Manitoba sports still winning

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This article was published 14/08/2017 (2446 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Canada Summer Games officially wrapped up Sunday, but its legacy will be felt for decades.

“As we start to see these Games slowly fade in the rearview mirror, we’re fortunate to have some lasting legacy pieces not only to help us remember, but they’ll also help us develop sport in Winnipeg and Manitoba for many years to come,” Mayor Brian Bowman said at a Tuesday press conference.

From inside the 124,000-square-foot Canada Games Sport for Life Centre where Bowman spoke, the impact is hard to miss. What the public might not notice right away are the truckloads of equipment coming through the doors of that facility and others like it across the city.

More than $800,000 worth of equipment will be left to Manitoba’s sporting community as part of the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Sport Equipment Legacy program.

“It’s simple little things, like lane markers. The other ones we had were old wood ones from the Pan Am games in ’67 and they weighed a ton and now it’s a plastic lane marker. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but you can haul five or six instead of one at a time, so it’s going to make things a lot sleeker and nicer,” athletics coach Claude Berube said.

Athletics also received Swiss timing electronics to help athletes verify results and, hopefully, set records.

For javelin bronze medallist Brooke-Lynn Boyd, the new equipment is a source of pride for the province.

“When you hear other provinces talk about how nice everything is you feel like ‘Oh! This is my home — we did this, and now it’s ours.”

Among those ‘nice’ things, the legacy program upgraded the scoreboard at Whittier Park and Elmwood Giants Field for baseball, bought a batting cage and breakaway fencing for softball, 3,000 competition-level balls, docks, a pontoon boat and start tower for rowing.

Apart from the Sport Equipment Legacy program, several venues in Winnipeg received major facelifts for the Games. The University of Manitoba Stadium received a new scoreboard and surface, the Pan Am Pool received a new bulkhead, and Fort Whyte Alive now has a 10-kilometre mountain bike course.

And it’s not just athletes to benefit from the Games. The illuminated Winnipeg sign at The Forks has already become a magnet for tourists and locals. The first floor of Sport for Life Centre boasts three gyms community members of all ages are welcome to use.

For anyone using the upgraded venues and equipment, “it gives them a bit of a feel for what it’s like to participate in the Canada Games and hopefully that’s going to really encourage them and motivate them to get to that Canada Games level,” said Jeff Hnatiuk, president and CEO of the 2017 Canada Summer Games.

Noting an upward trend in Manitoba’s performance, Hnatiuk said Manitoba broke its record from the 2013 Games of 35 medals, earning 42 this year.

“They (legacy projects) are there for the development of our athletes, so we anticipate fully that we’ll have better prepared athletes moving forward.”

keila.depape@freepress.mb.ca.