The “dream” that is Olds’ Community Learning Campus (CLC) is set to be finished, a move that will enable rural athletes to progress toward achieving their own dreams.
The CLC, located on the Olds College campus, is a nearly $70-million project on which construction began in 2006. Today, the joint venture between the college and Chinook’s Edge School Division includes the Bell e-Learning Centre, the Fine Arts and Multi Media Centre and the Ralph Klein Centre, housing Olds High School and a health and wellness centre.
And now, a new addition is to be built — the Canadian Centre for Rural High Performance Sport.
The centre, said the college’s acting athletics director Bob Murray, will provide local and Central Alberta athletes with a training centre comparable to what one would find in Calgary or Edmonton.
“It will be higher weight, higher impact, with some more of the specialized things that would be available to the athlete that might be training to take it to the next level. We’ll have opportunities for Olympic lifting in here as well as some strength training and those types of things.
“This will be more catered to the high-performance athlete,” he said.
The two-story 700-square-metre facility will also include a squash/racquetball court, two change rooms for teams, and a multipurpose room.
Training in sport science nutrition and psychology will also be applied.
“To be able to invite provincial teams and maybe even some national teams to train and stay on our campus is pretty exciting,” said Murray.
It is being built onto the existing fitness centre, and is not expected to cause any disruption to regular programming during construction.
The high performance centre was part of the original CLC design, but during the original construction period, increased construction costs led to the project being delayed.
A surplus held over from the original CLC construction, completed in 2010, is funding the expansion, with help from donations by Richardson International and the Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders.
The province committed nearly $56 million to the entire CLC initiative.
The hope is to break ground on construction within four to six weeks, with the build completed by late 2013.
mfish@www.reddeeradvocate.com