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Sports centre building on success

Athletes' centre now home to over 170 high performance athletes
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Mining for medals: The Canadian Sport Centre Pacific is working to build the Whistler centre into a leading centre for athlete training and sport science. From left: James Boose, Scott Allen, Wendy Pattenden and Leslie Clarke. Photo BY andrew Mitchell

Sports have always been a "numbers game" — fastest time, most points scored, highest score awarded by judges. It's no different for the agencies and organizations that support sports in Canada, although they look at slightly different numbers — medals won at different levels, coach-to-athlete ratios, the number of athletes in the system at different levels... the numbers behind the numbers.

The Canadian Sport Centre Pacific (CSCP) shared some of their numbers last week at a special media briefing, marking two years since the 2010 Games and 18 months since the Games' sports legacies were opened. Dollar for dollar, the numbers show that the Canadian approach to high performance sports in working.

"There's only so much money (for programming), which is not much compared to our other international competitors, but what money we do have we make sure it's invested with an aggressive approach," said Wendy Pattenden, the CEO of CSCP.

Nationally, Canada has seen its share of medals at the Winter Games increase significantly. In 2002 the team earned 17 medals and was fourth on the list of gold-medal winners. In 2006 the total jumped to 24 medals and Canada climbed to third on the list. In 2010 Canada moved up to 26 medals in total and the team was first among nations with 14 gold medals — the most gold medals won by any country in Winter Games history. In the Paralympic Winter Games we jumped from sixth in 2002 to third in 2010.

The overall trend from 2006 to 2010 including World Cup medals and world championships was upward, and in 2009 Canadian athletes won 29 World Championship medals — the most of any nation, and one more than either the U.S. or Germany.

Athletes training in B.C. and Whistler have also played a greater role in Canada's success.

In Salt Lake in 2002, B.C. athletes accounted for 25 per cent of Olympic medals, dropping to 12.5 per cent in 2006 and rising again to 23 per cent in 2010. The Paralympics have shown a steady increase; 46 per cent in 2002 and 2006, jumping to 73.7 per cent in 2010.

"B.C. has roughly 13 per cent of the population of Canada, and we're not satisfied with less than doubling that 25 or 26 per cent of medals," said Pattenden. "And, as you can see, when it comes to Paralympics we're well ahead of that."

Currently, CSCP administers to 24.11 per cent of the Sport Canada carded athletes in Canada. That's 427 of 1,771 athletes competing at the international level.

Only the centre in Calgary has more with 26.48 per cent, followed by Montreal with 22.76 per cent.

The athletes under the CSCP's banner train at different centres around the province, but the Whistler centre already accounts for more than a third of those athletes with 170 athletes based out of the CSCP gym at Cheakamus Crossing. Of those athletes 10 are at the podium level, 45 at the elite level, 43 at the Canadian development level and 70 at the provincial development level.

The CSCP also hosts 37 camp-based athletes on a regular basis, most of them in Whistler several times a year to train.

In total, they have a budget over $2.5 million to provide services and support to those athletes.

Those athletes receive a variety of "pit crew" support, including performance services and sports science, access to a full-time strength and conditioning coach, a dietician, a biomechanist, a physiologist and athlete services. These coaches make up the centre's core of 35 sports scientists that are continuing the Top Secret program developed before the 2010 Games to develop training techniques and gear to give Canadian athletes an edge over the competition.

Currently the sport science is looking at issues of recovery — what steps athletes should take after competing to ensure they're in the best shape possible, mentally and physically, for the next event. Eventually they'll publish the results on their research, but not until other countries have figured it out and Canada is working on the next area of sports science research.

"We're building on (Top Secret), it's a big part of what we do," said Pattenden. "We have 35 full-time sport scientists (and) we want them to be thinking about innovating. It's the only way to stay ahead of the curve."

The gym at Cheakamus Crossing is the home training facility for freestyle skiing (moguls, halfpipe and slopestyle), snowboarding (snowboardcross and slopestyle), ski cross and the sliding sports. Whistler is also home to one of four national training centres for cross-country skiing.

As well, the CSCP gym regularly hosts camps for other sports. For example, the gym recently hosted the national canoe/kayak team for a two-week camp, and in the run-up to the International Rugby Union World Cup last fall Whistler hosted the national men's team.

The CSCP gym at Cheakamus Crossing is only one of the 2010 legacies for the resort. There's also athlete housing, both temporary and full-time at Cheakamus Crossing, as well as access to Olympic and high performance venues around the resort, ranging from the cross-country trails at Whistler Olympic Park, to the track at Whistler Sliding Centre, to the on-mountain halfpipes, terrain parks, ski cross courses and race courses under Whistler Blackcomb's direction.

As well as providing programming and access to venues, CSCP also hires and trains coaches. There are close to 300 coaches in the CSCP system, which is more than any other national training centre — including seven full-time coaches employed year-round.

These coaches work at all levels of the system, but the CSCP is reaching further down the ladder than previously through various programs, and providing support to select athletes that are below the national development level.

The briefing touched on the future of the CSCP in Whistler as well, and the potential for additional training facilities. None of that information is public at this time but the CSCP is evaluating the possibilities and working on its long-term plan, which will be announced in the future.