Project management

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1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project Management 1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project Management

Failure Failure

Ashish Patel
HWH Architects Engineers Planners, Inc, abp@hwhaep.com

Paul A. Bosela
Cleveland State University, p.bosela@csuohio.edu

Norbert Delatte
Cleveland State University, n.delatte@csuohio.edu

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Patel, A., Bosela, P., and Delatte, N. (2013). “1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project Management
Failure.” J.Perform.Constr.Facil., 27(3), 362-369.

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1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project
Management Failure

Ashish Patel1 ; Paul A. Bosela, F.ASCE2 ; and Norbert J. Delatte, F.ASCE3

Introduction

On May 12 . 1970 . ex tensive lobbyi ng and d ipl omacy by Montreal
Mayor Jean Drapeau paid off when Montrea l was awarded the 1976
O lympic Gam es over strong bids from Moscow and Los Angeles .
Although both competing c ities provided fimmc iu l guarantees .
Drapeau sialed thai the Games would cost il rnilximum of $ 124
million and that the hi story and reputation of Montreal would stand
in p lace of a guarantee (Auf deT Maur 1976).

For the next fe w years, very little was done. The original plan was
scrapped. Mayor Drapeau became enamored with architect Roger
Taill ibert ‘s Pare des Princcs in Paris. Tellingly, the construction cost fo r
thai stadi um had ballooned from the original estimated $9 million to
a final cost of $25 mi ll io n. Drnpeau se[ected Taillibert without a com­
petition. Li ke T aillibert. Dmpeau had had previous problems with cost
oveffilns. The Olympi c bid wa~ based in part on Montreal’ s successfu l
hosting of the [967 Expo. However. the finul cost of the Expo was $430
million- much more thoo the 1964 estimate of $ 160 million. A new
plan was laid ou t in a press conference on April 6, 1972. Almost 2 years
o f preparation time had been wa’>ted (Auf der Maur (976).

In November [972. Drapeau gave a fi g ure o f $3 10 mil lion a~ the
tOia l projec ted cost of the Olympic Games. Of the $250 million in

capita l e xpenditures in the budget, $130.8 million was for the sta­
dium and $ 16.4 million fort he velodrome. The O lym pi c Village was
listed undernoncapital expenditures as $5 mi llion. Howell teons th is
Drapeau ‘s kitc hen-tabl e budget that no one ever took serio us ly but
that also no oneever gathered the data to challenge. It was suspiciou s
from the stan , however, because the recenll y concluded Munic h
Games had cost lh e equiv al en t of $600 million. Shortly afterward.
in January 1973. Drapeau made hi s often-quoted (llIld often-derided)
stat eme nt that “the Monlreal Olympi cs ca n no more have a de fi ci t
than a man cu n have a baby” (Howel l 2009). Howell later observed
that ··amazin g ly. evc ry tim e the Mayor rev ised hi s cost estimate. we
believed thaI it was COITt!c t at last” (Howe ll 2009).

Drapeuu laid ou t u plan for $3 [0 million in financing. the bulk o f
which wou ld come from the sa le of $250 million in Ol ympic com­
memo mtive coin s. The fedeml government of Cooada reviewed th e
budget and thought that $ [00 million in coi n s:tl es would be more
rc;l listi c. The federal government d id nOI want to ge t stuck with the bill
fo r the construction or th e Games. The c it y of Mon lrcuJ had mude Ihe
commitmcnt. and Cooada und the Province of Quebec did not w ish to
be responsible fo r fu lfi ll in g that commitment. Strangely. they seemed
to think that the construction cosl estimates were in the ball park. At
thi s point in the process. Drapeau sugge sted at 11 news conference that
the real proble m wou ld be figuring out how to spend the surp lus from
the fi rst self- financin g Gam es in O lympic hi story (Howell 2009).

The extensive construction o f the Ol ympi c fac ilities was justi ­
fied. in pan. on the idea that the facilit ie s co uld be used after the
Games for other spons . speci fica ll y usin g the O lympic Stadium for
the Montreal Expos baseball team. However. the potentia l users
were not co nsulted during the pl:l11lling process (Howell 2009). T he
suita bilit y of th e fu ci liti es for usc lifte r the Games ended will be
di sc ussed later in th is paper

James Neal begins hi s textbook. entit led COlI,rtm ctioll Cost Es-
lill!(IIillg COII “epls and Their Appliw tiol1s (Neil 1979), with an
eight-page case stud y of the Montrea l Olympi cs compl ex. Nick Auf
der MaUL a newspaper columnist and me mber of the Montreal C ity
Cou nc il. wrote The BiIlioll·Dollar Came: Jelln DrUpe(1II (m d the
/976 Olympics about all the pro blems (Auf der Maur (976),

In late July 1976, at the final session of the World Congress on
Space Structures, a highly controversial panel discussion was held
on the project, which was later documented in ASCE’s Civil En­
gineering magazine. It included some prominent consulting engi­
neers from the United States, such as Anton Tedesko and Lev Zetlin,
and some engineers and architects from Canada and elsewhere. A
sidebar to the article summarized some of the comments that had
appeared in the Montreal Star newspaper under the title, “Cost-Be-
Damned Attitude Brought on Olympic Woes” (Civil Engineering
1976).

