Long before Renee McCloskey became president of the 2022 BC Summer Games organizing committee in her Prince George hometown, she experienced the thrill of the Games firsthand as an athlete.
In 10 Summer Games competitions from 1982-96, she walked on water waving the Zone 8 flag in BC Summer Games water skiing competitions. Competing under her maiden name, Renee Foot, she was a frequent flier to the Games podium year after year, winning medals on the slalom course, on the jumps and in trick skiing.
“Back then it was a bit of a different model where it was open to all age groups and you could go multiple times,” said McCloskey. “Now it’s part of Sport For Life where it’s focused on preparing athletes for that next-level competition and you don’t typically see a lot of repeat competitors in the Games anymore.”
If all goes according to plan, in six months Prince George will be hosting the BC Summer Games, with more than 3,000 athletes expected to descend upon the city for three days of competition, July 21-24.
That’s a big “if,” considering all the pandemic-related postponements and cancellations that have plagued organizers of sporting events over the past two years. But McCloskey, heading into her second year at the helm of the local committee, is keeping her fingers crossed the event will unfold as planned.
“It’s definitely a big undertaking,” she said. “I’ve been around the Games most of my life from all different angles but had never been involved in this part of it, in appreciating everything that’s involved in staging it. It’s quite a complex thing but we’re really lucky we have a great team here locally that’s all on board and working hard.”
McCloskey is part of the famous Foot family that put water skiing on the local sports map. Her father Howard, an inaugural member of the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame, opened the Nukko Lake Water Ski School in 1979 and the family produced a long line of BC Summer Games medallists that including Howard, his son Reg, daughter Renee and nephew Brian.
Renee’s dad and brother competed at BC Summer Games until she was old enough to qualify in 1982. That first year, she won the slalom and tricks competitions at the BC Games in Vernon as the only competitor in the girls division.
“It was so different and new,” she said. “My dad and brother and cousin would go to the Games and at that time you had to be 13, so the first few years of the Games I was too young and my mom (Trudi) and I would stay behind.
“The first year when I was old enough to go, you sort of felt, ‘this is exciting, it’s my turn now,’ so to experience all the things my family had shared about their times at the Games and what it was like, was pretty cool.”
BC Games athletes nowadays are usually between 14 and 15 years old. McCloskey has nothing but fond memories of her times as a teen and young adult representing the Cariboo-Northeast zone.
“It was incredible,” she said. “I was never a star athlete but for the time of the Games you get to feel you’re an Olympian. You march in an opening ceremony, you’ve got your team colours on, and you get to meet people from not just your sport but from all different sports.
“That’s what’s unique about the Games, versus competing in a provincial championship for your given sport. To be part of a multisport games and that atmosphere, you get up for early in the morning and have breakfast with 700 other people having breakfast and everybody’s buzzing about the competitions about to start that day.”
McCloskey continued to compete at the Summer Games until 1996, and later served on the BC Games Society board, from 2008-14. Since 2007, she’s worked as manager of external relations for the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George.
The BC Games were launched by the B.C. government in 1978 with the Summer Games in Penticton and the following year Kamloops hosted the first Winter Games. It was an annual event until 1998, when it switched to even years only.
Prince George first hosted the BC Winter Games in 1981 and staged the Summer Games in 1990. The 1981 Games drew 2,100 athletes and the count was to 3,800 in the summer of 1990. McCloskey says about 3,000 volunteers will be needed for the 2020 Summer Games.
“It’s huge,” she said. “It’s similar in scope to the (2015) Canada Winter Games. The difference with ours is it’s much shorter. It’s four days versus two weeks. In the Canada Games model they had Week 1 and Week 2 and you didn’t have one sport that would span the two weeks. But for our Games, everybody’s here and everybody’s competing for the full four days. We’re expecting between 3,000 and 3,200 athletes.”
The athletes will stay overnight dorm-style in school classrooms, sleeping on foamies on the floor.
A crowd estimated at 10,000 packed into Masich Place Stadium for the opening of the Games on July 12, 1990. Now known as Masich Place Stadium, the athletics facility was built for the 1990 Games and has since been upgraded to include a video screen/score clock and an all-weather field.
“Overall, I think that was one of the big advantages of our bid, the number of venues we have, and they’re all pretty much competition-ready,” said McCloskey. “You look at the soccer fields and the baseball fields we have, the gymnasiums we have for court sports, we’re pretty lucky to have what we have and it’s great to bring a Games here to keep those venues busy. They haven’t had a chance to be busy the last two years.”
With the pandemic hopefully in its waning stages, the hope for everybody involved is that it and other outside influences won’t be an issue by July.
There have so far been two BC Games events cancelled by COVID. The 2020 Summer Games in Maple Ridge and the 2022 Winter Games in Greater Vernon, which has been planned for this February.
“Obviously we hope we’re going to have a pleasant summer with clear skies and no rain and no smoke but we’ll see what comes and we’re preparing for those contingencies right now,” McCloskey said.
“Plan A is staging these Games assuming that COVID isn’t the concern it is today. But we also have a number of contingency plans in the event we’re dealing with restrictions around how many people can gather or what we need to do with food services or accommodations and how many we can have in a classroom.
“First and foremost is that we’re providing a safe venue and games, not just for the athletes but for the volunteers, spectators and officials. We’re working with the team at Northern Health and going over planning with them to ensure that our plans are going to be appropriate for whatever public health considerations are in effect at the time.”
The sporting events for the 2022 Games are: artistic swimming, athletics, baseball, 3-on-3 basketball (girls and boys), basketball (girls and boys), canoe/kayak paddling, equestrian, golf, box lacrosse, field lacrosse, rowing, rugby (girls), sailing, soccer (girls and boys), softball (girls and boys), swimming , towed water sports (skiing and wakeboarding), triathlon, beach volleyball, volleyball (girls and boys) and wrestling.
