The Globe and Mail reports the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) will be looking for an executive “fluent in Spanish” to lead Southern Ontario’s bid for the 2015 Pan American Games.
Chris Rudge, executive director of the Canadian Olympic Committee, said in a scrum session at Canadian team offices in Beijing, “time is of the essence, but we’re on the ice and in the game and that’s the important thing”.
Rudge said Toronto branding would be important to give the bid a recognizable identity, despite Toronto Mayor David Miller’s reluctance to take on the municipal share of the budget. Rudge said, “no slight to cities like Hamilton or St. Catherines, who would have events and venues, but Toronto’s name is established”. The city successfully hosts Caribana every summer and would be recognizable to many attending the event, which also includes the Caribana parade. Rudge said, “could you imagine the Caribana parade coming through the opening ceremony of the Pan Am Games”?
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will be in Beijing next week to promote the bid at a COC reception for Pan American leaders. Rudge said, “we do want to let them know that we are formally going to be putting in a bid for the 2015 Games”.
A bid committee will be set up as early as September, reports the Globe and Mail, drawing on the personnel and expertise developed during Toronto’s failed bids for the 1996 and 2008 Olympic Games.
Bogota, Caracas and Lima have already said they will bid for the 2015 Pan Ams. Rudge said, “they’ll be very honourable competitors, but we think that after (the 2011 Games in Guadalajara Mexico) the previous three Pan American Games will have been south of the Rio Grande, and that it’s time that we got something back in North America again”.