This paper has been assembled from a variety of sources rather
than firsthand observations. As such, it could be subject to the biases
of the authors of the source information and may be inadvertently
slanted. Care has been taken to balance the opposing viewpoints as
much as possible.

Olympic Games, Politics, and Prestige

The quadrennial Olympic Games are so prestigious that cities and
countries commit substantial resources to bidding for the right to
hold them and then invest heavily in the facilities in which to hold
them. For the 1976 Games, Moscow and Los Angeles both bid
against Montreal, and concerns about cold war politics weighted the
scales in Montreal’s favor. Moscow would host the 1980 Games,
boycotted by the United States and its allies, and Los Angeles would
host the 1984 Games, boycotted by the Soviet Union and its allies,
showing that the concerns about politics were well-founded. The
Montreal Games also took place against the backdrop of the 1972
Munich Games and the hostage crisis that resulted in the death of
Israeli athletes. After 1972, there were concerns about how the
Games could go on, if they should, and how they could be kept safe.

Kidd (1992) contends that the politics of Canada, Quebec, and
Montreal played a large part in the difficulties of the 1976 Games.
Much of the tension was brought about by the resurgence of
Quebec’s Francophone nationalism and the succession movement.
In addition, Montreal had long been dominated economically, po­
litically, and culturally by a small Anglophone elite that was at odds
with the Quebec nationalism movement. The federal government of
Canada supported Montreal’s bid reluctantly and ruled out direct
financial support for the Games. Furthermore, Mayor Drapeau and
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau did not trust each other. As
a result, it took a long time to set up the Olympic lottery and coin and
stamp program to support the Games, which cost 34 months of lead
time. The program was slowed by unpaid bills until the Province of
Quebec reluctantly agreed to accept responsibility for any deficit in
early 1973.

The potential embarrassment of missing the opening of the
Games provided a fixed construction deadline. The planning started
about 2 years too late, and scheduling fell apart because it was phy­
sically impossible to accommodate all the construction activities
on the project site. The City of Montreal was too slow in preparing
bid documents, so the work could not be competitively bid but
was instead awarded to selected contractors. Double crews, double
shifts, and overtime were used to attempt to increase productivity,
but because of congestion, the increase in productivity was slight
(Neil 1979).

Political turmoil intervened during the Montreal Games. Canada
refused to allow the Republic of China (Taiwan) to compete because
Canada had recognized the People’s Republic of China in 1970,
despite the fact that the Republic of China was a member of the
International Olympic Committee (IOC). This caused considerable
friction with the United States. A much larger issue came about
involving New Zealand’s participation in the Games because the

New Zealand rugby team had just played in South Africa, and South
Africa was barred from the Olympics during the apartheid era. Just
before the Montreal Olympics started, 28 African countries walked
out of the Games, joined by Guyana and Iraq (Strenk 1978).

The issues of the politics and prestige of the Olympic Games
have continued since Montreal. “There’s a myth growing, on this
Olympic mess, that it all started with the tacky, overcommercialized
Summer Games in Atlanta. Which led to all the bribes and greed of
Salt Lake City. It’s a nice myth, but it’s wrong. The real sleaze got its
start with Jean Drapeau and the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.
There was the blueprint for corruption.” (Fotheringham 1999, p. 76).

Montreal Olympic Complex

The Montreal Olympic complex consisted of a main stadium, a ve­
lodrome (bicycle racing venue), roads, walkways, practice fields, an
Olympic Village housing facility, and other structures and land­
scaping. The complex is shown in Fig. 1.

Planning began in 1970, and preliminary estimates prepared at
that time indicated a projected cost for the entire complex of $120
million, including a projected cost for the main stadium of $40
million. The final cost in 1976 was $1.5 billion, with $836 million
for the main stadium. In addition to the cost overruns, there were
considerable time overruns, which meant that the complex was al­
most not completed in time for the Olympics, and some of the final
activities were still ongoing at the time the Olympics started. Major
components originally planned, such as the retractable roof, were
not begun until after the Olympics (Neil 1979).

The original owner was the City of Montreal, Quebec, which
contracted with architect Roger Taillibert to design the Olympic
Park, including the Olympic Stadium and velodrome (Auf der Maur
1976). Mr. Taillibert lived and conducted business in Paris, France.
Both the velodrome and Olympic Stadium were relatively unusual,
unique artistic creations.

The Mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, has been criticized for an
almost worshipful attitude toward Taillibert. The mayor rejected
cuts that could have saved up to $146 million. He insisted on
building the stadium of concrete rather than steel because Taillibert
was a precast-concrete expert—although a steel stadium might have
cost $100 million less (Civil Engineering 1976).

Taillabert, who was to be paid $10–15 million for his work, did
not help public relations with his lack of modesty, saying “That’s all

Fig. 1. Olympic Stadium complex during the 1976 Olympic Games
(Parc Olympic Quebec 2011; credit: Olympic Park of Montréal)

Canadians and North Americans talk about—money, money,
money. It doesn’t interest me at all,” telling a reporter “Are you
aware that the building of the stadium and velodrome constitutes
a great moment in the history of architecture and technology?” (Civil
Engineering 1976).

