The "where are they now?" podium

The 2010 Winter Olympics opened a year ago today, which meant the final lap in a test of endurance for people who spent almost seven years with VANOC. Many of them gathered at the Vancouver Convention Centre for a reunion, after the Olympic cauldron on Jack Poole Plaza was re-activated. Their post-Games careers can be split into three categories, like three steps on a podium.

GOLD: Sport

CEO John Furlong is now chairman of the Own the Podium advisory board and a director of Whistler Blackcomb, which is now traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Furlong's main source of income, for the short-term, appears to be as a motivational speaker. His Patriot Hearts memoir is key to that strategy.

Furlong is a former CEO of SportBC, the province's umbrella for amateur sports organizations. VANOC's vice-president of sport Tim Gayda was appointed CEO last year.

The only senior VANOC executive to have a senior appointment with the International Olympic Committee is chief financial officer John McLaughlin. McLaughlin was appointed to the 2018 Winter Games evaluation commission. The temporary appointment means trips to Annecy, France, Munich, Germany and PyeongChang, South Korea. McLaughlin is the commission's financial specialist.

Director of ice sports/general manager hockey Denis Hainault has a similar job with Sochi 2014.

Paula Kim was in charge of press operations at B.C. Place Stadium, the opening, closing and medals ceremonies venue. She is senior communications manager with the International Triathlon Union in North Vancouver, the only summer Olympic sports federation based in Canada.

Brand creative director Ali Gardner is now marketing director with Canucks Sports and Entertainment. Lawyer Chris Gear now heads CSE's legal department.

Canada's next sports mega-event is the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto. Vice-president of workforce Allan Vansen is the senior vice-president of transportation, security and village for the Toronto 2015 organizing committee. He was appointed days after the riot-marred G20 summit.

Director of merchandising and licensing Dennis Kim was appointed the Canadian Olympic Committee's executive director brand marketing.

Jason Macnaughton from communications wrapped up a one-year contract with Major League Soccer's Vancouver Whitecaps on March 31. Carly Thorson Jokic, a Macnaughton cohort at VANOC, remains with the club, taking over as communications director.

SILVER: British Columbia Crown corporations

Top level executives have made their way into jobs with British Columbia Crown corporations. This demonstrates the influence of Premier Gordon Campbell.

Construction executive vice-president Dan Doyle: BC Hydro chairman was first in summer 2009. Deputy CEO Dave Cobb followed in May 2010 to become the power monopoly's CEO. Cobb, in turn, hired VANOC vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade, Chris Brumwell, Greg Alexis and Jennifer Young in a major overhaul of the communications department.

Chief Information Officer Ward Chapin now has the same job with ICBC. Workforce and sustainability executive vice-president Donna Wilson is Vice-president of industry services and sustainability at WorkSafeBC. Government relations and celebrations executive vice-president David Guscott is the E-Comm 9-1-1 CEO.

BRONZE: New ventures

The best advice imparted by Furlong to the Sochi 2014 organizing committee at the June 2010 knowledge transfer sessions in Russia was to "stick together."

That's precisely what several VANOC employees have done, creating their own post-Games clusters.

Vice-president marketing Andrea Shaw is managing partner of the Twentyten Group. Shaw's company in the Landing in Gastown became the post-October 2010 home of VANOC, or what was left of it. Coincidentally, Twentyten Group's office is one floor below where the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation was based when it was awarded the 2010 Games on July 2, 2003.

Shaw is joined by commercial rights manager Bill Cooper, who is a senior partner with Twentyten. Associates include Mags Doehler, Breedon Grauer, Catherine Locke, Rob Mullowney, Kala Polman-Tuin and Stephanie Cornish.

Paralympics director Dena Coward leads a group at the Rick Hansen Foundation's Man in Motion 25th Anniversary Celebration. Torch relays director Jim Richards is coordinating Hansen's international tour. VANOC communications staffers Suzanne Reeves, Mary Fraser and John Gibson have joined them.

