As David Peterson jets off to Mexico City today to hand-deliver the bid book outlining Toronto’s $2.4-billion plan to host the 2015 Pan Am Games, he’s warning of the danger of overconfidence.
“Our biggest enemy is smugness, assuming somehow or other that we have some God-given right to this.
We don’t,” Peterson told reporters yesterday after handing over a copy to Premier Dalton McGuinty.
“We need these games.”
The 233-page bid book —which sets out details from venues to financing to transportation — will be formally submitted to Mario Vazquez Rana, president of the Pan American Sports Organization.
With two failed Olympic bids, Toronto is hoping for redemption when officials meet in November to pick the winning bidder.
Bogota, Colombia, and Lima, Peru, are the other bidding cities, and “they’re improving their game,” Peterson said. “As it goes toward the end, it’s getting more and more competitive. They’re totally dedicated to winning and they’re not fooling around.”
The winning city will be announced in November.
The bid book boasts of plans to recruit 19,000 volunteers as well as athlete scholarships that would give athletes from other countries the chance to live and train in Canada, and regional coaching seminars and clinics.
