OLYMPICS: FUNDING PROGRAMS TO MERGE
JAMES CHRISTIE
April 25, 2008
Canada’s two podium pendulums will swing as one after Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics.
Alex Baumann, the swim icon who returned to Canada to lead the Summer Olympic medal-winning program Road to Excellence, says the lavish corporate financing that has helped drive the winter Own the Podium program will fade away after the Vancouver Olympics.
The two programs, for Summer and Winter Olympics and Paralympics, will merge into one.
“We’re looking at integrating after 2010 when the corporate element will die off,” Baumann said yesterday at a news conference in which Ontario donated $700,000 to Road to Excellence from the Quest for Gold lottery.
The winter Own the Podium plan is getting $110-million annually, with financing split between the federal government and the Vancouver 2010 Games organizing committee known as VANOC.
The Road to Excellence has been the poor cousin, but recently was included in the federal budget to the tune of $8-million this year, $16-million next year, then $24-million in following years.
The sport community had lobbied for $30-million annually for five years, “so it’s not everything we asked for, but there’s also no sunset for those dollars, so that’s positive,” Baumann said.
Sports will also have to accept that not everyone gets to dine at the Road to Excellence trough.
For instance, because the federal funding came so late in the Summer Olympics cycle and the mandate of the program is to get Canadians on the Olympic medals stand, only a handful of sports are targeted for this summer’s Beijing Olympics.
Those identified for the Ontario money are athletics, canoe-kayak, diving, gymnastics, swimming, rowing, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby.
“All the sports are starting to understand that if we’re going to move forward, we have to prioritize,” Baumann said.
"From the RTE point of view, we need to look at a small number of sports where we have medal potential. But then as we move forward, we want to go deep in some sports, doing things like talent identification to keep athletes coming along.
“With team sports, we’ll have to look at a different strategy. I don’t think Canada has won a team medal at the Summer Olympics since 1936.”
Women’s soccer looks to have the highest medal potential among Canada’s teams for the Beijing Games, he said.
That, however, is a large team. The money could go farther with a small team such as beach volleyball, where top-notch coaching and technical support and travel for a two-athlete combination wouldn’t be as expensive.
“We’re also looking at streamlining the financing for sport. Canadian athletes never seem to have enough, but there is money out there. It’s just split up into too many pots,” Baumann said.