Vice-president of partnerships and strategy Taleeb Noormohamed is president of e-learning concern Serebra Learning Corp, and running as the Liberal candidate for North Vancouver in the May 2 federal election. Director of ticketing Chris Stairs is Serebra's vice-president of sales, while manager of partnerships Matthew Bonguorno is sales manager and torch relay communications manager Jenee Elborne is director of communications.

Katie Green, who worked under Smith-Valade, joined Hill and Knowlton Vancouver (headed by VANOC director Ken Dobell). Green was transferred to the Montreal office but is joining L'Oreal Canada as brand communications manager.

IOC back to business with first 2011 meeting

The International Olympic Committee's Executive Board met Jan. 13 at the five-ring headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland -- 11 months after the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and one year before the 2013 Youth Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria.

Executive Board doesn't release minutes. No information was released on whether VANOC was discussed behind closed doors. The Vancouver 2010 final report will be delivered to the 123rd IOC session July 1-9 at Durban, South Africa. That is where the host of the 2018 Winter Games will be chosen from among either Annecy, France, Munich, Germany or PyeongChang, South Korea. Only three bids were received. By comparison, there were eight candidates for the 2010 Games.

Executive Board added to the minimum requirements for cities to bid on the Games. The prospective host national Olympic committee must be compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency and accept the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration in Sport to settle disputes.

"Without that there is no candidature," Rogge said.

Executive Board also decided there could be "a waiver for the rule of the dates of the Games because of climactic and geographic issues," Rogge said.

But would the IOC move the 2022 Winter Olympics if FIFA decides to hold the 2022 Qatar World Cup in January?

"We have not had contacts with FIFA for the very good reason this is a very hypothetical discussion, FIFA has not yet taken the decision in principle to shift to winter months.

"The situation for the IOC is very clear: the IOC would organize the Winter Games in the winter obviously. The bracket we're having is roughly, last week of January and the month of February. There is no way you can organize Winter Games in December or in March.

"For us it's clear that is the bracket for the games. It would be sensible once a decision would be envisioned by FIFA, to sit around the table to see it is not harmful for either of the two partners.

"As of today we think it is far too premature."

Otherwise, how are IOC and FIFA relations after FIFA president Sepp Blatter accused the IOC of being a non-transparent organization that handles its finances like a "housewife"?

"The incident that arose is closed, it is the past, I don't think about it and I'm very glad the relationship is very good," Rogge said.

Rogge admitted the IOC is probing allegations of corruption against Issa Hayatou, who is an IOC member and FIFA vice-president. Andrew Jennings reported that Hayatou was among those involved in the ISL bribery scandal in the 1990s during the FIFA's Dirty Secrets documentary aired by Panorama in December 2010:

"We have referred this to the Ethics Commission of the IOC and the Ethics Commission is collecting information, they are discussing with the BBC. I believe that the BBC, under the condition that the identity of the sources would be preserved, would be willing to give information, and we need that information."

That Ethics Commission saw Spanish ambassador Jose Luis Dicenta Ballester replace former United Nations secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar.

If Tottenham Hotspur FC wins the bid to take over the London Olympic stadium after the 2012 Games, it might demolish and rebuild on the same site. Rogge said "this is not our business" because it is a matter for LOCOG, the Olympic Park Legacy Society and U.K. Athletics.

"If a solution could be found for the track, we would be happy," he said. " Don't expect the IOC to intervene forcefully anyway in this issue where we are not responsible."

Rogge said discussions with the United States Olympic Committee over revenue sharing are accelerating. A truce was announced at the 2009 SportAccord convention in Denver. Smaller NOCs want a bigger piece of the revenue pie, but the USOC argues that American broadcasters and sponsors are the biggest funders of the IOC.

Rogge said "pretty soon" the IOC would meet with American broadcast companies about bidding for rights to air the Games of 2014 and beyond.

"After that meeting then there will be a decision how we are going to tender out , what the format and specifications are going to be," Rogge said.

