Calgary Olympic BidCo board members expected to be announced this week

The group charged with organizing Calgary's potential bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics will take another step forward this week.

The chair of Calgary 2026, Scott Hutcheson, told city council on Monday that he expects a number of board members will be appointed by the city as well as the federal and provincial governments.

He expects those announcements will be made on Wednesday.

Hutcheson also briefed council in a closed-door session on his trip to Lausanne Switzerland last week.He met with officials at the International Olympic Committee's headquarters.

"I believe that the IOC are wonderful people to work with, that want the same things we want in a responsible Games bid," said Hutcheson.

Those things include diversity, inclusion and sustainability. He described the IOC as being "arms open"to the kinds of things Calgary wants to do by holding its second Olympics.

Once the bid corporation's board is formed, it will get on with the job of selecting a CEO.

Council also heard on Monday that the work continues on putting together Calgary's bid book.

That vision of a Calgary 2026 Games will be completed by the end of the year and be submitted to the IOC next January.

Calgary's potential candidacy for a bid was given another shot in the arm on the weekend by the Canadian Olympic Committee.

The COC endorsed Calgary as a potential host of the 2026 games.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi flew to Ottawa to speak at that meeting.

He said that given two-thirds of the sports federations that make up the COC are summer sports, the unanimous endorsement was a pleasant surprise.

"If we are going for a 2026 bid for the Winter Games, you know that has some implications on potential funding for those summer sports going forward," said Nenshi.

"It really was a very robust conversation and I was very happy that it was a unanimous endorsement but I didn't go in there thinking that would happen."

A public engagement process for Calgary's potential bid will be announced soon.

The IOC is expected to name the host city for the 2026 winter games in September of 2019.

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