Tory says he won’t rule out possible Olympic bid

TORONTO:The infrastructure that has been erected across the city and the region for the Pan American Games will put Toronto in a position to host a number of international sporting events going forward and may even pave the way for a possible Olympic bid, according to Mayor John Tory.
Tory met with Premier Kathleen Wynne at Queen’s Park on Wednesday and afterwards he was asked by reporters whether or not he would be in favour of an Olympic bid, given the city’s relatively successful turn at hosting the Pan American Games.
In 2007, Rio de Janeiro hosted the Pan American Games and two years later the city was granted the 2016 Summer Olympics.“There is a whole variety of international events and sporting competitions that we are now in a position to host and the Olympics is one of those, obviously about which there is a great discussion,” Tory said. “But the time to make any decision with respect to going forward with that is after these games are successfully concluded. At that point, we will sit down, talk about these things together and decide what’s best in terms of what we go forward with, whether it is an Olympic bid or a host of other things.”
Toronto has bid on hosting the Olympics on five separate occasions since 1960, most recently finishing second to Beijing for the 2008 Games.
Though the city’s economic development committee did unanimously reject a proposal to study the possibility of bidding on the 2024 Summer Games last January, the arrival of the Pan American Games has stoked speculation over whether that decision could be revisited.
Last week International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach even weighed in, telling the CBC that “Toronto could be a good candidate” for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
“I guess everything is on the table until you take it off the table,” Tory said Wednesday. “There is an opportunity for cities to bid on the Olympics going forward and we are going to finish these games out and we will then have discussions going forward about a host of international competitions and what would be in the public interest and the best interest of building up a strong Toronto and a strong Ontario.”
A report prepared by Ernst and Young in January, 2014 estimated that the cost of submitting a formal bid to host the Summer Games would be between $50 and $60 million while the cost of hosting the games would be between $3.3 to $6.9 billion.
The deadline for cities to bid on the 2024 Summer Olympics is September 15, however Tory seemed to suggest that the sped up timeline wouldn’t be an issue if city council decides it wants to go after the games.
“What has to happen on September 15, if anything happens, is there has to be a letter submitted indicating the intention to bid but as I said before we have to get the Pan Am Games over with, we have to successfully carry out the Parapan Am Games and then we can assess the success in the context of a bunch of international opportunities that may lie in front of us,” he told reporters.