The IOC normally sells packages in pairs, but U.S. companies want to buy four at a time if the price is right. NBC is the incumbent. It paid $2.2 billion for Vancouver 2010 and London 2012.

The IOC's finances are "solid" with reserves of US$550 million.
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Vancouver's jersey curse

Message to anyone ever asked to be among the first to model a Vancouver sports team's new uniform design.

Say thanks, but no thanks. If you do, you won't wear it for long in competition. If ever.

When the National Basketball Association expansion Vancouver Grizzlies launched their jersey design, it wasn't a basketball player who wore it first. It was professional volleyballer/supermodel Gabrielle Reece on May 18, 1995. Her husband Dean Cain was a Hollywood North star of Lois and Clark. She obviously never played a game for the Bad News Bears.

When the Canucks unveiled the jerseys for the full-time return to the blue, white and green colour scheme on Aug. 29, 2007, Markus Naslund, Trevor Linden, Mattias Ohlund, Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa were the first to skate on then-GM Place ice in the new unis.

Linden and Naslund are both retired. So are their jersey numbers in the rafters of Rogers Arena. Ohlund and Mitchell became free agents elsewhere. Only Bieksa remains a Canuck.

On June 10, 2010, the Vancouver Whitecaps unveiled their Adidas-made, Bell-sponsored Major League Soccer uniforms. Models were then-captain Martin Nash and women's club star Kara "Clubber" Lang.

Nash, a 15-year pro, retired Oct. 27, 2010 to become a staff coach and scout. National team veteran Lang, 24, ends her competitive career Wednesday with a news conference in her hometown, Oakville, Ont. Repeated knee ligament tears in her right knee have forced her to call it quits.

Winter 3 Minnesota Vikings 0

Consider the curious case of the Minnesota Vikings, old man Brett Favre and Old Man Winter.

First the Metrodome in Minneapolis ripped and collapsed under the weight of snow on Dec. 12. Fox was there! The New York Giants' flight to Minneapolis was already diverted to Kansas City. The NFL moved the game to Ford Field in Detroit on Dec 13. Detroit fans are used to the home team losing, and that's what the Vikings did by a 21-3 score.

Then the big top in Minny couldn't be mended and reinflated fast enough. The Vikings had to finish their home schedule outdoors at TCF Bank Stadium, the home of the Minnesota Golden Gophers that opened in September 2009. The arch-rival Chicago Bears beat the Vikings 40-14 and knocked Favre out of the Dec. 20 game, his first since the record 297-game streak ended the previous week.

The outdoor game was on the 29th anniversary of the last Vikings' game at Metropolitan Stadium. The Met was demolished to make way for the Mall of America, which is coincidentally the title sponsor of the sad-sack Metrodome.

Finally, to complete the trifecta, the Vikings' NBC Sunday Night Football game in Philadelphia against the Eagles on Dec. 26 was postponed to Dec. 28 because of a blizzard forecast.

This has to be Murphy's Law at its best. On Dec. 11, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies declared January to November temperatures were about to make 2010 the warmest on record. (Translation: warmest in the 131 years of record-keeping on a planet estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.)

Western Europe and Eastern North America have been pummelled with enough La Nina-related freezing temperatures and snow to remind us all that Mother Nature has the last laugh. Humans should be handling the planet with exponentially more care than already given, but to think humans have dominion over this planet is pure folly. Let's wait and see if any credible scientists can definitively connect the December 2010 northern hemisphere weather to the controversial human-caused global warming theories. During this doozy of a December, Team Skeptic has possession of the ball in enemy territory.

Let's also wait to see whether David Suzuki or Al Gore registered an uptick in book sales at airport stores while travellers were stranded because of too much snow on runways or not enough de-icing chemicals were available to defrost plane-sicles. Might travellers pondering how to kill time snickered at the celebrity zoologist and the ex-vice-president and bought the latest sudoku puzzle book instead?

