The ski jump facility in Calgary pictured in the summer of 2005 ©Wikimedia

The ski jumping venue used for the Calgary 1988 Winter Olympic Games is scheduled for complete decommissioning later this year and will not be used if the city is awarded the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

The two largest jumps at the Winsport venue, which were built for the 1988 Olympics, have already been shut down and the three remaining smaller jumps are set to follow suit later this year.

Venue manager Mike Tanner blamed "waning interest" in the sport as well as the lack of funds to cover the costs of repair and renovation work.

Ski jumping is instead likely to take place at the Whistler site used for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics if Calgary's 2026 attempt is successful.

"They [the jumps] are falling apart," Tanner told CBC.

"If you were to walk around the small ski jump site, you would see that the judge's towers are falling apart, the stairs are falling apart.

"There's a whole scale from minor repairs to re-profiling the jumps to make them meet modern standards."

Winsport claim it costs approximately $500,000 (£375,000/€425,000) per year to maintain the sites. 

Britain's first-ever ski jumper Eddie
Britain's first-ever ski jumper Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards pictured competing at the Calgary 1988 Winter Olympic Games ©Getty Images

A preliminary report by Calgary's Bid Exploration Committee found many problems with the Winsport site and ruled that the expensive renovation work would not be worth it.

"It's really the cost of rebuilding these ski jumps to Olympic standards, and during discussions with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), they're trying to reduce costs for Olympic Games preparations," Tanner added. 

"They've recommended using the jumps that already exist [in Whistler]. 

Other groups, however, claim less renovation is required and the benefits would be worth the cost.

"To see this torn down, to me is just a shameful disregard for the proud legacy that we built here," Alberta Ski Jump chair Mike Bodnarchuk told CBC. 

"And it's the death knell for Ski Jumping Canada if they shut this place down."

Funding of more than CAD$6.8 million (£3.9 million/$5.3 million/4.5 million) has been announced by the Canadian Government, however, to upgrade the nearby Calgary Olympic Park sliding track.

Sion in Switzerland, Graz in Austria, Sapporo in Japan, Erzurum in Turkey and Stockholm in Sweden are among the other contenders for the 2026 Winter Olympics, as well as a joint Italian bid from Milan, Turin and Cortina d'Ampezzo.

A host city is due to be chosen by the IOC in 2019.