So I keep hearing athletes thanking Own The Podium (OTP) after every event when they are being interviewed. Here is a little bit about OTP.
The Canadian Olympic Committee, the Vancouver organizing committee and Canada's sport federations established the program Own The Podium five years ago with the goal of winning more medals than any other country in 2010. It was an ambitious plan, but the feeling was that the Canadian team needed to aim high and capture the imagination of the Canadian public.
That Canadian public invested heavily in the program. Of the $117 million invested in athletes, $66 million of it was taxpayer dollars.
I get it and I fully agree with such a program because it is what we need if we want to be represented by the best this great land has to offer. Unfortunately, we are going to rent space on that podium but certainly not own it because the Americans already have 15 more medals than us.
I had a quick look at the OTW numbers and out of the $22 million and change for the 2010 Olympics training, a little over $7 million or one third was dedicated to the alpine skiing team and the speed skating team. These two sports received $3.4 and $3.8 million respectively leaving the other 12 sports with much less funding for the 2009/10 year. How many medals did we get from those two sports? Christine Nesbitt (Gold), Christina Groves (Silver and Bronze) and Marianne St-Gelais (Silver) produced four of the nine medals and all in the speed skating category. None were delivered from the Alpine Skiing. Freestyle skiing and snowboard cross with $2 million each produced four medals (2 x Gold and 2 x Silver) so they did what was expected of them. Jon Montgomery (Gold) was in the $2 million pot for the bobsleigh teams.
So we have some curling, figure skating, team speed skating, areal ski jumping and hockey left. I believe we will get 6 more medals in these sports and if the men's hockey team start playing for real we may get a seventh one. I realy don't know how the women figure skating will fair because Chan and the other men did not do well. The ice dance got a gold so that's pretty good.
Was OTP successful? I don't believe it was because the sports where we got medals are OUR sports where Canadians have always excelled and been medal contenders so those were almost certain. However, the Hamelin brothers failed to deliver in a sport invented by Quebec skaters, Clara Hugues, Cindy Klassen and Jeremy Witherspoon were no better, running out of steam and frankly, they did not look ready for this. The team events in speed skating should produce one or two medals but if their individual results are any indication, we'll be fourth. If only they had a medal for fourth we'd be leading in numbers.
I hope OTP continues to invest in our athletes. They (OTP) will have to do better in London 2012 and should stress the importance of the commitment from the Canadian taxpayer so athletes show up ready and determined to win GOLD.
For now we don't Own The Podium, we just rent it for the occasional medal ceremony.
Chuck
1 comment:
I'm not sure money stimulates our athletes to do better. Obviously they have better coaches, better equipment and can train with a small salary but they're missing people's supports. We are a hockey country. Nothing else brings up the passion in the general population. We need to be educated on other sports and we need to know and follow those athletes more than once every four years. In Norway Pierre Harvey is recognised and asked for his autograph even after years out of the competition. His son will be best known in those scandinavian countries now than here in Canada. To make sure they give their best, these athletes need to be supported by, not only our taxes, but by our applauses and recognition all the time. These athletes do this out of passion not money and they should at least get our attention all year long when they perform. Who wouldn't give everything to become the next superstar in Hockey. Can we say the same for biathlon? You want results you need to bring more kids to practice those sports and keep at it long enough to be a star and make a living out of it. To achieve this we need to talk about it all the time in the news and show those incredible people every time they compete against the best in the world. It's not something money can buy.
Dino
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