It takes a top-30 result in a Continental Cup ski jumping competition to earn a quota spot in the Olympic Winter Games.
It’s tougher than it sounds for Canada, which hasn’t qualified a ski jumper since our lone qualifier finished dead last at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France.
In recent years, however, the sport is seeing a revival at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, especially with Canada hosting the Winter Games in 2010. At a recent Continental Cup contest in Finland, Canadians Gregory Baxter and Graeme Gorham were 13 th and 14 th in training, and Baxter just missed the top 30 in the actual competition. Stefan Read, 17, finished 27 th at a Continental Cup in Lahti, Finland, meeting the IOC criteria for the 2006 Olympics. All he needs now is another top-30 in a Continental Cup, World Cup or World Championship event to meet the Canadian Olympic Committee and Ski Jumping Canada standard to go to Torino.
Brent Morrice, the chairman for Ski Jumping Canada, said the athletes are still young, and that SJC is focused on getting into the 2010 Games in Vancouver and Whistler. However, he says they will need funding to do that, and after March Ski Jumping Canada and Nordic Combined Canada will no longer be receiving any financial support from the Calgary Olympic Development Association.
"Put it this way, they’ve pulled the plug on our funding… that was our life support system and they’ve pulled the plug," said Morrice. "And that’s fine – Ski Jumping Canada and Nordic Combined Canada will exist as long as they don’t pull the plug on the facilities. If they close the facility after they pull the plug on our funding, that’s like getting on the bed and choking us to death."
Ski Jumping Canada and Nordic Combined Canada currently receive $150,000 in funding each year from CODA, which covers administrative costs, coaching, and some support for athletes’ travel and training costs. CODA also funds the ski jumping centre in Canada Olympic Park, a legacy from the 1988 Winter Games. According to CODA, it costs about $450,000 a year to run the jumps.
Morrice has asked to see CODA’s books to find out what the exact costs of running the facility are and to see whether SJC and NCC could come up with the funding themselves.
"We don’t know where they came up with the $400,000 in operational costs for those facilities, we can’t imagine that," said Morrice. "There’s snowmaking and running a (snow) cat up and down the hill, but they would have to do that anyway. We need a breakdown of those costs, because one thing we could do is to run the facilities for ourselves, renting the cat time and snowmaking facilities from them. These are the different options we need to look into."
Another hurdle for SJC and NCC is CODA’s insistence that the ski jumps need $6.5 million in renovations to be brought up to international standards, including a 120-metre jump.
Morrice says the hill doesn’t need to be renovated, and that the existing 60-metre and 90-metre jumps are more than adequate for training for ski jumpers and Nordic combined athletes. In addition, with the facility in the Callaghan Valley for the 2010 Games slated to open for the winter of 2007, most of the serious jumpers and the SJC office will likely move west to be closer to Canada’s top facility.
"It doesn’t make sense to upgrade. That’s exactly why we didn’t think it was prudent to put a bunch of money into our old jumps with a new jump coming in the Callaghan facility," said Morrice.
"Ask any of the other training facilities in North America, and they’ll say we have the best facilities up to a 90-metre jump… because of the uphill capacity, we have a chairlift right to the top of the 60-metre jump, so you can get a lot of jumps in in a day.
"And when you’re flying 60 metres or 90 metres through the air, you can learn your flight patterns and your takeoffs, and it’s very easy to transfer those skills to a 120-metre jump… in Europe, or at sites in the U.S. like Lake Placid and Salt Lake City."
CODA says the Calgary facility needs to be renovated in order to host World Cup events, something that is required for ski jumping to gain more sponsorship at home.
"We don’t agree with that," said Morrice. "We know we can hold a Continental Cup with what we have."
The Canada Olympic Park will in fact be hosting a home NorAm Cup ski jumping competition on Dec. 17, with up to 40 athletes from Canada and the United States taking part.
"Other clubs in North America can’t believe this is happening," added Morrice.
Ski Jumping Canada estimates that about 80 high performance ski jump and Nordic combined athletes are using the Calgary facility, when you include the number of young people recruited to try the sport, and active youth and development programs, more than a thousand different jumpers might use the ramps in a year says Morrice.
While there is a chance that one or more athletes will qualify for the Winter Games in Torino, Italy in 2006, the goal has been to get athletes ready for 2010. The irony is that the Canadian Olympic Committee has announced plans to concentrate funding on sports where Canada has the best chance of succeeding – and right now that list doesn’t include ski jumping.
Medal chances aside Canada Olympic Park and CODA have an obligation to keep the facility open, says Morrice.
"They (CODA) were given those facilities in 1988 for a dollar from the federal government… and they were given the responsibility of running those facilities and maintaining them so amateur sports, and especially unique amateur sports like ski jumping, continue to develop in this country," he said.
Still, Morrice is confident that his young skiers will prove they are worthy of Canadian Olympic Committee funding.
"I’m really counting on the results this winter, that’s what we’re looking for," he said. "What we mention to and agreed to with the 2010 Own the Podium Group is that we would benchmark our athletes based on the results we’re currently getting – because they are still kids, 15, 17, 20 years old – and set performance measurements based on those benchmarks.
"What we need though is baseline funding so that we can survive, we’ll (SJC and NCC) need that $300,000 replaced. And in order to be competitive on the international scene we’ll need more money.
"We want to be accountable, to make sure we’re benchmarked and improving towards our goal of 2010…. That’s been our goal for the last three years, to field a competitive team in the Callaghan Valley."
The response from government and the public since CODA first made the announcement two weeks ago has been mostly positive, with provincial politicians and John Reynolds, the Conservative Opposition Critic for Sport, voicing their support for SJC, NCC and the Calgary jump facilities. That has yet to translate into a funding solution, but Morrice is optimistic they will find the funding before CODA cuts them off in March.
For Canada not to compete in ski jumping at home in 2010 would be ridiculous, he added, given young talent that is coming up through the ranks. If the Calgary facility is closed after this year, and athletes have to travel abroad to train until the Callaghan facility opens two years later, Morrice doubts that the team will be as competitive, because only a few athletes will be able to afford the move. For Canadians to have a chance in 2010, they have to be able to train at home.
"We do believe we will be competitive, given the opportunity," said Morrice. "We’re not out to waste anybody’s money or time. We’re going to the Olympics in 2010 and to make everyone very proud to be Canadian…. We just need baseline funding."