Velodrome

Prior to bidding for the Olympic Games, the City of Montreal had
already committed to hosting the World Cycling Championships in
the Olympic velodrome for the summer of 1974. Construction of
the velodrome began in August 1973, a year in advance of the
scheduled opening of the Championships on August 14, 1974.
However, it turned out that the rocky subsoil was not solid enough
to support the roof—a fact that had not been found by geologic
soundings and subsurface tests. The location near the Saint Law­
rence River, however, hinted at probable subsurface difficulties. The
foundation problems, along with labor union conflicts, ensured that
the velodrome could not open in time for the Championships. A
temporary facility was quickly built at the University of Montréal
football stadium. The makeshift site had an excellent view of
Mount Royal and would have served very well for the Olympic
Games, although the spectator capacity would have been less. The
incident highlighted the problems with the Olympic construction,
but by this time there were less than 2 years left to go (Howell
2009).

The contract for the velodrome construction was awarded to
prime contractor Charles Duranceau with a $12 million bid, based
on half-complete plans, in August 1973, and construction began
later that year. It was the first and last contract of the Montreal
Olympics issued through public bidding (Auf der Maur 1976).

The velodrome consisted of three arches supported by abut­
ments. It was designed to have the appearance of a cycling helmet,
as shown in Fig. 2. The structure consisted almost entirely of arches
171 m (560 ft) long and rising to 27 m (90 ft) high. The arches were
made of precast-concrete sections positioned onto falsework on site
and then posttensioned (D’Appolonia 1990).

The horizontal component H of the arch thrust is given by

qL2
H ¼ ð1Þ

8d

where q 5 uniform load along the arch, L 5 span of the arch, and d 5
height of the arch. For a given span L, as the depth decreases, the
horizontal force increases. The low aspect ratio d/L of the arch, about
1:6, produced very high horizontal thrust forces.

The arch was supported by four abutments, designated W, X, Y,
and Z in Fig. 3. Abutments X and Y were founded on good rock, but
the rock was of questionable quality at Abutments W and Z. Addi­
tional investigations showed that the rock was broken up to a depth
of about 6 m (20 ft) and was over a thin layer of clay shale 150–600
mm (6 in. to 2 ft) thick. The thin layer represented a potential slip
surface for the abutments, and as a result, tendons had to be driven
through that layer into competent rock (D’Appolonia 1990) (Fig. 4).
Abutment Z, unlike the other three abutments, takes the combined
thrust of three arches and, as a result, has to resist the highest forces.

A critical construction operation was the decentering, or re­
moval of the supporting falsework for the arches. The process
would create the greatest loads on the abutments, about 32,000 tons
on Abutment Z. A total of 36 jacks were used, each with a stroke
of 25 mm (1 in.). Only 13 mm (0.5 in.) of displacement could be
tolerated during decentering, and the operation was carefully mon­
itored (D’Appolonia 1990).

The soil problem of low bearing capacity and the high loads on
the abutments had resulted in substantial time delays and cost
overruns for the foundation work. Although the foundation of the
velodrome had been estimated to cost $497,576, the final cost was
$7,171, 876 because of the extensive grouting and anchorage system
shown in Fig. 4. A large part of the construction delay was because
the contractor had to wait on Taillibert to finish the plans. Once the
final plans were received, it was necessary to develop construction
plans for the falsework. The work quickly fell behind, and it was

Fig. 2. Velodrome, now a biodome (Wikipedia Commons, http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Biodome_Montreal , photograph by
PtitLutin)

Fig. 3. Plan and elevation of velodrome (1 ft 5 0:3 m)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Biodome_Montreal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Biodome_Montreal

obvious that the 1974 date could not be met. More workers were
hired, and extensive overtime was authorized, but the extra workers
mostly got in each others’ way. By late fall 1974, $34 million had been
spent on the velodrome, and it was not complete. New subcontractors
were hired. Given the time constraints, most of the construction
contracts were cost plus rather than low-bid fixed-cost contracts.
There also were a number of labor problems, such as tasks taking
too long, strikes, overtime, and extra equipment, which themselves
added about $12 million to the project cost (Auf der Maur 1976).

The final cost for the 7,000-seat velodrome was approximately
$70 million, compared with a $60 million cost for a 60,000-seat
domed stadium in Seattle, Washington, at the same time. The cost
per seat was 10 times as high. There also remained the concern that
acrylic panels in the roof posed a fire hazard (Auf der Maur 1976).

Anton Tedesko was known for his efficient thin-concrete-shell
structures, epitomized by the Hershey Arena that spanned 67 m
(220 ft) with a shell only 89 mm (3.5 in.) thick (Billington and
Billington 2006). He was strongly critical of the velodrome, stating
that it should have had a greater construction depth (or height) that
would have greatly reduced the forces. As Eq. (1) shows, H is in­
versely proportional to d. It could also have been more structurally
efficient if the dome and three-dimensional action had been con­
sidered in the design. Tedesko stated that the structures “do damage
to the cause of concrete. Our young people should be told that these
structures did not have to be done this way. As built, this gigantic
demonstration project is almost an argument against the use of con­
crete and for the use of structural steel or aluminum under similar
circumstances in the future” (Civil Engineering 1976, pp. 50–51).

The velodrome was renovated starting in 1989 and transformed
into a biodome managed by the City of Montreal in 1992. It is now
part of the Montreal Nature Museum (Parc Olympique Quebec 2011).

