PASO Council in Toronto

Minister Chan on transformative power, opportunity, possibility and benefit of Pan Am Games 2015

By William Doyle-Marshall

Impressive is the one word to replace ‘wow’ after viewing or experiencing the presentation by the A-team of organizers for Toronto Panam 2015 to members of the Pan American Sports Organization Thursday morning.

   Earlier Michael Fennell of PASO’s Technical Commission reported that technical coordination for the 2015 games have gone well. “The venues for competition and practice are well advanced and certainly will be up to the standard required,” Fennell reported. While there are some questions about seating capacity in some of the venues he asked his colleagues to remember that in the execution and presentation of these games the City of Toronto has to depend on heavy government support that is very interested in not only ensuring that they have excellent games but that the legacy will be of great benefit to their citizens. As a result the venue concept has been based on a good legacy plan whereas the various communities and many cities in the Greater Toronto Area will benefit greatly from the hosting of these games. Fennell announced that the sports programme and the overall games programme have now reached a fairly advanced level of finalization because they have overcome one of the main issues which was the schedule for the aquatic disciplines. There was a clash of dates with the World Championships of Swimming to be held at the same time, however FINA has taken a decision to shift their dates to facilitate the Toronto games in 2015.

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   David Peterson, chairman of the organizing Toronto Committee was absolutely and totally impressed with three reports presented by officials to the 2013 Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) the organization. He thought the PASO’s reports on the progress of Toronto’s planning for the 2015 Pan American games were well researched, very clear and very fair.

  “They point out the good and they also pointed out the challenges we still face,” Peterson noted. But the former Ontario Premier reminded the gathering of some 350 delegates, there is still about two years to make these games the best ever. PASO delegates were told Toronto is not striving to be good but to be perfect. In order to be perfect Peterson concluded Toronto needs the help and scrutiny of everyone in the international sporting body. Because the ideas of everyone are needed, the chairman emphasized his team is open to ideas and it is transparent to make the Pan American games better for the young people and all citizens.

  “One of the realities of games this size is we have many, many, many stakeholders. We have the taxpayers of Ontario. We have the young people of Ontario. We have the people of Canada, we have the people of Toronto. We have athletes and commissions throughout the Americas and we want to make it perfect for everyone. We recognize there are compromises to be made and there are tradeoffs to be made and we aspire to the very highest goal.”

   Michael Chan, minister of Sport gave a progress report to the PASO family of nations on his government’s plans for the games. He stressed that everyone present understands the transformative power of the games, the opportunity, the possibility and the benefit of hosting a top tier international sporting event.

  Curt Harnett, four-time Olympian and winner of three Olympic medals in cycling, was announced as chef de mission for Team Canada at the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am Games. He has decades of experience serving as a great ambassador for Canada on the world stage said Ian Troop, chief executive officer of the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games Organizing Committee (TO2015) as he welcomed the appointment at the PASO meeting at the West Inn Harbour Castle, downtown Toronto. More recently, Harnett has been a supporter of the TORONTO 2015 Games and the construction of the Cisco Milton Pan Am/Parapan Am Velodrome, Canada’s new world-class indoor velodrome. In 2015, as the head of the largest contingent of athletes Canada has ever sent to a Pan Am Games, there is no doubt that Curt will also be a great and accessible leader for this country’s next generation of great athletes as they prepare to compete in front of a hometown crowd at the “People’s Games” in just 637 days, Troop predicted.