IOC to decide on additional events in Sochi 2014

Associated Press

tsn.ca

ACAPULCO, Mexico -- Women's ski jumping and new events in snowboarding, Alpine skiing, figure skating, biathlon and luge are being considered for inclusion at the next Winter Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee will decide on additions to the program for the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, at a three-day executive board meeting opening here Sunday.

In an incongruous setting, Olympic officials are meeting at a palm-lined Pacific beach resort to approve winter sports to be contested in the North Caucasus mountains of Russia.

Proposed for inclusion are women's ski jumping, men's and women's snowboard and Alpine slopestyle, men's and women's ski halfpipe, a parallel racing Alpine team event, mixed relay in biathlon, a team event in figure skating, and a luge team competition.

Several, but not all, are expected to gain approval Monday.

IOC officials said women's ski jumping may be accepted on a conditional basis, pending a review of the quality of competition at the 2011 world championships in Norway.

Women's ski jumping was previously turned down twice by the IOC in its bid for inclusion at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The IOC said then that the sport lacked a sufficient number of elite competitors.

Women jumpers took their case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, but failed to overturn the IOC decision.

IOC President Jacques Rogge has said he supports the addition of women's jumping but only if there is a continued growth in the number of top competitors.

The inaugural women's ski jumping world championship took place last year in Liberec, Czech Republic, and was won by American Lindsey Van. Next year's championship will be held in Oslo on Feb. 25.

The International Ski Federation, or FIS, plans to start a women's ski jumping World Cup circuit starting with the 2011-12 season. Women have competed on the Continental Cup circuit since 2005.

"Approval for Sochi 2014 is huge for the advancement of the sport," said Deedee Corradini, a women's jumping advocate and president of Women's Ski Jumping USA. "It will bring many more young women and girls into the sport that have stayed away because they haven't been welcome on the ultimate stage: the Olympics."

FIS President Gian Franco Kasper said he is "very optimistic" that all five proposed ski events will win approval, if not immediately then in the coming months.

"They don't need additional courses or anything built," he said. "And there is enough space in the program."

The addition of slopestyle and ski halfpipe events would be the latest push by the IOC to bring in events that appeal to youth. Skicross made its debut in Vancouver.

"It gives us a different image and colour to the Olympic Winter Games," Kasper said.

In slopestyle, athletes do huge tricks while going down the mountain and through "features" -- rails, big jumps and bumps. American snowboard star Shaun White, who won the halfpipe gold medal in Vancouver, has said he would like to add slopestyle to his schedule if it's approved for Sochi.

Ski slopestyle is similar to the snowboard version.

In ski halfpipe, skiers score points for performing tricks and jumps on the same course used for the snowboard halfpipe. The event is on the schedule for the 2011 Freestyle Ski World Championships in Park City, Utah.

The Alpine team event, which has been held at the World Championships since 2005, features racers going head-to-head in a parallel giant slalom.

In skating, a World Team Trophy was held for the first time last year in Tokyo. The event featured eight skaters per team -- two male single skaters, two female single skaters, one pairs couple and one ice dancing couple.

