Pan Am Bid 2015
If there’s any silver lining to the economic crisis, it’s that governments are more willing to open their wallets. Backers of the Toronto bid to host the 2015 Pan Am Games say that change of mindset should benefit them.
“We’re the solution,” said David Peterson, chair of the 2015 bid committee. “Everybody is talking about infrastructure. We can deliver this stuff fast.”…The province’s lack of high-level facilities has been blamed for the shrinking number of Ontario athletes who make Canada’s Olympic teams.
Ontarians used to comprise more than half of the county’s Olympic teams, and now it’s less than 25 per cent….
For the Canadian Olympic Committee, an enthusiastic supporter of the bid, the priority is creating a sports institute that can focus on athlete development. That means bringing together, under one roof, training facilities for several sports plus researchers and medical support like physicians, physiotherapists and psychologists.
Get the full story from Vanessa Lu, The Toronto Star
