IOC to meet in Vancouver for last pre-Games check in
By JEFF LEE, Vancouver Sun
August 23, 2009 10:01 AM
The International Olympic Committee commission overseeing the preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics will meet in Vancouver this week for the last time before the Games begin in February.
With six months to go before the Opening Ceremony, much of the critical work for the Games has already been taken care of and what remains now is mostly “I-dotting and T-crossing,” according to Vanoc spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade.
But over the next three days the commission will meet with Vanoc staff and approve last-minute changes. Certain contentious issues that have been problematic for Vanoc – such as the IOC’s inability so far to sign the last two “TOP” sponsors – are not expected to be resolved at the meeting.
Vanoc, which was hit hard by the recession and cut back much of its services or transferred them to other partners, is at least $40 million short in its operating budget. Three-quarters of that is money it had budgeted it would receive from two international sponsors the IOC was expected to sign for its “The Olympic Program” sponsorship category. It also has about $10 million in unsold billboard advertising space.
Smith-Valade said Vanoc and the IOC have been in regular discussions about the vacant sponsorship categories and she doesn’t expect any resolution at the coordination commission meeting.
However, Vanoc is expecting to get approval from the IOC for a number of cost-cutting measures that will help its bottom line. As one example, Smith-Valade said her own department has proposed changing the method for printing the final report to the IOC that Vanoc is obliged to produce after the Games. By altering some materials and including some information in electronic form, Vanoc will save “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in production and shipping costs, she said.
When the commission met in Vancouver in April, chairman Rene Fasel complimented Vanoc on its work but also warned that it "cannot rest on its laurels." The IOC was aware of Vanoc’s precarious financial position and its need to cut where necessary. It was at that meeting that Vanoc CEO John Furlong for the first time acknowledged the committee was no longer projecting that it would have a financial surplus, as had been the case at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.
The IOC also put pressure on Vanoc to reverse a decision to scrap nightly medal ceremonies in Whistler. Vanoc wanted to simply give athletes their medals at the field of play, something Whistler officials said would take a lot of fun out of resort’s plans for nightly entertainment. Eventually plans for the $17.8 million medals plaza went ahead, with $10 million in federal funding, $6.8 million from Vanoc and $1 million from the resort municipality.
The commission is also expected to ask how the sudden death Thursday of Leo Obstbaum, Vanoc’s 40-year-old director of design, will affect the last preparations for the Games. Obstbaum was credited with being the driving force behind much of Vanoc’s look, including the mascots, the overall imagery of the Games, and the yet-to-be-unveiled Olympic and Paralympic athletes’ medals.
The commission, headed by Rene Fasel, the president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, was appointed in 2003. It made its first visit to Vancouver in April, 2004. At times the full membership held meetings in Vancouver. However, after Vanoc surprised the IOC at the speed with which it was building venues and signing sponsors, the IOC downgraded many of its visits to project reviews involving Fasel and IOC Olympic Games Executive Director Gilbert Felli.
The meeting will also feature a contingent of observers from the 2014 Sochi Organizing Committee, including CEO Dmitry Chernyshenko. Sochi’s construction program is well underway and it recently signed a $100 million sponsorship deal with Aeroflot, the Russian national airline.
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