Athletes and Students Issue Challenge to Olympics

The Olympic motto may just be adding a fourth line: Faster, Higher, Stronger…Cleaner? 

Canadians are being invited to summon their Olympian ideals and join Project Blue Sky. The goal? One billion human-powered kilometers logged before the closing ceremonies of the Paralympic Games in March 2010.

It’s essentially an online carbon offset project. In conjunction with the Vancouver games, ordinary people alike are encouraged to join Canadian athletes in using Blue Sky’s widget. It logs distance walking, cycling, transit riding, hurdling – basically any travel that’s not driving or flying. 

The project was masterminded by Canadian Olympic Committee’s Athlete Council and Masters students at the Centre for Digital Media in Vancouver. After consulting Offsetters Clean Technology Inc. – official Carbon Offset Supplier of the Olympics for the website’s CO2 calculations – the company joined as a sponsor.

The website is billed as a “meeting place” for athletes and participants. Like other networking sites, registration is necessary but free. You can track your favourite participating athletes, share photos, and compete in the CO2 footprint event. Like golf, smaller numbers win. 

That said, you don’t have to visit the site every time you want to add a km or two. You don’t need to register in order to submit your own man-powered kilometers, and the widget can be moved to other social networking pages.

Membership does have its privileges, though. Athlete profile pages list their favourite movies, artists, and most importantly, why they were motivated to join the Blue Sky Project.