Olympic Stadium

All the structures were dramatic, modern, and complex, none more
so than the main stadium. The stadium may be seen in the upper

Fig. 4. Typical arch abutment (Abutment Z) (1 ft 5 0:3 m)

right of Fig. 1 and in its final configuration in Fig. 5. The stadium
had a number of unusual features. It was intended to resemble an
elliptical seashell with a handle, which would have a retractable
fabric cover hanging from a tall mast over the opening. As Fig. 1
shows, the mast and cover were not in place at the time of the Olympics
(Neil 1979). They were added later and may be seen in Fig. 5.

The general structural form appears to be a large elliptical dome
with an opening in the middle for the fabric roof. If it were, in fact,
a thin dome with a compression ring, it would be an efficient struc­
tural form. However, it isn’t. The main structural members are com­
plex precast concrete ribs, shown in Fig. 6. The ribs cantilever out
over the stadium, and although the hollow ring inside the roof carries
lighting and other support systems, it is not designed to carry com­
pression forces. Because of the gentle slope of the roof, each pair
of ribs is a different size. The ribs were glued and posttensioned.
They proved to be very difficult to erect, so misalignments of the ribs
were as much as 150 mm (6 in.). This was a problem because the
posttensioning cables had to be threaded through tubes in the ring.
During the winter, some empty posttensioning ducts became full of
ice, and considerable time and expense were involved in removing

Fig. 5. Olympic Stadium (Wikipedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/File:Le_Stade_Olympique_3 )

Fig. 6. Ribs of the Olympic Stadium (Parc Olympic Quebec 2011;
credit: Olympic Park of Montréal)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Le_Stade_Olympique_3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Le_Stade_Olympique_3

the ice (Neil 1979). It has been estimated that if all the ribs had been
the same size, $20–30 million could have been saved (Civil Engi­
neering 1976).

Furthermore, the stadium design did not consider construct-
ability and did not leave room for interior scaffolding. Many cranes
were used instead, some holding ribs, and others holding workers,
tools, and materials. Fig. 7 shows the congestion of cranes in the
stadium. At one point, 80 cranes were used in the main stadium, and
it was estimated that doubling the number of cranes only increased
productivity 25% because they could not work effectively given that
they were in each other’s way (Neil 1979).

“At one stage, there was a forest of 200 building cranes on the
stadium site, some from as far as Calgary, while gravel truck drivers
gleefully drove in, collected their fee, and then drove out the other
end, unloaded, and just went around the block again. Skilled
workers, at seven 10-hour shifts a week, pulled down $1,500 weekly
by doing only 2 hours a day of actual work” (Fotheringham 1999,
p. 76).

Although epoxy-glued, posttensioned construction had been
used successfully in Europe, it was new to the North American
contractors. As with any new technology, there was a difficult
learning process (Neil 1979). With the time constraints on this
project, the use of an unfamiliar technique was not a good idea.

Taillibert did not deliver the plans and specifications for the
Olympic Stadium until the late summer of 1974. He had already
gained a reputation for late delivery of construction documents. The
contract to build the Olympic Stadium was awarded to Desourdy and
Duranceau, as cost plus $9 million profit with a $1 million bonus if
the site were ready on time. The contract was awarded without
public tenders. It was a strange choice of contractor, given that
Duranceau was already buried in difficulties with the velodrome.
The Province of Quebec forced the hiring of Lalonde, Valois,
Lamarre, Valois & Associates (known as Lalonde, Valois) as project
manager over Drapeau’s resistance. The cost estimates of Lalonde,
Valois proved to be no better than any of the others (Auf der Maur
1976).

At the beginning of 1975, the Olympic Organizing Committee
(referred to as COJO from Comité de contrôle des Jeux olympiques)
was very concerned about completion of the stadium and began to
look for alternatives, such as finding or building a cheaper stadium
nearby. Mayor Drapeau called an elaborate press conference to
explain the cost projections and provide assurances that the stadium
would be ready on time. He referred to a funding gap of $200 million,

Fig. 7. Cranes at work in the Olympic Stadium (Parc Olympic Quebec
2011; credit: Olympic Park of Montréal)

refusing to call it a deficit. The alternate-stadium concept was
scrapped (Auf der Maur 1976).

Very generous terms were given to the precasters who built the
concrete ribs, including a $230,000 rental of one plant for Olympic
construction and a $500,000 extension built onto another plant with
public funds, plus $685,000 in cash bonuses and honoraria. Pre-
casting costs rose from $16 million to $42 million (Auf der Maur
1976).

Late in the game, Taillibert insisted on adding a water cascade to
the top of the parking garages connected to the stadium, adding at
least $8 million to the cost. The parking garages, originally budgeted
for an extravagant $25 million, cost $60 million, or about $13,000
per parking space. The water cascade also would require 113 million
L (30 million gal) of water (Auf der Maur 1976).

Mayor Drapeau, with no engineering or architecture qualifica­
tions, had spent much time poring over plans and going to the
construction site to give orders, which confused the workers. Then,
on December 13, 1974, Drapeau sent a representative to a meeting to
say that the stadium construction would cost substantially more. The
project continued to be troubled by labor demonstrations and strikes.
Finally, on November 19, 1975, the Province of Quebec created the
Régie des Installations Olympiques (RIO) to complete construction
of the Olympic Park and take over as owner. Drapeau and Taillibert
were now off the site. In assuming control from the City of Montreal,
however, Quebec also assumed the expense (Howell 2009).

