Media Releases

U of T’s Goldring Centre for high performance sport gets final nod

November 4, 2011

TORONTO, ON — The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil gave the final stamp of approval on Novem­ber 27 to build the Goldring Cen­tre for High Per­for­mance Sport. A state-of-the-art hub for sport and exer­cise research, sport med­i­cine, train­ing and com­pe­ti­tion, the facil­i­ty will bring a much-need­ed resource to U of T and Ontario.

In the plan­ning stages for sev­er­al years, the Goldring Cen­tre will house inter­na­tion­al-lev­el bas­ket­ball and vol­ley­ball courts, a relo­cat­ed and expand­ed David L. Mac­In­tosh Sport Med­i­cine Clin­ic, a range of sport and exer­cise research labs, and a strength and fit­ness cen­tre acces­si­ble to all U of T stu­dents.  It will also be a place where U of T’s grow­ing list of key part­ners – includ­ing the Cana­di­an Sport Cen­tre Ontario, Swim Cana­da and the Min­istry of Health Pro­mo­tion and Sport – can con­verge in sup­port of the region’s top ath­letes.

The Cen­tre has had many cham­pi­ons, includ­ing key donors such as the Goldring, Kimel and Stollery fam­i­lies.  It also gained huge momen­tum ear­li­er this year with a $22.5 mil­lion invest­ment from the Min­istry of Train­ing, Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties. “We are so grate­ful for the ini­tia­tive and fore­sight of the Goldring fam­i­ly, who kick-start­ed the project with their gen­er­ous lead gift,” says Pro­fes­sor Ira Jacobs, dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion & Health, under whose juris­dic­tion the Goldring Cen­tre will reside.  “Their sup­port, togeth­er with the gen­eros­i­ty of the Kimel and Stollery fam­i­lies and the invest­ment by the Province of Ontario, will help cre­ate a mag­nif­i­cent lega­cy in the decades to come for scores of ath­letes, coach­es, researchers, stu­dents, and the greater com­mu­ni­ty.”

Promise of the Goldring Cen­tre has already helped recruit­ed tal­ent­ed new pro­fes­sors, includ­ing Dr. Greg Wells, a well-known exer­cise phys­i­ol­o­gist who has shaped the train­ing pro­grams of world-class ath­letes includ­ing triple-Olympic medal­ist and cur­rent world cham­pi­on kayak­er Adam van Koever­den.  Fos­ter­ing a ‘sport insti­tute’ envi­ron­ment that Ontario has long hun­gered for, Goldring will be a resource for top ath­letes not just as a place to train and com­pete, but as the site for inno­v­a­tive research that will impact train­ing, coach­ing, heal­ing and over­all ath­lete devel­op­ment.

“There has been a void with­in the high per­for­mance sport com­mu­ni­ty,” says Jacobs. “We need a place where researchers and sci­en­tists can col­lab­o­rate with coach­es, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, ath­letes and sport med­i­cine spe­cial­ists. Only then can we make the big dis­cov­er­ies in sport sci­ence, and be able to test them rig­or­ous­ly and apply them quick­ly.”

A ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny will take place this win­ter, with con­struc­tion slat­ed for com­ple­tion by 2014.

More details on the Goldring Cen­tre for High Per­for­mance Sport can be found in the fea­ture sto­ry in fall issue of Pur­suit mag­a­zine.