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Summer sports overlooked in budget

No new funding for ‘Road to Excellence’

By Andrew Mitchell

While Canada’s winter sport organizations are celebrating their highest level of government support and funding in decades, largely through the Own the Podium 2010 initiative, summer sports organizations are complaining that they’ve been left behind — just 18 months out from the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing, China.

Chris Rudge, president and CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, made his frustration clear this week.

According to Rudge, sport funding for summer sports has been more or less frozen under the Conservative government, with no funding increases since the overall Sport Canada budget effectively doubled in 2005 under the Liberal Government. Given the short-term success of Own the Podium 2010 for Canadian athletes in Torino — a program fully funded through the 2007 federal budget — he says the lack of summer sports funding will show in 2008.

“We thought (the federal government) would have seen the results in Torino, and how even a little money in the short-term can have a major impact on results, and then look ahead to the challenge of Beijing,” he said. “That didn’t happen. As a consequence, I think our athletes are going to have a tough time in Beijing. We have some good programs that do fairly well, but these Games are going to be tough. The Chinese will be out in huge numbers, and I haven’t seen any other nations stepping back at all. Canada is the only nation that’s standing still.”

Last summer the Canadian Olympic Committee, Canadian Paralympic Committee, Sport Canada and 28 summer sports released Road to Excellence, a framework plan to improve Canada’s performance in the Summer Games. The goal of the program was to finish in the top-16 of nations in 2008 and the top-12 in 2012 at the Olympics in London. On the Paralympic side, the goal is to place in the top-five of nations at each event.

The cost is in the neighbourhood of $30 million a year for the next five years, with Canada placing more emphasis and funding on sports where our athletes are medal contenders. Chosen sports would receive more funding for athletes and coaches, as well as enhanced technical support.

According to Rudge, Canada tries to fund too many sports equally while the successful Australian program currently focuses on less than 10 summer Olympic sports and distributes funding based on international performance.

The COC also recently recruited two-time gold medal swimmer Alex Baumann back from the Australia Institute of Sport to serve as the executive director for the Road to Excellence.

Now, without any funding in the Conservatives’ 2007 budget, released on Monday, Rudge says the COC will be hard-pressed to take the Road to Excellence.

“We’re not giving up,” he said. “This is not the first time something like this has happened, we’ve worked with this government for a year now, and there have been three different sport ministers since I’ve been here.

“There probably won’t be another budget this year (without an election) in all probability, but we’re committed to finding other funding mechanisms within government to see if we can at least get some dollars into the program for the next year. We’re working on a strategy to do that, and in the meantime we’re working with government to change their mind and hopefully recognize a good investment.”

In terms of investment, Rudge believes excellence in sports will have positive effects on Canada.

“What we’re trying to do is get sports to move away from the ‘hey, I’m passionate about my sport and therefore give me money’ approach,” he said. “I’d rather say we have a collective vision for success — this is where we want to go, this is how we get there, this is how much it will cost, and here’s the return for you.

“For one, I think we all get a sense of pride when our kids are successful, and we all share in their glory. There is also a trickle down effect when you create heroes that win and get themselves on the podium. That has the impact on the rest of the country by convincing others to get out and get active.

“Most importantly it makes the statement that the country believes in excellence, as something we should target and strive to achieve. It’s a metaphor for how we conduct ourselves in society, and speaks to our values in every aspect of life.”

Rudge says the challenge for summer sports is more pronounced than for winter sports, which makes funding all the more critical.

“It’s a bigger hill to climb,” he said. “In the Winter Games there are 80 to 90 countries taking part, but only 20 to 30 countries are medal contenders in most sports. In the summer there are 204 countries, and most have athletes capable of medaling in something. The fact we do as well as we do is amazing, and I don’t think anybody is too impressed with how the team did in Sydney or Athens.”

So far the COC has not received any explanation from the government as to why the program was left out of the budget, especially with the 2008 Games so close. Rudge says he has asked for an explanation, and will continue to push the program even after the budget is adopted.

Although the Liberal Party has said it will oppose the budget, the Conservative Party appears to have a majority of votes with the support of the Bloc Quebecois. If the budget failed to win approval from a majority of MPs that would be considered a vote of non-confidence and another federal election would be held.