Quebec advanced $200 million for the project but in return had to
delay other important construction in Montreal, such as the subway
and a sewage treatment plant. At that time, Montreal was one of the
few cities in the Western world still dumping raw, untreated sewage
into a river. Bills were paid, and construction continued, with no
better cost control than before (Auf der Maur 1976).

The final cost for the stadium was approximately $13,000 per
seat, compared with approximately $2,400 per seat for the Super-
dome in New Orleans, Louisiana, constructed at approximately
the same time (Neil 1979). The stadium was nicknamed the Big O
because of its name and shape, but it later became known as the Big
Owe (“Quebec’s” 2006).

Tedesko and consulting engineer Lev Zetlin both criticized the
stadium. Tedesko noted that anyone familiar with match-cast post-
tensioned precast-concrete construction would have predicted the
difficulties encountered. Zetlin stated that a large-span structure
should be light, permit a large margin of error in the field, and use
construction methods that were as simple as possible, and the
Montreal Olympic Stadium violated all these principles. He further
criticized the heavy roof as a dead weight on top of the building
(Civil Engineering 1976).

After the 1976 Olympics, the Olympic Stadium saga continued.
It was found that the tower could not be completed as planned in
concrete without major structural work because it would be too
heavy and that the tower would be overstressed by the Canadian
standard (“Court” 1983). The tower was completed in steel and was
damaged by a fire during construction (“Fire” 1986). The roof and
tower were completed, but the retractable Kevlar roof was not in­
stalled until 1986 and was stored in France and then Montreal at
a cost of several million dollars. In 1989, the roof developed huge
tears because of air pressure (“Experts” 1989). In 1991, a 55-t chunk
of the roof fell after support beams snapped, forcing an extended
closure. Fortunately, there were no injuries. All 33 beams had to be
reinforced at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars. The failure
may have been because of the use of an improper (e.g., not corrosion-
resistant) type of steel or poor welding (“55-ton” 1991; “Suspect”
1991). Finally, RIO decided to replace the roof (“Fixing” 1993). The
new roof tore again in the winter of 1999, forcing the cancellation of an
auto show and a subsequent boat show (“Stadium” 1999).

Olympic Village

The Olympic Village project began in 1970, when at the presen­
tations to win the Olympic bid in Amsterdam, Jean Drapeau an­
nounced that the Olympic Village would be a low-rise structure
that would be placed just to the east of the Olympic Stadium and
Velodrome. The mayor said that the village would be used to pro­
vide for 4,000 low-cost housing units after the Olympics were over,
serving up to 14,000 tenants. The concept would fit in well for his
self-financing Olympics because the Central Mortgage and Housing
Commission (CMHC) would provide 95% of the clearance cost and
75% of the construction cost (Auf der Maur 1976).

There was a great debate on both where to place the Olympic
Village and whether the village would be centralized or spread out.
There were many protests against placing the complex in Viau Park
because it would take away green space from a city that didn’t have
much of it. However, at the end of 1972, Mayor Drapeau announced
that the Olympic Village was going to be built in the park and that the
village would be centralized, over all objections. The city also
destroyed 125 elm trees on the site after promising not to remove
any (Auf der Maur 1976).

“In January 1974, a group from Montreal arrived in Baie des
Anges, on the Côte d’Azur in southern France, the site of a spec­
tacular pyramid-shaped condominium complex designed by archi­
tect André Minangoy. The visitors, who included Montreal developer
Joseph Zappia, told the sales director of the Baie des Anges project
that they had been selected to build the Olympic Village for 1976. This
was odd because the deadline for tenders was not until March 1,
almost two months in the future” (Auf der Maur 1976).

When the project went out to bid, 53 different groups or com­
panies had paid the $100 to pick up the preliminary specifications
and requirements. However, as the March 1 deadline came and went,
the city announced that there were no suitable proposals and that the
deadline was going to be postponed indefinitely. As time went on,
many of the bidding companies never heard anything at all from the
city regarding their respective bids. For example, a British developer
had spent in the vicinity of $400,000 to develop a private plan, which
required no excess public money. The bid was submitted in the
summer of 1973, well before the deadline. Unfortunately for the
developer, his company never received a yes or a no regarding
the subject. After never receiving a reply, the developer packed up,
left, and vowed that he would never conduct business in Quebec
again. Other strong bids were also ignored (Auf der Maur 1976).

At a meeting on June 28, 1974, Mayor Drapeau announced that
a group called Las Terrasses Zarolega would construct the Olympic
Village. It seemed to be the first indication for most that Zarolega
even existed. Although the original call for proposals specified
1,800 units (mysteriously down from 4,000), Zarolega proposed to
build only 932 units. To house 12,000 athletes, as many as 12 people
would have to sleep in the larger two-bedroom units, and many
would have to sleep in the kitchens. The design was ill suited for
Montreal’s cold winters because there were no indoor corridors, and
the units had to be accessed by walking up to 180 m (600 ft) along
exterior balconies open to the wind. The previously mentioned
Zappia was one of the four partners of Zarolega (Auf der Maur
1976).