Premier confirms regular season game will be played in Moncton next year

By Brent Mazerolle
Times & Transcript Staff

It's not just talk anymore, it's official.
The Canadian Football League will hold one of next year's regular season games at the City of Moncton's Stade Moncton 2010 Stadium on the Université de Moncton campus.
Premier Shawn Graham and Moncton East MLA Chris Collins confirmed yesterday that a contract was indeed signed with the CFL last week, although they said which teams will play, the precise date, and the terms of the contract are all details that will only come when a formal announcement is made.
That should come in the next couple of weeks, when all involved can gather in Moncton.
What is known is the deal comes about largely because the provincial and federal governments have agreed to a plan that will see the 10,000-seat stadium being built to host the IAAF Moncton World Junior Track and Field Championships double its capacity to 20,000 for the game.
As for the game itself, "it's going to be the event of the fall," the premier promised. "It's truly going to position Moncton as the entertainment centre of Atlantic Canada."
He expressed confidence that the same enthusiasm for football seen in western Canada will build here on the east coast, with Moncton's central location making the game a regional event.
The regional benefits of the event is what got the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency involved.
"I feel the vision of Peter MacKay (the minister responsible for ACOA) was exemplary," the premier said late yesterday. "I want to give credit where credit is due. He and I had many phone calls on this."
With talk already circulating about building a whole weekend of events around the game, Collins, the provincial government's lead on the file, said the fact that the game would be televised "will be terrific for Moncton's profile, with 20,000 people in a brand new, full stadium."
And relatively speaking, it will be happening shortly after the city hosts the world -- and the international media -- in the same stadium for the IAAF World Junior Track and Field Championships next July. "We'll be reminding people from across Canada that Moncton is a centre for hosting large events," he said. "It's great for football, and it's great for Moncton."
As for the long-discussed idea of making the game an annual event, or even bringing a franchise to the city some day, "this is the ultimate test market," Collins said. "After a multi-year contract, who knows?"
In the meantime, he credited the league's governors for the vision in their decision. By deciding to play a regular season game and possibly more here in Atlantic Canada, "this positions the CFL as the only professional sports league in the country that is truly coast to coast."
He also took on the naysayers who argue football is not enough a part of the culture here for long-term CFL success. He said that's just not so, especially in Metro Moncton, but also in the region at large. Noting how more of the men of his generation who grew up in Moncton played in the CFL than the NHL, Collins noted organized football has a long history in the community.
Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc welcomed the news from the province yesterday.
"We've been working on this for a long time," he said. Indeed, it was five-and-a-half years ago that Moncton North MLA Mike Murphy began championing the idea of the CFL in Moncton.
While the talk from the city hosting a franchise has been refined into a one-step-at-a-time pursuit of hosting other city's teams for games for now, the talk of professional football in Moncton has continued through changes of CFL commissioners, of provincial governments, and City of Moncton administrations. (It should be noted there were even discussions of a CFL franchise during the mayoralty of George Rideout in the 1980s).
The differences between the Moncton of the 1980s and the Metro Moncton of today are obvious, but there's also been one huge difference between the time of Mike Murphy's initial musings and today.
That's the City of Moncton's soon-to-be-completed stadium, which was just a blurry line pencilled in the city's capital works projections back in 2004. Now thanks to the city's landing of the 2010 track and field championships, that little line has grown into a reality much bigger.
While the 2010 IAAF games will be a massive event for southeastern New Brunswick in every way, filling the stadium for a CFL game some weeks later will mark the beginning of what comes after for the life of the stadium. With the ability to expand the stadium to 20,000 seats for everything from a football game to a big name concert to even a Billy Graham Crusade, the stadium is poised to become a key stop for events of all kinds.
Asked if he had any doubt a CFL regular season game could fill the stadium with 20,000 smiling people, Mayor LeBlanc expressed confidence in the city's ability to draw from the whole region. He also promised, "one of those smiling people will be me."
Chris Collins said because there are maximums in the league's ticket pricing structure, he expects the game, "will be very affordable for the whole family."
Collins, whose riding includes the stadium, says he's been taking part in the pursuit of the CFL since the site of the stadium was in the ward he served as a Moncton city councillor. After all these years, he pronounced himself ecstatic at the news.
"Mike Murphy started with this idea, did a lateral when he got busy with his cabinet portfolios, and we ran with it. Now, touchdown! Here we go."

Toronto tourism takes $50M hit with loss of race:
Layoffs predicted as city loses Grand Prix
Jim Byers & Rick Matsumoto
Thestar.com

Toronto's hospitality industry will take a $50 million hit this summer with the cancellation of the Toronto Grand Prix.
The annual summer racing extravaganza, which began in 1986 as the Molson Indy, attracted tens of thousands of visitors from across the continent.
But sources say the event – which may return in 2009 – fell victim this year to a deal signed between the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series.
Put simply, there wasn't enough room for all the events on both groups' calendars, and the Toronto Grand Prix was sacrificed for the 2008 racing season.
Losing the event will be a huge blow to the city's economy, and could even result in temporary job losses, officials warned last night. But the loss is surviveable, says deputy mayor Joe Pantalone, who heads up Exhibition Place, where the race is centred every summer.
"It would be a hit if we lost the race, but not a fatal hit," Pantalone said. "It would mean less tourism and less international exposure for the city. People see the city's skyline and the CN Tower and the waterfront on TV and it makes Toronto look pretty good."
The deal to unify the two open-wheel race car circuits ends a 12-year battle between the two groups.
Because the Toronto event has been one of the better attended and reliable events on the Champ Car (formerly CART) circuit for years, one source close to the negotiations said Toronto will likely be on next year's schedule.
Duncan Ross, the city's tourism director, said studies have shown the race has an annual impact of $50 million on the city's economy, attracting tens of thousands of paying fans to nearby hotels, bars and malls.
"From a tourism perspective, one thing this event offers is an international and North American broadcast audience," Ross said. "Any chance tourism marketers have for a live TV feed ... is an incredibly positive opportunity. The dynamic images ... have a way of making visitors want to come to the city.
"One of the most important things we can do is to have a diverse calendar with events that appeal to all markets. It's one of the major events we have, along with things like the film festival, Caribana and Pride Day."
Asked if the race would be hard to replace from a tourism standpoint, Ross replied, "Definitely. In a short period of time it would be a challenge. But I think the community would come together to do whatever's possible to be sure something replaces it."
Ross said there could be layoffs, possibly among workers who install seats alongside the race course and such.
But Pantalone said with Toronto in a building boom, many will likely find other work if the 2008 race is cancelled.
"We don't have a full-time staff of construction workers at the Ex," he explained. "But there's no doubt that for the bottom line, it would be a hit. You don't lose a major international attraction without it being a hit."
Tourism Toronto vice president Andrew Weir said he wants to focus on the long term, not just worry about a potential 2008 loss.
"A merger is good for race fans," he said. "It's good for any host city. The audience will be less fragmented (compared to when Champ Car and Indy races ran separately) and that will mean better TV exposure. All the stars of racing will be there, which is what people want to see."
"I think this is a good thing for open-wheel racing, the events, the teams and the drivers," said Charlie Johnstone, CEO of the Toronto Grand Prix. "How it plays out for individual events or teams or drivers, those particulars will still have to be shaken out."
Full details of the pact won't be made public until next week.
Johnstone said the year's hiatus for Toronto could have an adverse affect on fan acceptance for a revival in 2009, but that could be overcome with sustained promotion.
"The only way to do it successfully would be to come back for 2009 at the end of the 2008 season, saying `Here's our title sponsor, here's our support series, our entertainment.'"