The weather has cost the Vikings and NFL millions of dollars, but they're both organizations that can afford to withstand a financial storm. Smaller leagues do not. Major League Soccer has been under FIFA pressure to switch to a fall-through-spring schedule. Commissioner Don Garber announced on Nov. 21 during halftime of the MLS Cup in Toronto that the league would study the concept. That was less than two weeks before FIFA snubbed the United States' 2022 World Cup bid in favour of Qatar's.

Even if Garber's olive branch remains extended, expect any such study to return with thumbs-down on a schedule that includes Games in December (or, for that matter, January). Even if the weather were friendlier, the North American sports market is already jammed with NFL, NBA, NCAA and NHL (in that order) dominating December and January.

Getting teams, fans, workers and media safely and securely to and from games when the weather worsens at this time of year is no easy task. Expect Major League Soccer to continue going March to November for many years to come.

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Bottom of the Basket: While Minnesota taxpayers and politicians debate a replacement for the Metrodome, British Columbians are counting the months until B.C. Place Stadium reopens from a $563 million renovation. This massive infusion of public money was made after the Jan. 5, 2007 rip and collapse at the Metrodome's 1983-opened cousin. An engineering report concluded the B.C. Place disaster was preventable. The snow-melting system was not turned on when it should have been. Wind was not a factor.

Blustery November and December weather has not made things easy for construction crews. By Christmas, 33 of the 36 roof support towers and cable nets had been installed. This phase of the job won't be done until early January. B.C. Pavilion Corporation chairman David Podmore said in a Nov. 5 tour that all 36 would be installed by year-end.

The precise opening date has not been announced, but the B.C. Pavilion Corporation construction committee was told Aug. 20 that substantial completion may not be until Nov. 1, 2011. The Nov. 26, 2011 Vanier Cup and Nov. 27, 2011 Grey Cup are the only two events confirmed. The B.C. Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps are both selling season ticket packages, based on the B.C. Place seating configuration.

B.C. Place could become the showpiece stadium in North American market for the lightweight, retractable roof technology pioneered in Germany by Schlaich Bergermann and Partner. The firm's managing director Knut Göppert told me in Stuttgart in September that the Vancouver project was his company's top priority because of the potential for both new construction and retrofit projects. I'd have to think he's watching the Minneapolis situation very, very closely.

Inside Commerzbank Arena and B.C. Place Stadium

What's it like inside B.C. Place Stadium while it undergoes a $563 million renovation to become more like Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, Germany?

Join me for a quick tour of the 2005-renovated home of the Bundesliga's Eintracht Frankfurt here and the past and future home of the B.C. Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps here.

6 months after Olympics, is Vancouver better?

Where were you six months ago today? Today being Aug. 28, 2010. Six months ago being Feb. 28, 2010.

It was the last day of February and the last day of the the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler.

The biggest sporting event on the planet that day was a certain 12:15 p.m. faceoff in downtown Vancouver between Canada and the United States to decide the men’s hockey gold medal in the final event of the Games.

It ended in triumph as Sidney Crosby scored in sudden-death overtime to give Canada the last gold medal of Vancouver 2010 and a record 14 host-team Olympic championships.

International Olympic Committee marketing director Timo Lumme estimated 114 million people around the world were watching the Game. That’s a bigger number than Super Bowl.

Other numbers involving Vancouver 2010 are less impressive. Total estimated viewership was 1.8 billion, which is less than the 3.5 billion Lumme forecast during the Games. VANOC sold 1.49 million of 1.54 million tickets available, despite insisting during the Games that the inventory was 1.6 million. VANOC continues to claim it will balance its $1.76 billion budget. But only after at least $80 million in direct bailouts from taxpayers. Corporate sponsors didn't come to the table or scaled back spending, causing ripple effects and chaos behind-the-scenes.

VANOC is operating under a financial information blackout despite being a signatory to the 2002 Multi-Party Agreement that required quarterly financial reports. Clearly, the task of closing the books is harder than originally envisioned. It still must compensate owners of Whistler Blackcomb and Cypress for use of their slopes, resolve a nasty $10 million contract dispute with charter bus contractor Gameday Management and somehow reclaim $2 million from Visa and an insurer after at least three Latvians used stolen credit cards to buy thousands of tickets on the official VANOC scalping website.