Responsibility for construction of the Olympic Village had been
left vague until very late in the process. The original idea was that
either a private developer or the city’s public housing commission
would develop the village and keep it separate from COJO. On
October 22, 1974, Lord Killanin, head of the IOC, phoned to say that
if the City of Montreal did not have a contract in place by the time of
the IOC’s upcoming Vienna meeting (October 20, 1974), the IOC

would consider transferring the Games to another city. The Olympic
Village task became the responsibility of COJO, mostly because
Drapeau was so far behind. The original budget had not included the
village under the premise that it would be built, financed, and owned
by the private sector with funding support from the city’s public
housing through the CMHC. It turned out, however, that the pyramid
configuration disqualified the project for CMHC funding—only
buildings that had widths greater than their heights could be sup­
ported. This could have, and should have, been determined much
earlier in the process (Howell 2009). Another reason given by
Zarolega for the lack of CMHC support was that units in the
$20,000–$60,000 price range hardly qualified as low-cost public
housing (Auf der Maur 1976).

Although the IOC tried to consider alternatives, it was clear that
the Zarolega plan was locked in, and there weren’t really any levers
with which to negotiate. Cost estimates rose from the $30 million
estimated by Zarolega on October 19, 1974, to $70 million. On
March 7, 1975, the IOC contracted with Hanscomb Roy and Asso­
ciates to oversee the Olympic Village construction. There were
concerns that COJO had no charter to own property and would be
paying Zarolega twice, once before the Games and again for post-
Game renovations to resell the units for apartments (Howell 2009).

Zarolega received a generous cost-plus contract without a not-to­
exceed clause. The plus was 12% on the first $30 million and 6% on
anything above. Zarolega estimated that the project would not ex­
ceed $45 million. Concerns about the potential cost led to the gov­
ernment committee hiring of a consultant for a second opinion. He
predicted a project cost of $55–58 million, with a possible $10
million overtime bill. Despite the second opinion, the committee
went with the Zarolega estimate. A number of problems occurred
during the construction, including outrageous subcontracts, dan­
gerous construction techniques, poor coordination, and theft. Many
construction operations were managed so as to generate the highest
costs and thus the highest profits, with profits on the work required to
fix previous botched work. A new consultant was brought in to
manage the construction, with limited success. The actual cost for
the Olympic Village was approximately $70 million. The project
eventually resulted in a police raid and investigation (Auf der Maur
1976).

On completion of the complex structure in August 1975, there
was a ceremony in which a tree was hoisted to the top of the building.
Not long after all the dignitaries left, a piece of the eighth-floor
balcony went crashing down onto the balconies below. After in­
vestigation, it was concluded that the balcony had failed owing to
a lack of proper anchoring (Auf der Maur 1976).

The completed Olympic Village is shown in Fig. 8. The Olympic
Village was intended to be sold as apartment buildings after the
Games (Howell 2009). RIO managed the property after the Games,
and by 1980, all 981 apartments had been rented, and the village
had 2,000 residents. The Olympic Village was sold to private
interests in 1998 (Parc Olympique Quebec 2011). It is hard to
imagine that the purchase price was anywhere close to the $70
million it cost to build the village because that would be more than
$70,000 per unit.

Viaduct

The main-road viaduct also had a relatively high construction cost
because of its design. Although the main road was straight, the
viaduct had a complex design, with curved faces and outstretched
legs. The curved surfaces resulted in the inability to use standard,
reusable formwork. The formwork cost for some parts of the viaduct
was as much as $4,300/m2 ($400/ft2), about 15 times the cost of

Fig. 8. Olympic Village (Wikipedia Commons, http://commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olympic_Village_Montreal_Jan_2008.JPG)

conventional formwork. Hence, the final cost of the viaduct was
approximately $14 million versus a projected cost of only $5 million
if a more conventional design would have been used. The project
was so complex that no contractor would bid on a fixed-price con­
tract. The contractor who built it demanded a cost-plus-fixed-fee
contract under conditions that he would not be responsible for the
final structure (Neil 1979).

The 180-m-long (600-ft-long) viaduct used a complicated
inverted triangular pillar system for support. An engineering firm
proposed changes, but Drapeau turned them down because they
would interfere with Taillibert’s vision. The contractor could not
find scaffolding in Montreal, so new scaffolding was bought else­
where for $1.5 million (Auf der Maur 1976).

Systemic Problems

Neil (1979) discusses a number of systemic problems that affected
all aspects of the Olympic Complex construction. He notes that
union labor was used, and “approximately 80 days were lost to
strikes and the equivalent of about another 20 days . . . lost through
slowdowns. The project had all of the qualities which tempt labor
unions to take advantage of the client—there was a fixed schedule,
labor was scarce, and there were no agreements between labor and
management to restrict strikes” (Neil 1979).

With all the construction going on, labor and other resources
became scarce. This added to project costs. Poor weather inhibited
construction—not much a surprise given the northern climate of
Montreal. At the peak, construction heating measures cost $400,000
per day. In early 1976, the Province of Quebec issued an ultimatum
that the workers had to speed up or the project would be shut down
and the Games moved to other facilities. Following the ultimatum, in
better weather, productivity increased 500%. A plumbers’ and
electricians’ slowdown delayed final turnover of the project by
a week, until June 14, just 3 weeks before the start of the Games (Neil
1979). The extensive labor problems are described by Auf der Maur
(1976). There were also 12 workers killed during construction (Auf
der Maur 1976).

Another systemic problem was that all the design and engi­
neering were done in France using the metric or Système Inter­
national (SI) system of units. However, the project was built using

the English system of units, and all the drawings had to be converted
(Neil 1979).

