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Own the Podium coming through for new sports

Addition of new sports to 2014 Olympic Winter Games accommodated in current budget
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As Ken Read, the director of winter sport for Own the Podium (OTP), puts it, "it's a nice problem to have to manage."

In the past year, OTP has been called on to provide funding to several new sports that will be making their debut in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia - including several sports in which Canada is a solid medal contender. They have been able to do this, so far, without requesting any new funding from the federal government or taking any funding from other sports that may have been struggling recently.

"(Funding priorities) is a good question because the size of the Olympic program has increased by nearly 15 per cent with the two IOC (International Olympic Committee) decisions," he said.

Back in April, the IOC approved the addition of ski halfpipe to the 2014 program, as well as women's ski jumping, a team figure skating event, a luge team event and a biathlon team event. In July, the IOC approved the addition of slopestyle for both snowboarding and skiing, as well as a parallel slalom snowboarding event.

The second slate of announcements came as a bit of a surprise to everyone, including national sports organizations that expected a decision on slopestyle after the 2014 Games. However, both the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association and Canada Snowboard had already identified athletes and coaches from the pro circuit, and will be hitting the ground running this year.

Read said OTP was able to find funding for the first round of new sports within their contingency budget, and then funding for the second round of new sports working in partnership with the Canadian Olympic Committee.

"The first step in getting financial support out (to the National Sport Organizations or NSOs) is to make sure they have a high performance director, that they have coaches in place, that they have an integrated support team behind them, and then put resources into the other element which is the training and competition side," he said.

"At this point some development needs to happen in some sports because there's both a pro tour and World Cup tour, and in some cases the World Cup tour is only partially developed, or in some cases it's only on paper while the pro tour is very well developed.

"Our bottom line is making sure athletes that are targetted and medal contenders, like snowboarder Sebastien Toutant, are getting supported."

In addition to new sports, existing sports are performing at a high level and will continue to be supported. For example, while Canada didn't deliver any medals in alpine, luge or cross-country in the 2010 Games, all three sports put athletes on the podium in the world championship - Erik Guay in downhill, Amy Gough in luge and Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey in cross-country.

"In fact, this past year we funded 18 channels between Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and of the 18 channels only two didn't win a world championship medal last year. That's the kind of problem we want to have," said Read.

While the mandate of OTP is to support sports and athletes that are medal contenders, Read said there is also a development aspect to think about. For example, women's ski jumping may not have any contenders for 2014, but they've already identified some prospects looking forward to 2018.

"We want to include that longer-term vision in supporting sports, and to use ladies' ski jumping as an example we're hoping to see some potential in 2014 but we also recognize that's a very aggressive stance - but we believe right now there is podium potential for 2018. So the question is how do we manage the budget? So far so good, but it's not easy.

"One tangible way that's happening is that the ski jumps will operate this winter in Whistler. We'll have two training camps for the ladies' program and others in January and March, while last year the jumps did not operate. We're working with Whistler Sport Legacies to provide that opportunity, and the rationale is that these are the most modern jumps in North America and they're built very much in the profile of Sochi."

Looking forward, Read said there may come a time when they'll have to make some tough funding decisions. They likely wouldn't go back to the federal government, which has already committed $30 million annually to the program.

"We could generally wind up with too many sports being successful where we can't support them all. We could end up in a situation where we either have to get tough and say to a sport, 'you didn't perform so you're cut back,'" said Read. "We want to try and maintain a longer view than simply the next Games, but if we don't have the resources our number one mandate is podium performance in 2014."

OTP is not involved in the sponsorship side of sports, but Read said he is encouraged by what he's seen. Overall sponsorship has dropped, which is expected after hosting a Games and during a soft economy, but not as far as it might have.

"At the highest level it seems like the corner has been turned, and some sports are starting to identify more sponsors and get sponsors more involved," he said. "There were a number of sponsors that did carry on, so there wasn't a complete write-down after the Games...

"The sports tell us what their financial situation is, and some are fine - some have done a good job negotiating - and some have some real challenges. We want to be cognizant of that, because funding is what makes a program go and we don't want a big gap to emerge."

 

Funding for the 2011-2012 season has already been confirmed:

• Speed Skating - $3,325,600

• Alpine Ski Racing - $2,658,828

• Bobsleigh Skeleton - $2,197,400

• Freestyle Skiing - $2,147,080

• Snowboarding - $2,100,318

• Cross Country - $1,712,392

• Curling - $1,605,000

• Ski Cross - $1,450,000

• Hockey - $1,393,000

• Figure Skating - $750,000

• Luge - $612,932

• Biathlon - $302,500

• Ski Jumping - $294,000

• Nordic Combined - $0

Whistler part of OTP equation

Own the Podium is working closely with Whistler Sport Legacies to ensure that legacies like the ski jumps and Whistler Sliding Centre are being used, as well as the Whistler Olympic Park cross-country and biathlon facilities and the Athletes' Centre at Cheakamus Crossing.

"We do want to work together to ensure that there's a clear high performance strategy with the Whistler facilities, and there's engagement by National Sport Organizations (NSOs) to use those facilities and to plan," said Read. "It's going to be important, especially when you look at the sliding sports and the track, which is the most modern track in North America and one of the top tracks in the world. And the ski jumps, which we want to see included."

Part of that focus is working with NSOs to host camps and training opportunities in Whistler, suggest as a cross-country camp that took place in Whistler last week. OTP also wants to ensure that the venues are used for events like World Cups in the future.

Off-season, Whistler is also an important part of the equation with dryland camps using the athletes' centre, as well as off-season training on the glacier with freestyle, alpine, ski cross and snowboarding teams.

Top Secret still alive

The Top Secret program created by Own The Podium to advance sports sciences and technologies for Canadian athletes is still alive, although in a much smaller capacity than in the run-up to the Games.

"It's under the direction of Jon Kolb, our director of sport science, medicine and innovation," explained Read. "The available funding has shrunk significantly so he's managing the (projects) that he would like to keep moving, and at the same time working with partners to find new sources of funding so we can continue to have a robust innovation program... not to the same extend leading to 2010, but we don't want to lose our momentum there."