Toronto 2024: Pan Am success stirs Olympic talk

Nikkita Holder on her way to a bronze medal in the 100m hurdles.
Nikkita Holder on her way to a bronze medal in the 100m hurdles.

After talk that seats would be empty and traffic crippled to a standstill turned out to be false, the 2015 Pan American Games’ conclusion Sunday evening, hosting one of the world’s top music artists, has stirred talk that the city could bid to host the 2024 Olympics.

The city’s mayor, John Tory, talking on the CBC’s morning news program, said last Wednesday “There’s a whole variety of international events and sporting competitions that we’re now in a position to host, which I think is good for Toronto, good for Ontario and good for Canada, and the Olympics is one of those, obviously, about which there’s a great discussion.” He noted that no decisions would be made until after the Para Pan Am Games have finished in mid-August.

“Our city and the mayor are committed to putting on a great Pan Am/Parapan Am Games and any discussion of a possible Olympic bid would take place after the close of these games,” wrote the mayor’s office in a statement.

If the city does intend to submit a bid — which itself would cost somewhere in the $50 million range — it must file an application by Sept. 15, placing it in a pool of cities that includes Paris, Rome, Hamburg and Budapest. It looked as though Boston would be among the cities which will be bidding, but the city’s public didn’t want the Games, and today the team behind the Boston bid withdrew the city from the running.

An Olympic Games in Toronto would mean a lot more infrastructure work, though the city wouldn’t need a completely new set of venues; many of the ones built for the Pan Am Games could be used for the Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee announced earlier in 2015 that moving forward more attention would be given during the bidding process to cities which already have existing infrastructure and venues, putting Toronto at an obviously strong starting point. Still, the city would need to continue upgrading it’s dated transit system and would need a main stadium. The Rogers Centre, at 50,000 seats, is not big enough, and even if it were, is not built to hold a Summer Games.

If Canada’s largest city does bid on the Olympics, it wouldn’t be the first to do so on the back of a successful Pan Am Games: the upcoming 2016 Games in Rio followed what would be a similar path as Toronto. The Brazilian city hosted the 2007 Pan Am Games, which were considered a success, and a few months later made the decision to bid on the Olympics, eventually being selected, though it will be over a year before we know if the Rio Olympics run smoothly, and Toronto will by then have already made a decision regarding its application. The host of the 2024 Olympics will be announced at the 130th International Olympic Committee meeting, taking place in Peru in 2017.

The city has in the past bid on the Olympics, first for the 1996 Games which were awarded to Atlanta and again for the 2008 Games which were awarded to Beijing.

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