Comments on: In Defence of Own the Podium

By: Shirley

Shirley — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:58:28 +0000

I do believe that Sydney, Australia had their own huge massive funding expenditures for the 6-8 years leading up to the 2000 games just so they’d show well… we’re not the first to do it, and certainly won’t be the last. I think you’re right that it’ll promote sport, and to me it means we’ll own the podium, just not necessarily right now.

I have always thought it unfair, the amounts given to Cdn athletes to compete has generally been significantly lower than the amounts US athletes received, given their access to bigger sponsors, and better funding. I don’t know if it’s changed yet, but Canadian universities and colleges weren’t able to offer more than a paltry amount to athletes while americans were able to offer all manner of full and partial scholarships to promising talent. About time we supported them!

An “un-Canadian” iniative? What do the Brits know about us? They mostly look down their noses at us and compare us to the Yanks, and think while we’re still low class, we’re just a little more polite than the US. I do believe they were impressed with our awesome support of all athletes and hope they can bring some of our spirit back to London…

By: John Chidley-Hill

John Chidley-Hill — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:20:05 +0000

@Katy

You’re absolutely right. The female members of the Canadian delegation have done their bit. One of the numbers that OTP threw around was that they wanted to win medals in 50% of their events. The men representing Canada have definitely let the side down.

I wonder why female athletes have done so much better?

By: Katy

Katy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:49:03 +0000

Interestingly, the program has been more successful with women athlethes. 13 of 17 medals so far are from women. This is from the CTV website (when it was 12 of 16):

“That’s 80 per cent of Canada’s medal haul so far – not bad considering that women make up just 43 per cent of the 206-member team. Female athletes got about half of the Own the Podium funding.

Women’s dominance of the medal count exceeds even the previous high-podium mark of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, where Canadian female athletes won three-quarters (of a much smaller number) of the nation’s Olympic medals.”

So, if men had been doing their part (ie- 50% of the medals, which is more than reasonable as they make up more than 50% of the team), we would be at 26 medals- much closer to the OTP goal. This would also put us tied for second place with Germany.