Discussion

Others besides the mayor blindly defended Taillibert’s work as art.
Clement Vigneault, a structural engineer who collaborated with
Taillibert, compared it to a Picasso painting. Tedesko retorted,
saying that the Picasso painting should not be too large to fit in the
building, criticizing the lack of functionality of Taillibert’s designs.
Others disagreed as to whether the engineers should just facilitate the
architect’s art, or use and social implications had to be considered as
well. Overall, there was a consensus that Taillibert had developed his
designs, and then the structural engineers were brought in late to try
to make them work (“Experts” 1976).

Taillibert had received $6.8 million but sued RIO for $32.6
million in unpaid fees. RIO, in turn, countersued Taillibert for $18.6
million, contending that his errors and omissions had caused in­
excusable delays (“Court” 1983).

The Province of Quebec assembled a Commission of Inquiry on
the Cost of the 21st Olympiad (Province of Quebec 1980). The
charge of the committee was to study, in particular, the following:
1. The main causes of the increase in the cost of the Games and of

the Olympic installations;
2. The division of responsibility for this increase;
3. The methods of organizing and supervising the work;
4. The possibility of collusion, influence peddling, and fraudu­

lent or irregular activities;
5. The possibility of recovering some of the public funds used

and the appropriate measures to be taken to this end; and
6. Effective prevention and control mechanisms to avoid the

recurrence of such a situation in future major projects.
By and large the commission confirmed the allegations that Auf

der Maur (1976) had made 4 years before, observing that Drapeau
“appointed himself foreman and project manager” and “the choice of
the Olympic Village design without a call for tenders or competition,
solely because of Mayor Drapeau’s fascination with the installations of
the Baie des Anges Marina in France” (Province of Quebec 1980). The
Commission blamed Mayor Drapeau, Taillibert, and COJO, noting
also that the labor unions and the contractors and suppliers had rushed
to take full advantage of the situation. Specific instances of corrup­
tion proved hard to document because few witnesses were willing to
testify. To retire the debt, the City of Montreal borrowed $214 million
through a special Olympic tax on real property. Also, the Olympic
lottery was extended until December 31, 1979, and a special tobacco
tax had been imposed on May 12, 1976 (Province of Quebec 1980).

Opposing View

Paul Charles Howell wrote The Montreal Olympics: An Insider’s
View of Organizing a Self-Financing Games (Howell 2009) to
address what he called errors of fact and interpretation that have
routinely been reported in the media. He had been the head of
planning for COJO.

Howell blames cost overruns on the oil crisis of 1973 and in­
flation, and says “Despite this, the Montreal Organizers raised the
funds, paid for the staging of the Games, built and paid for the
Olympic Village, provided and paid for many of the competition and
training venues, and still handed over the considerable profit of
nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to pay for its use of government-
owned facilities and cover city-incurred costs of construction”
(Howell 2009).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olympic_Village_Montreal_Jan_2008.JPG

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olympic_Village_Montreal_Jan_2008.JPG

Howell also criticizes an often-used deficit figure of $2.192 bil­
lion, saying that it “seems to include the cost of adding the tower and
roof to the stadium after the games, converting the Velodrome to
a nature museum, and the cost of the Olympic Village without the
proceeds of the sale of the Olympic Village, plus all the late interest
payments made” (Howell 2009)

Howell also makes the interesting comment that Drapeau com­
mitted to using the critical-path method (CPM) and the similar
project evaluation and review technique (PERT), developed by the
U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), for
the Games but not for the construction of the stadium, where it might
have been very useful. Unfortunately, when the computer CPM/
PERT analysis was completed in November 1973, it projected that
the work could not be completed before January 1977—6 months
too late (Howell 2009).

Conclusion

On December 19, 2006, CBC News reported that the Olympic
complex’s debt had finally been paid off as of a month before. CBC
News noted, “After clinching the 1976 Olympics, the mayor of
Montreal at the time, Jean Drapeau, boasted the Games would be the
first auto-financed Olympics” (“Quebec’s” 2006).

There are a number of technical, procedural, and ethical issues
that contributed to the problems experienced by the Montreal
Olympics project. There was an unrealistic deadline for the project.
The City of Montreal was so late with design documents that most
work packages could not be bid. Instead, most of the contracts were
negotiated.

Project scheduling was forced to fit extremely tight deadlines. A
proper construction schedule is based on normal crews and con­
struction activity durations so that individual activities on a critical
path can be intelligently expedited or crashed, to prudently com­
pensate for project delays while minimizing increased costs. The
unrealistic nature of the schedules made it impossible to intelligently
crash selected activities.

Despite the lack of time available, unusual construction tech­
nologies were adopted. It was extremely difficult and labor-intensive
to construct the stadium with the precast posttensioned epoxy-
connected ribs of varying sizes. The use of one-of-a-kind, single-
use formwork for the curved surfaces of the viaduct also resulted
in increased costs.

The time constraints and schedule compression resulted in even
more simultaneous activities and an extremely crowded work space.
At one point there were 80 different cranes trying to operate in the
stadium. This resulted in cranes waiting for other cranes to finish
their lifts, and crews standing around waiting for their turn. Dou­
bling of the amount of cranes used on the job substantially increased
the equipment cost but only increased the productivity by 25%.

