Where a Sled, Not a Ferrari, Is the Ultimate Luxury Vehicle
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
CESANA PARIOL, Italy, Feb. 26 — It was shortly before midnight on Saturday. The stands were empty. The Olympic luge, skeleton and bobsled competitions were over, and two young Turin Organizing Committee volunteers were already finding an alternative use for the Olympic track: climbing the railing that separates the snow and dirt from the refrigerated sliding surface and posing for photographs while lying in one of the huge banked turns.
The track was built at an official cost of about $83 million on what was once a pristine, lightly wooded slope that has long been appreciated by inhabitants of the nearby villages for its tranquillity and the beauty of its panoramic view of Mount Chaberton and its neighboring peaks to the south.
But though the Alpine vista is still there, the slope is pristine no longer. Instead, there is a 4,708-foot track made of concrete, steel and local wood. Instead, there are new roads, the odd unfinished building and massive artificial embankments that looked fine Saturday covered in snow but did not look nearly as inconspicuous earlier in the Games when no snow covered the mud.
As the five-ringed circus rumbles out of town, the bobsled driver Andre Lange of Germany has his two Olympic gold medals, and the inhabitants of the new track's neighboring villages have their concerns.
"I hope it's not going to be a white elephant, but I'm worried," said Massimo Rigat, an architect whose family operates a sporting goods store a short walk uphill from the track in San Sicario.
I met the Rigat family before the Athens Games in 2004 and returned to see them in 2005. On both occasions they expressed concerns about the post-Olympic use of the track in a region that has no historic affinity for the sliding sports, unlike the German-speaking sections of northeastern Italy that have produced Olympic luge champions like Armin Zoeggeler, who has won the last two men's titles.
But now the Susa Valley and its inhabitants have the latest world-class facility, one that will cost an estimated $594,000 annually to operate. Its short-term future seems secure, because a foundation created by the province of Turin and the Piedmont region will finance the track for several years as part of the post-Games transition. But the longer term is a trickier matter.
Robert Storey, the Canadian who is president of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, has heard such doomsaying before; his tone alternated between indulgent and irritated on Saturday in a tent at the track set up for the Olympic family.
"If you look back over the recent history of bobsleigh tracks and their after use, I think you find that when you compare it to most other facilities, they are the one thing that does last and have some interesting uses afterward," he said. "If you have a commercially minded operation, you can run a bobsleigh track at an operating profit or break even."
Storey points out that the last five Winter Olympic tracks are still functioning. Even the much-derided track in La Plagne, France, built for the 1992 Games in Albertville, has remained open with the help of occasional government subsidies. "It makes money to the point that they don't like holding competitive events, because in the winter they are taking people down," Storey said, referring to tourists.
But the challenge here is greater. The Savoy region in France has a much denser tourism infrastructure, and the track is in the middle of a high-traffic resort area. The track in La Plagne is also the only top-level track in France, just as the Lillehammer track, built for the 1994 Games, is the only one in Norway, and the Nagano track, built for the 1998 Games, is the only one in Japan.
Italy already has a track in Cortina d'Ampezzo, the site of the 1956 Winter Olympics and a regular stop on the World Cup circuit.
"If Cortina's hasn't been a smashing success, with all its tradition and infrastructure, do you really think ours is going to be a success?" said Rigat, the architect. "We have no culture of bob and luge here."
Giuseppe Gattino, a spokesman for the Turin Games, said the Italian national bobsled, luge and skeleton teams are now expected to use Cesana for training. As in La Plagne, the track will also be open to tourists. Storey said there was a tentative plan for a World Cup bobsled event here next season.
"Villagers generally aren't very well educated as to what the Olympics mean and so fear change, and why wouldn't they?" Storey said. "I think you'll find more now who accept and embrace it. I think the concern here is not about the track being here. It's about whether or not the track is going to divert or drain resources from the community. If the track can be demonstrated to be an enhancement, even from a public relations standpoint or a promotion standpoint, I think you'll find a different tune.
"I've talked to villagers here, too, including some of the village leaders, and many of them are viewing this track as an opportunity."
But some, like Rigat, remain pessimistic, even though they have enjoyed these Olympic Games. "I don't like the fact that every four years, they have to destroy a piece of land for the Olympics in order to hold these sliding sports," Rigat said.
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