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Saturday, March 4, 2006
Hello from Calgary: Exploring C.O.P. (Canada
Olympic Park)
Our 4-hour whirlwind tour provided by our local expert Jocelyne
Morrison from Time
Out for Touring took us into Alberta’s second most visited
attraction outside of the Rockies: Canada
Olympic Park, visited every year by more than 1.3 million people.
This is the flagship site of the XV Olympic Winter Games, which
were held in Calgary in 1988. It is located just 15 minutes from
downtown on the west side towards the Rocky Mountains.
View of the 3 ski jump towers
What makes Canada Olympic Park unique is that it continues to function
as a multi-purpose competition, training and recreation area that
is available year round to athletes as well as the general public.
During the winter, almost 300,000 skiers and snowboarders visit
the park. It also houses the second largest snow academy in the
country, making lessons and programs available to people of all
ages and abilities.
The Olympic Hall of Fame and Museum
During the summer, Canada Olympic Park turns into mountain biking
facilities with more than 25 kilometers of trails, an obstacle course,
trials park and facilities for BMX bikers and freeride stunts.
The Olympic Flame
We started off with the Olympic Hall of Fame and Museum which houses
a whole variety of Olympic-themed exhibits and paraphernalia. This
is the only Canadian museum devoted to the Olympic Games in Canada,
and it is the largest in all of North America. Exhibits on two floors
chronicle Canada's participation at the Olympic Winter Games since
their inception in 1924.
A particularly fascinating exhibit are the 20 of the 31 Olympic
torches, dating back all the way to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
The Blood, Sweat and Cheers exhibit pays tribute to Canada's Olympic
Medal winners at the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002. The flags
displayed in the museum and in the Plaza represent all the nations
that competed in the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary.
Reproduction of the famous Jamaican bobsleigh
Key highlights of the Museum are a reproduction of the bobsleigh
used by the Jamaican bobsleigh team in the 1988 Olympics (the film
“Cool Runnings” was based on this story), an original
hockey jacket from 1956 which inspired the 1988 Olympic attire,
and medals for all 12 sports that were held in Calgary in the 1988
Olympics.
Images of the Olympics
Snowboarders love the Superpipe, opened in 2002 and the only pipe
of its kind in Alberta, with walls that are at least 15 feet high.
It is also used for training Canadian athletes to compete at international
and Olympic competitions.
Our guide Jocelyne also took us to the Icehouse which is the world’s
only indoor refrigerated track where luge, bobsleigh and skeleton
athletes practice the ever-important push start techniques. All
the tracks feature multiple cameras and interval timing mechanisms
that allow the athletes to analyze their push-start technique moving
from frame to frame in intervals of a fraction of a second. Many
foreign teams come to this facility to practice their push-start
techniques.
The Ice House
The Ice House features some interesting statistics:
- it is 143 m along (almost the length of one football field) and
four stories high
- nine kilometers of steel piping is used to cool the three tracks
- tracks are kept at a constant temperature of -2 to -3 degrees
Celsius
- a unique monorail system automatically returns the bobsleigh and
skeleton sleds to the push-start area while allowing for continuous
training
- a vide system incorporates standard video and the latest DVD playback
technology.
After our visit to the Ice House we drove up the hill past the
Olympic Bobsleigh Track which includes 14 twists and turns, the
place where the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team made their first Olympic
appearance and won the hearts of spectators all over the world.
It is still used as a Word Cup circuit venue for bobsleigh, luge
and skeleton events.
The 90 m ski jump tower
Our next stop was the 90 meter ski jump tower – incidentally
the highest point in Calgary and today, as the weather was clearing
up, we started to get a great view of the downtown area. Jocelyne
explained that with today’s new ski jumping techniques, the
90 m ski jump can no longer be used since skiers are now able to
jump 120 m and more and there would not be enough space for them
to land safely. Nevertheless, riding the glass elevator up to the
observation level of this tower and peering down the ski jump is
an awesome experience.
Looking down the ski jump
Jocelyne explained that Canada Olympic Park is also an archeological
site where remains have been found that indicate that this hill
used to be a buffalo jump, a place that native tribes used to hunt
buffalo.
1956 hockey jacket
Many of the Canadian Olympic athletes who did so well at the recent
2006 Torino Olympics actually train at Canada Olympic Park, and
this year's success of Canadian Olympic athletes bodes well for
the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.
The 12 different types of medals given away during the XV Winter
Olympics
Related Articles:
An overview of our discovery of the
Canadian Rockies
Arrival in Calgary and our
whirlwind tour of the city
Discovering Canada Olympic Park,
one of Calgary's most visited attractions
Our fabulous dinner at Il Giardino's
and a connection with one of Calgary's most successful entrepreneurs
- an Italian-Canadian immigrant success story
Comfort, luxury and our celebrity
breakfast at the Historic Twin Gables B&B
Calgary's Kensington area and a
meeting with a local entrepeneur who went from Vietnamese boat person
to successful restauranteur
Arrival in Banff & exploring
a local landmark: the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel
Our first skiing experience: perfectly
groomed trails at Norquay
High altitude skiing on the
Continental Divide: Sunshine Village
Exploring Canadian history: the
Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise
Skiing in the largest ski resort in
the Canadian Rockies at Lake Louise
A real adventure: dogsledding in
the Canadian Rockies
A gondola trip to the top of
Sulphur Mountain and discoveries of Banff
Our final walk through downtown
Calgary - discoveries of downtown
An interview with Tourism Calgary:
what to see and do in Calgary
An interview with
Tourism Banff Lake Louise
Useful Websites:
Tourism
Calgary
Tourism
Banff Lake Louise
Canada
Olympic Park
Ski the Big 3:
Banff, Lake Louise and Sunshine
Banff
National Park of Canada
Useful books about Calgary and the Canadian Rockies:
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