High Performance Centre is the first-ever permanent and affordable, accessible training facility in Whistler

The Athletes’ Village in Whistler is one of the most exciting legacies of the 2010 Winter Games.
Not only is it home to more than 3,500 athletes and officials during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the neighbourhood is home to a world-class accessible training centre, known as the High Performance Centre.

The High Performance Centre is the first-ever permanent and affordable accessible training facility in Whistler. Located in the heart of the Olympic and Paralympic Village in Whistler, it was built with the future in mind.
After the 2010 Winter Games, Whistler will become the training ground for winter and summer athletes including those with a disability.

The High Performance complex features a 4,000-square-foot strength and conditioning facility, a 5,000-square-foot gymnastics hall, human performance testing lab, recovery and regeneration rooms, change rooms, offices and a multi-purpose meeting room.

The building is fully accessible and includes amenities such as accessible washrooms/showers and an elevator. Along with the new Whistler Olympic/Paralympic Park and Whistler Sliding Centre venues, these facilities will build the capacity of sport in the region, the province and the country.

The Centre also features a four-story Athletes’ Lodge and 20 Athletes’ Townhomes that will provide a total accommodation capacity of over 300 beds — ideal for accommodating both winter and summer team training camps and competition events. This addresses the challenge of training peak season in a resort community when beds are often tough to book.

The Whistler Adaptive Sports Program, a not for profit organization for learning, therapeutic and sports excellence for individuals of all ages and a wide variety of disabilities, will also have its headquarters in the High Performance Centre.

Gosse, B.C. Para-Alpine Ski Team member, gunning for gold in 2014

The Paralympic Winter Games have kept Rob Gosse busy. He’s volunteering to repair sit skis for athletes, teaching disabled ski lessons and promoting the sport to everyone he meets.

“Skiing takes your disability out of the picture,” said Rob Gosse, a skier since 2007. “I love that I ski as an equal with both able-bodied and adaptive skiers. It gives me a whole new freedom.”

Injured in the summer of 2006, Gosse came out of hospital 12 weeks later wanting to try everything. From basketball to athletics to waterskiing, Rob said that skiing “just stuck.”

“I’d always been an active guy and coming from a sports-oriented background, people at the rehab centre were telling me I was a perfect candidate for many disabled sports, which I laughed off at first,” Gosse said. “But going to a bunch of different events, I realized that the disabled sports community is a small one, and really helped to connect me throughout the sports network.”

With an eager willingness to try something new, Gosse joined a group of skiers heading up to Whistler with the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program. He fell in love and almost immediately entered, with the competitive program.

He was named to B.C.’s Disabled Development Team in 2007, and by the end of his first season he had collected two silver medals and a bronze. Let the racers of 2014 be forewarned. Gosse is on his way.

Watching the Paralympics take place in Whistler is a special treat for Gosse. He said watching the world’s best sit skiers gives perspective.

“I am seeing the caliber I need to be in 2014 and what it will take to be truly competitive against some of these guys,” Gosse said. “My goal is 2014.”

Meadow Park Sports Centre gets a conservation overhaul - Part Two

In part one of this story, we outlined the attractive return on investment (ROI) associated the easy energy retrofits undertaken on Whistler’s Meadow Park Sports Centre (MPSC). But now it’s time to talk about the single biggest energy retrofit that has been undertaken for the building to date.

Currently in the final stages of construction, installation and commissioning, this retrofit is projected to reduce gas bills by more than $100,000 annually, and at the same time reduce the building’s greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint by more than 350 tonnes per year (350 tonnes is approximately the equivalent of one person flying from New York to Vancouver 260 times – return).

So how is Whistler doing it? Basically the strategy is to substantially increase the building’s use of free energy, both solar and ground source thermal, to heat water - lots of water.

For a capital investment of about $950,000 the installation of a 450 solar thermal collectors, and 70 geothermal bore holes is projected to yield an approximate ROI on invested capital of 11-13%, and drop the buildings GHG footprint by more than 50%. A significant step on the Municipality’s road to carbon neutrality – a goal they are committed to achieving beginning in 2010.

Want to check it out? The solar thermal system has been pre-heating the domestic water (showers and sinks) at MPSC for more than a month now and the solar thermal tubes are easily visible from the parking lot.

The final testing of the new heat pumps and associated geoexchange loops is taking place and should be heating the building’s three pools by later next week.

Becoming a fan of biathlon by Kim VanLochem

On a sunny day at Whistler Olympic Park last year I had the opportunity to meet Paralympian Shauna Maria Whyte. I have been a fan of biathlon ever since.

She was giddy after her first sit-ski biathlon race in almost two years. At the World Cup race, Whyte didn’t make the podium but told me that she had a brilliant race.

Whyte, 42, isn’t your average athlete either; she competes in the summer as a cyclist and in the winter as a biathlete. Whyte is also a four-time Paralympian competing in Nagano, Salt Lake City, Torino and Beijing.

Whyte isn’t at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, but I gained a new appreciation of her sport after meeting her last year.

Whyte competes in one of the hardest winter sports in the world. You need to be fast on skis to compete, but it’s the firing where events are won and lost. Skiers must rapidly reduce their heart rate from over 200 beats per minute – more than most people can achieve – to around 140 bpm, where they can actually hold the rifle steady.

“It’s such a dynamic sport and you really have to focus on what you are doing. I’ve been hooked my whole life,” Whyte said.

At 19 years old, Whyte was the Junior Women’s Canadian Biathlon Champion and her goal was to win an Olympic medal.
On May 18, 1991, life changed radically for Whyte who fell from her horse during a riding competition and broke her back. But the wheelchair never stopped her.

“We all have heart breaks and mine is visible because I am in a wheelchair. I started skiing when I was young and wasn’t about to stop,” Whyte said.

Thanks to Whyte for giving me a little insight into on brutal sport - I’m hooked.

If you get a chance, check out the biathlon coverage on CTV because athletes like Whyte convinced me that every race is an incredible athletic performance.