Reasons to Love Toronto Now: because the Pan Am Games are leaving their mark

For years, Toronto has been a sporting backwater. When our amateur athletes excel, they do so despite meagre funding, anemic development programs and a lack of proper training facilities. But all that is about to change: when the Pan Am Games launch next month, Toronto will morph into a techy athletics hub, with all the shiny new buildings and toys a $1.4-billion budget can buy. The most magnificent monument to athletic glory is the Field House and Aquatics Centre at U of T’s Scarborough campus. Until now, Toronto had only two Olympic-size pools, one on the main U of T campus and the other in Etobicoke. (Melbourne, by comparison, has 19.) The new 400,000-square-foot, $205-million Aquatics Centre represents one of the largest investments in Canadian amateur sporting history. In addition to its two 50-metre pools, it features a dive tank, a gym big enough to house four basketball courts, and an oval track with motion-capture technology and pressure sensors for performance diagnostics. The Pan Ams are the world’s third largest international sporting event, after the Summer Olympics and the Asian Games. Long after the Cirque performers have contorted, the medals have been distributed and the spotlight has faded on Toronto, a new generation of athletes will be able to train like pros. And that’s the biggest prize of all.
That’s funny you compared the number of pools to Melbourne. I’m about to move to Toronto from Melbourne and I was struggling to find somewhere (just searching online) where I can swim!
Funny, you could build this wonderful swimming facility for probably $50 million. And the Pan Am budget is now over $2.5 billion. So we get a pool worth $50 million, where’s the other $2,450,000,000 gone to? LOL Pan Scam Games, congrats on your winfall, connected Liberal contractors and insiders…
community centers have decent pools, for instance the Regent Park pool is brand spanking new and pretty great. If you want Olympic sized, only U of T has them, 1 on each campus now but the UTSC campus (where this new one is) is only open for students/members after the games.
Ok we do have an embarrassing lack of Olympic-sized pools compared to Melbourne, but to be fair how many ice rinks does Melbourne have compared to us? A bit of context…