated by the national and international events staged in Calgary is invested in these venues and facilities. Canada Olympic Park’s bobsleigh and luge track hosted the IBSF World Championships on four occasions after Calgary 1988 and the FIL World Luge Championships three times. For its part, the park’s freestyle skiing aerials site staged the moguls, slopestyle and halfpipe competitions in the 2019/20 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup.

Famed for having “the fastest ice in the world”, the Olympic Oval staged an event on the 2019/20 ISU Speed Skating World Cup circuit and has hosted the World Allround Championships and World Sprint Championships five times each, most recently in 2019 and 2017 respectively. It is also used by the Calgary X-Tremes, the city’s women’s ice hockey team.