VANOC will be remembered for organizing the Games amid the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. But the Games organizer’s business plan incorrectly assumed there would be no recession of any size before or during the Games.

The debates will rage for many months and years on the impacts of the $6 billion-plus Games and how politicians for the ruling B.C. Liberals downplayed the costs and overstated the benefits.

The Sea-to-Sky Highway is a safer, smoother ride. A tunnel would've been nicer than razing the Eagle Ridge Bluffs forest and swamp, however. The Canada Line is the rapid transit downtown to airport link Vancouver has always needed. The Vancouver Convention Centre is a world-class convention centre that is already bringing big meetings and events downtown that previously would not have fit.

Too bad all three of the above cost more than $3.5 billion combined. Once upon a time, the price tag for all three was estimated to be under $2 billion.

The Vancouver Olympic Centre’s pool is open. Yes, taxpayers built a recreation centre when what the International Olympic Committee ordered was a curling rink. Where the curling rink was will be a hockey rink. Killarney and Trout Lake got a fine new hockey rink each, but not additional ice sheets.

Likewise the Richmond Olympic Oval, where a pair of hockey rinks will open after reconfiguration of the ice plant. The speedskating oval ice surface is hidden for possible future use. The key word is possible.

The Vancouver Olympic Village is a ghost town. The social housing is not open and not enough luxury suites have been bought and occupied by those that can afford them. The community centre is open, the Urban Fare and London Drugs are coming soon. Who knows about the brewpub that was supposed to occupy the Salt Building. The big, red heritage shack is empty. The seawall and man-made island in False Creek are popular with walkers and rollers.

Across the way, B.C. Place Stadium is undergoing a pioneering $563 million post-Games renovation that was supposed to cost $365 million. Let’s hope its retractable roof doesn’t malfunction like the one at Olympic Stadium in Montreal after its post-Games installation.

Robson Square, the biggest free public magnet of the Games, is closed for renovations. Who knows when the GE-sponsored public ice rink will reopen.

The Olympic Streetcar came and went from its False Creek South line between the Canada Line’s Olympic Village Station and Granville Island. Bombardier was willing to leave the two Brussels streetcars there through summer, but city hall had other priorities. Like homes for chickens, more bike lanes and an expensive renovation to Mayor Gregor Robertson and city manager Penny Ballem’s offices.

General Motors Place was Canada Hockey Place for the Games, but is now Rogers Arena. The automaker that drove through bankruptcy last year was under pressure to drive out of its naming rights deal early. The Toronto telecommunications company, a minor partner in the Canadian Olympic Broadcasting Consortium, took over.

The Countdown Clock at the Vancouver Art Gallery still displays zeros, but its days there are numbered. The Olympic half is destined for B.C. Place Stadium's B.C. Sports Hall of Fame. The Paralympic half is going to the Whistler Olympic Park's day lodge. Will there be a permanent memorial to Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old who died on the Whistler Sliding Centre track on opening day of the 21st Games?

The Downtown Eastside remains Canada’s home for the homeless. An urban ghetto like no other in North America. The Woodward’s complex has breathed new life into the neighbourhood, but the area remains full of people who are ill and addicted, wandering aimlessly, in need of help.

The Games were, essentially, a strategy to improve the real estate and tourism industries.

House sales boomed for a few months after the Games, until hitting the brakes in July with a 20.1 percent drop in Vancouver.

Have you seen all the “for lease” signs outside offices and warehouses in Metro Vancouver? The city’s vacancy rate for the first half of 2010 was officially under 5 percent, but the suburbs are suffering.

Burnaby’s 13.08 percent vacancy rate is 6 percent worse than 2009. Richmond’s 17.58 percent is 5 percent worse than the previous year. Yes, there is new supply on the market that has yet to be absorbed, but there many companies big and small companies downsizing or disappearing.