Don't expect any help from the UofT!

Toronto Pan-Am bid likely won't go too far
Christopher Hume

Toronto's bid for the 2010 Olympics didn't work out, and it couldn't quite meet the deadline for its Expo 2015 entry. Now there's word the city might go after the Pan-American Games to be held in eight years.
If that fails, who knows what we might try for next – the World Tiddlywinks Championships?
But then, why bother? Hosting such an event is simply not in Toronto's fate.
The reasons have nothing to do with civic willingness, but with the larger question of whether the city and its masters – provincial and federal governments – can muster the will. Don't hold your breath.
Writing about the Pan-Am bid, the Star's Jim Byers noted that, "one Queen's Park source said the government likes the idea at this early stage, especially since it's geared to the entire Golden Horseshoe and not focused on Toronto, which would be a tougher sell politically in other parts of Ontario."
God forbid that Premier Dalton McGuinty should be seen to favour Toronto over Oshawa, Peterborough, Wawa and the rest of the province. Wouldn't that be awful?
Little wonder Toronto has always been passed over. Which is why there's little reason to get excited about the Pan-Am Games. However unremarkable the competing cities – former host sites include Indianapolis, Winnipeg and Cali, Colombia – Toronto, make that, Ontario, is unlikely to be chosen.
To begin with, it doesn't make sense to spread the games over an area that stretches from St. Catharines to Barrie. For a second-tier athletic event to have any impact, it needs to be concentrated in a location where it can create a critical mass of activity and awareness.
Secondly, the proposal makes it obvious that the jurisdictions involved – city and province – cannot rise above the political concerns that have historically kept both from realizing their potential.
Furthermore, city council is an embarrassment and the Legislature barely has a pulse. The former rarely manages get beyond its own dysfunction; the latter exists within a bubble that should have burst three decades ago.
Not only has Canada fallen behind its competitors, it is out of touch with the realities of the 21st century, and more critical, of itself. As national borders grow less and less important in an increasingly global economic order we remain steadfastly rooted in the parochial patterns of our 19th-century past.
Although the world is learning to think ever more regionally, Canada, and Ontario, are defiantly local. That may keep the neighbours happy for the time being, but it's no way to run a province, let alone an economy that's under growing pressure to stay competitive.
Yet hope springs eternal. Last week, we were treated to the spectacle of Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (now Metrolinx) chair, Rob MacIsaac, declaring that in just 20 years the city's transit infrastructure will equal London's. Oh really! This in a region that's already 30 years behind the U.K. What's the plan, magic carpets?
The blame goes well beyond Mac- Isaac, of course, but who does he think he's fooling?
Instead of shovels in the ground, we're treated to this sort of glib complacency. Rather than progress, we get gridlock, and words when we need work. It's no surprise there's such cynicism about the political process in these parts.
If the Pan-Am Games were actually awarded to southern Ontario, they'd have to be renamed the Highway Games because visitors would spend so much time travelling from one venue to another.
But as long as we don't offend Fenelon Falls, no reason to worry.
Ontario, still ours to discover.