Given the size of the project, there was a shortage of local
resources. Labor, material, and equipment had to be brought in from
other areas. This resulted in additional transportation costs. It also
resulted in poorer-quality labor, as well as nonlocal labor not having
the same sense of civic pride as regular Montreal residents.

The original client was the City of Montreal, which did not have
the expertise and experience to manage a job of that magnitude. A
change in client occurred when the Province of Quebec was forced
to step in and assume the role. Although the change was necessary,
additional difficulties, such as communication problems, typically
occur when the major constituents change during a project. In ad­
dition, the relationship of the design professionals hindered prompt

communication. The client, architect, design engineers, and project
management did not function as a team.

The weather contributed to the problems, particularly because
weather protection and heating were needed, especially for the
concrete work and installation of the posttensioning tendons. The
project delays pushed much of that work into the winter months.

As noted previously, this paper has been assembled from a va­
riety of sources rather than firsthand observations. The different
authors of the available published materials hold widely varying
views as to the responsibility for the shortcomings. However, by and
large they are in agreement on the basic facts. Care has been taken to
balance the opposing viewpoints as much as possible.

Acknowledgments

This material is based on work supported by the National Science
Foundation under Grant No. 0919487. The conclusions and content
are gleaned from available published materials and are not the opin­
ions of ASCE. This case study was originally drafted by the first au­
thor as an honors thesis as part of the requirements of Cleveland
State University’s undergraduate honors program. Thanks to the
Olympic Park of Montréal for providing the photographs for Figs. 1,
6, and 7. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommenda­
tions expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

References

Auf der Maur, N. (1976). The billion-dollar game: Jean Drapeau and the
1976 Olympics, James Lorimer, Toronto.

Billington, D. P., and Billington, D. P., Jr. (2006). Power, speed, and form:
Engineers and the making of the twentieth century, Princeton University
Press, Princeton, NJ.

“Court hears arena suit.” (1983). ENR, Oct. 20.
D’Appolonia, E. (1990). “Monitored decisions.” J. Geotech. Eng., 116(1),

4–34.
“Experts slam the Olympic structures of Montreal.” (1976). Civil Engi­

neering, Dec., 46(12), 50–54.
“Experts studying rips in roof of Montreal stadium.” (1989). ENR, Dec. 13.
“55-ton concrete beam falls from Montreal stadium.” (1991). ENR, Sep. 23, 9.
“Fire damages stadium mast.” (1986). ENR, Sep. 11.
“Fixing the roof with a fixed roof.” (1983). ENR, Jan. 15.
Fotheringham, A. (1999). “The woes of the Olympics began in Montreal.”

Macleans, 112(6), 76.
Howell, P. C. (2009). The Montreal Olympics: An insider’s view of organizing

a self-financing games, McGill–Queen’s University Press, Montreal.

Kidd, B. (1992). “The culture wars of the Montreal Olympics.” Int. Rev.

Sociol. Sport, 27(2), 151–162.
Neil, J. (1979). Construction cost estimating concepts and their applica­

tions, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1–8.
Parc Olympique Quebec. (2011). Æhttp://www.rio.gouv.qc.ca/æ (Jun. 17,

2011).
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of the Twenty-First Olympiad: 1980, Vols. I and II, Les Presses du
Service des Impressions en regie du Bureau de l’Editeur official du
Quebec, Quebec.

“Quebec’s big owe stadium debt is over.” (2006). CBC News, Dec. 19,
Æhttp://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/12/19/qc-olympicstadium
.htmlæ (Jun. 10, 2011).

“Stadium fabric roof tears again.” (1999). ENR, Feb. 9.
Strenk, A. (1978). “Back to the very first day: Eighty years of politics in

the Olympic Games.” J. Sport Social Issues, 2(24), 1–6.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9410(1990)116:1(4)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/101269029202700205

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/101269029202700205

http://www.rio.gouv.qc.ca

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/12/19/qc-olympicstadium.html

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/12/19/qc-olympicstadium.html

libuser
Typewritten Text
Post-print standardized by MSL Academic Endeavors, the imprint of the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University, 2014

• 1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project Management Failure

Publisher’s Statement
Original Citation
1976 Montreal Olympics: Case Study of Project Management Failure

Case Study on Montreal Olympics

Question 1

Use the initial and final WBS to create two high-level budgets for the project. These two should be the initial and final budgets. Explain the difference.

Need 1.5 pages answer. No plagiarism

Question 2

1. Provide two Level 3 Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) for this project. These two should be the intial (or planned) and final (or actual) WBS. Explain the difference.

2. Based on above, was there an evidence of scope creep in the project? Provide rationale.

3. Create one network diagram for the project using the final WBS in above.

4. Use the Level 2 tasks in the final WBS to create one GANTT chart for the project. 

5. Use the initial and final WBS to create two high-level budgets for the project. These two should be the initial and final budgets. Explain the difference.

6. Using the risk sources, describe three major (broad) categories of risks in the project.

7. Using a table, list at least ten individual risks ranked by severity, and also link each of them to one of the categories in above

8. For each risk in above, describe at least one thing that was done, or could have been done to mitigate that risk.

9. Was there adequate quality management processes in place (including quality planning, quality assurance and quality control)? Provide rationale. 

10. Was there adequate outsourcing in the project? Provide rationale.

Need 7 Pages answer. No plagiarism

Both answer are depending on attached case study. But I need Question 1 for my friend and Question 2 for me. Need different answers separately. Both are not related.