Waterloo Region falls short in bid to host 2021 Canada Summer Games
Waterloo Region 2021 Bid Committee – (Waterloo Region, ON) After a hard-fought fifteen months of bidding for the right to host the 2021 Canada Summer Games, the Waterloo Region has just fallen short. Earlier today, Niagara Region was named as the winning community at a ceremony held in Toronto, ON.
First and foremost, as Ontarians, the Waterloo Region 2021 bid team want to congratulate the winning host city. They ran an excellent bid campaign and should be very proud. All four communities proved capable of hosting the games. As sports fans, we look forward to seeing tomorrow’s stars competing in 2021 at a well-hosted games in Ontario.
The team behind our bid for the Waterloo Region believes it is vital to continue to build on the momentum we created, and look for new opportunities to host sporting events that will enrich the community. In just over a year, this bid has managed to build a network of amateur sports enthusiasts, politicians, businesses, community groups and volunteers — thousands of people who, otherwise, were not connected. We know that we created a spark for collaboration and it is something we will continue to pursue.
While we are disappointed in not having been chosen as the host for 2021, we knew we had a unique bid that challenged the traditional approach to hosting the Canada Games. We presented a full roster of support across various sectors and put the best we had to offer on the table. We are proud of our bid, all our supporters who rallied with us and the groundswell of pride we created within our Region and extended communities of our venue partners.
The community helped our bid to trend nationally on Twitter and the downtown pep rally on our evaluation day closed an entire city block and left a lasting impression on the evaluation committee of the spirit that exists here in the Waterloo Region.
The bid committee would like to thank the volunteers and partners that gave hundreds of hours to this campaign as well as our Mayors, councils and staff in Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge also worked tirelessly and showed how this Region can come together.
This bid could not have been realized without the support of both the Regional Sport Tourism Office (RSTO) and funding from the Regional Tourism Organization Four (RTO4). And, to those all those people who helped in any way whatsoever, on behalf of the Waterloo Region Bid, we want to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We are so proud of the people of this region.
-30-
For more information please contact:
Teddy Katz, Spokesperson, Waterloo Region 2021 Bid Committee
canadagames@waterlooregion2021.ca or by phone at 647-505-8095.
The Waterloo Regional Canada Games bid was made possible in part by the ongoing work of Regional Tourism Organization Four Inc.