Olympic Basin History
Before the Games of the XXI Olympiad in 1976, there were no facilities in the Montreal region for competitive rowing and canoeing. COJO (Comité organisateur des jeux olympiques) and the City of Montreal consequently decided to transform part of Notre Dame Island to serve as the site of the Olympic Basin.
Former Expo 67 site
Located in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, within easy reach of the city and 9.6 km from the Olympic Village, Notre Dame Island was the site of the 1967 World Exhibition (Expo 67) and could readily be transformed for the Games. The fact that it was an artificial island, almost entirely man-made, would greatly facilitate excavation work and, moreover, the direction of the prevailing winds would provide the best possible conditions for competitors.
The City of Montreal Public Works Department undertook the modifications to Notre Dame Island in May 1974. Besides creating a basin 2,180 x 110 m with a constant depth of 2.3 m, the work would involve renovations to a number of buildings at the site and the erection of several new structures.
In the vicinity of the finish line, 2,000 permanent seats were provided by installing concrete slabs and brightly colored plastic seats. A further 7,000 temporary seats were provided by anchoring large blocks of wood in the banking and there was also standing room for another 20,000.
When completed, the Olympic Basin was a totally artificial lake, divided into six lanes of 13.5 m for rowing and nine lanes nine metres wide for canoeing competitions.
To diminish wind action in the competition zone, the water in the basin was maintained at a level lower than that of the St. Lawrence River.
Advantageous location
The great advantage of Notre Dame Island was that it would provide the only major rowing facility in the world located virtually in the center of a major metropolitan area. The main spectator stands are, in fact, only five minutes walk from a subway station, and only 15 minutes from downtown by automobile!
The Fédération internationale des sociétés d'aviron (FISA) hesitated for some time before approving the site, however, since the contours of the artificial island restricted the width of the basin to 110 metres and the depth to 2.3 metres. The latter seemed the more serious problem, since rowing shells send shock waves forward and downward as the bow plunges ahead with each sweep of the oars. With the smaller singles, doubles, and four-manned shells, the shock waves come up behind the craft, but with the great eights, a depth of just 2.3 metres brings the rebounding shock back into the boat approximately amidships. The federation consequently prefers a depth of three metres on all international courses.
After due consideration, however, FISA finally gave full approval to Notre Dame Island in the belief that proximity to downtown Montreal far outweighed the disadvantages. Besides, it was noted that although conditions for the eights would not be perfect, they would be the same for all boats and thus absolutely fair.
Montreal Olympics ‘76 — first time for women rowers
The introduction of women's rowing events into the Olympics for the first time induced Montreal organizers to modify the timing system.
Under FISA regulations, electronic timing stations, complete with cameras and videotape recorders, are located every 500 metres along the men's 2,000-m course. But, since the women's course was fixed at 1,000 metres, this would have given competitors only one intermediate time. Organizers, therefore, installed two additional towers at the 250- and 750-metre marks. [Not until 1988 in Seoul were women's Olympic rowing events changed to 2,000 metres].
Once the Games were over, Montrealers found themselves with one of the best equipped rowing and canoeing basins in the world.
(From the Official Report of the Games of the XXI Olympiad Montreal 1976: Vol. I – Organization & Vol. II – Facilities)
CAM-MRC wishes to thank Ann Rajan for the research on this article.