The Microsoft Canada Development Centre in Richmond is shutting down this fall and remaining employees are moving to downtown Vancouver. That's a 73,000 square foot space for lease and it's not the only one in the Knight Street corridor in Richmond, which is rapidly becoming a lonely place to locate.

Metro Vancouver Commerce, an economic development campaign drive by Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey, claims it created $60 million to $70 million of new business to the region because of the Olympics. But the MVC publicity bumph is easily dissected. Two of the deals announced were worth $52 million combined and involved existing partnerships. The promotion
took credit for the six-and-a-half-year, $27 million contract extension between Lockheed Martin of Maryland and Abbotsford-based Cascade Aerospace, even though Abbotsford was not an MVC participant.

Organizers won't disclose the names of the 100 businesspeople they wined and dined during the Olympics. In fact, MVC appears to have been a sly strategy for staff of the city-funded Vancouver Economic Development Commission to get free Olympic tickets while helping VANOC boost its slumping sales after sponsors cut back.

Tourism Vancouver says overnight stays are up 4.8 percent through June, but that’s in comparison to 2009 which was not a banner year. The February figure of 547,357 was the best February ever, breaking the 2008 mark of 507,199. January showed a year-over-year drop, but March, April, May and June showed improvements over 2009. Except February, all months measured were below the annual averages since 2005.

July and August are the bread-and-butter, million-plus visitor months for Vancouver tourism. Those numbers, when tabulated, will tell us whether the $38.6 million taxpayer-funded You Gotta Be Here tourism ad campaign was worth it.

Federal and British Columbia politicians spending billions of your dollars on economic stimulus projects want you to believe in an economic rebound and a post-Olympic boom. Could the opposite have happened: A minor, post-Games recession, perhaps?

It will take more months than just six to fully assess the legacies of the biggest event in British Columbia history. In some cases, it will take years.

Nobody can deny that it was the city's greatest party. But was the hangover worth it?

Bottom to TOP

The economic recovery may best be described as "fragile," but yet another sign of progress will become apparent on Wednesday. That's when Procter and Gamble is expected to become the newest member of the International Olympic Committee's TOP sponsor roster in London, site of the 2012 Summer Games.

VANOC could have used such an alliance. It had to buy a heckuva lot of toilet paper, shampoo and soap for the Olympic Village. Ivory Soap and Colgate toothpaste, and Hain Celestial's Jason and Avalon Organics products were on the shelves of the general stores at the athletes' villages.

Meanwhile, Cinncinati-based P&G was already in Vancouver as a U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor. It took over the Simon Fraser University Wosk Centre for Dialogue and transformed it into the P&G Family Home for athletes and relatives from the Excited States. It included a Pringles Room, Tide Laundry Centre and Pampers Village kids play area.

The IOC doesn't release details of the TOP program, but it's believed to be in the neighbourhood of $100 million per Games. The IOC paid VANOC $22 million in compensation after it failed to add two sponsors to the list of nine. The decrease in global activation hit VANOC hard. When the IOC made its bailout offer, the governments of Canada ($30.7 million) and British Columbia ($50 million) also bucked up with bailout funds.

On July 16, Dow became a sponsor through 2020. Dow was a VANOC sponsor and would have become a global sponsor sooner had the recession not happened. Environmental sustainability is the IOC's third pillar, after sport and culture. Dow walks a fine line. Many environmentalists are quick to remind those who listen that Dow bought Union Carbide. A December 1984 leak at the company's Bhopal, India pesticide factory killed almost 3,800 people, according to a government estimate. More than half-a-million people were injured. Dow claims no responsibility because it had no stake in Union Carbide at the time. It was a disaster waiting to happen, according to investigators.

Another disaster waiting to happen, according to the New York Times, was that British Petroleum oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The biggest waterborne environmental catastrophe in United States history involves a company that became a U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor before Vancouver 2010. BP is also an official sponsor of London 2012. Rogge said that it would be welcome to remain, so long as there is no proof that the oil rig disaster was caused by negligence.