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Monday, January 28, 2008 Home >
Provincial loyalty is one thing, but please show athletes the money
Heptathlete lives and trains in Calgary, but registers with Ontario for funding
John MacKinnon, The Edmonton Journal
Published: 1:32 am
In 2006, heptathlete Jessica Zelinka twice set a Canadian record in her specialty, finished a disappointing fourth in the Commonwealth Games and was named Athletics Alberta’s female athlete of the year.
In 2007, the Calgary-based Zelinka smashed her own record again and won gold at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And she wasn’t even in the mix to defend that award.
The reason, in a word, is money. Or, more precisely, funding.
Zelinka is from London, Ont., and this being an Olympic year, she chose to register with the Ontario Track and Field (OTFA) to qualify for a $6,000 grant, rather than the $2,000 she would receive from the province of Alberta. But she lives and trains in Calgary and has for several years.
“The facts of life are that Alberta, statistically, is the worst province – we’re ranked 11th out of the 10 provinces and two territories – in terms of supporting amateur athletes,” said Les Gramantik, the head coach of Canada’s national track team and Zelinka’s own coach. "The reality is she is registered with the Ontario Track and Field Association, which allows her to receive in excess of $6,000 (from Ontario), which she would not get in the province of Alberta.
“Well, she might get, I guess, $2,000 or something like that here as a top-ranked athlete here. So, obviously, that’s a discrepancy. So provincial loyalty is one thing but, when your income is limited, every penny counts.”
So Zelinka is officially an Ontario athlete. Angela Whyte, the Edmonton-born 100-metre hurdler who won bronze at the Pan Am Games in Rio and was sixth at the world championships in Osaka, Japan, took the Athletics Alberta honours this time around.
Meanwhile, Zelinka also was named one of 200 athletes across the country who received grants of $5,000 from the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), who announced a $2.9-million overall donation to Canadian Olympic hopefuls last week.
In a sports world in which six- and seven-figure salaries have become commonplace for mainstream pro athletes, those pursuing Olympic goals still assemble an income like freelancers – $6,000 here, $5,000 there. It all adds up, but it still doesn’t add up to much. Not even for an athlete like the 27-year-old Zelinka, one of Canada’s few true medal hopefuls on the track in August in Beijing.
Gramantik said most of Zelinka’s $1,500 per month Sport Canada funding as a ‘A’ carded athlete goes to rent in pricey Calgary. Add in the $5,000 HBC chunk, the $6,000 from Ontario and about $8,000 from the Canadian Olympic Committee’s (COC) Road to Excellence program and it’s an income.
She also earns some extra money from endorsements and from the odd speaking engagement.
“Her earning power, based on track and field, is very limited,” Gramantik said. "In her event, heptathlon, the top three meets in the world, even if she were (to compete) in all three, would net her $30,000.
“We have athletes in our system that probably would make (that) in one week, and she has only three chances the whole year.”
So what might a hit of $5,000 in cash mean for Zelinka, Gramantik was asked. It was Zelinka, remember, who gutted it out in Rio, limping home in the 800 metres to win gold in the heptathlon. Then she sat out the rest of the season, including the world championships in Osaka, Japan, owing to a ruptured plantar tendon.
“The best use of this money is either for additional outdoor competition, or she can use if for training,” Gramantik said.
This year, Zelinka is planning to go to Baton Rouge, La., for two weeks, another week in Los Angeles in April and a two-week training block in Tucson, Ariz., before she heads to Europe for some pre-Olympic competitions.
“The big thing with this HBC support is that it’s non-earmarked money,” Gramantik said. "So, you can buy a car out of it, for example, because she doesn’t have a car.
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Font:****“All the Road to Excellence money is meant to be accounted for, which is fine, accountability is very important.”
A cluster of Edmonton athletes also received a $5,000 HBC award, including 200-metre sprinter Brian Barnett, 5,000-metre runner Megan Metcalfe, who won gold in that event at Rio, bobsledder David Bissett, squash player Matthew Giuffre, speed skater Jessica Gregg, diver Kelly MacDonald and beach volleyball player Ahren Cadieux.
They, like Zelinka, will have the pleasant task of figuring out what to
do with the windfall.
“The $5,000 might not seem like a huge amount of money,” Gramantik said. "But the fact it can be used whichever way he or she chooses probably takes it just a little bit further in terms of lifestyle or quality for an athlete in preparation.
“We all know that physical preparation is No. 1, but if you’re stressed mentally, you’re not going to do that well in training and competition.”