Dozens of loonies hide in the concrete beneath the ice of the Richmond Olympic Oval.
More than two years ago at the construction site for the Olympic long-track speed skating venue, as many as 100 Vanoc organizers, Vancouver and Richmond city officials, architects and construction crews stood in front of the north-facing windows at the edge of the would-be 400-metre track and each tossed in a golden coin.
"History has told us that in Salt Lake in 2002, they hired Canadians to manicure the ice and during the creation of that ice, they put in a loonie. It happened again in Torino," said Marion LaRue, the design team's senior manager.
LaRue and her team kept with tradition and bought into the hope that loonies close to the ice will lead to Olympic gold for the home team.
Canada brought home gold from Salt Lake in men's and women's 500-metre events and the men's 5,000-metre relay. At the 2006 Torino Games, the Canadian speed skaters won 12 medals, including two gold.
"I don't think it disadvantages any other team, but it think the emotional connection for our team will be to their advantage," LaRue told ctvbc.ca "Every team has to do what they need to get gold."
Looking ahead at the legacy
For 17 days, the Oval will be seen around the world as an Olympic venue and the site of 12 medal events. Thirty-six athletes will win gold, silver or bronze, and on Saturday Denny Morrison will contend for Canada's first Olympic gold on home soil in front of a sell-out crowd of 7,600 people.
But following the 2010 closing ceremonies, the Oval will serve a different purpose -- one the City of Richmond considers more significant and sets a new precedent for Olympic athletic facilities.
"We were weak in providing facilities of this size and this caliber in our community -- and you can go beyond that to the Lower Mainland and B.C.," said Greg Scott, a manager with the City of Richmond, who noted that the region and the province have small numbers of recreation centres per capita.
"We very purposefully went out and built for legacy first," said Scott.
A principle architect with Cannon Design, Larry Podhora, said the long-term use of the building was "paramount." Its potential for long-term life as a multi-use facility was key in building the Richmond Olympic Oval, he said, and the design makes the transformation possible.
About six acres in size, the Oval can be converted to hold two international-sized ice rinks, a track, gymnastics and rowing facilities, volleyball, badminton, soccer and wheelchair sport space, including enough room for eight basketball courts. The venue is also one of two 2010 Olympic anti-doping laboratories (the other is in Montreal). With a budgeted $4.1 million for the dual-city program, the labs will test up to 2,450 blood and urine samples for banned substances.
Even the underground parking lot is being praised.
"Richmond made one of the gutsiest decisions I think I've ever seen in more that 30 years of practice and that was to add a parking garage beneath the building," said Ken Wiseman, the project's top architect.
Because of the water-logged soil of the Fraser River delta, the building is supported by 400 pylons that drop 15 meters below the top soil, a construction that raises the building and allows for more control over the high-performance ice surface, which must remain as level as possible. The gap below the skating oval was converted into parking stalls, additional sport facilities and retail space.
The architects at Cannon Design also met an environmental benchmark set by Richmond. Engineered to achieve LEED Silver (the third-highest designation for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the architects had to counter-balance the demands of housing a frozen surface, which means refrigerating a large, open space.
They did this, in part, by angling the building to prevent direct sunlight from warming the ice.
More than a sheet of ice
Located at sea level, the altitude of the Richmond Olympic Oval presented a unique geographical challenge for the building's designers.
The track is expected to be competitive and even record-breaking. But air is heavier and can be more humid at the low elevation of B.C.'s Lower Mainland, meaning athletes have to work harder to displace the air, potentially adding microseconds to their overall time.
After hosting the world speed skating championships last spring -- which saw Canada claim eight medals, including gold in the women's team pursuit -- facility managers said the Oval would be in game-shape for 2010.
"The venue appears Games ready to me," said John Mills in March 2009. "We were trying to identify areas of the building that might be stressed, so far it seems to be handling it."
German speed skater Anni Friesinger told the Canadian Press that equal opportunity is more important that overall speed.
"For me I don't care if the ice is fast or slow, everybody has the same conditions," she said following the world championships.
Compared to the Calgary oval, which was purpose-built for the 1988 Winter Olympics, claims the fastest ice in the world and is 1,034 metres above sea level, the Richmond facility has an altitude of only four metres.
In flight
The herons that flock to the estuaries of the Fraser River are credited with the inspiration behind the design of the Richmond Olympic Oval.
The elongated, arching shape of the roof, which measures six acres, takes the form of a heron's wing. Where the roof hangs over the main entrance, even the eves suggest a heron in flight and mimic the feathers when spread at the wingtip.
The grace and speed of the athletes also influenced the idea of flight, said Ken Wiseman.
"When [speed skaters] go from good and fast to being great -- they fly. We worked very hard at expressing that in the building."
With files from The Canadian Press
