Ottawa to help young athletes with $5 million on annual basis

TORONTO The federal government announced a $5-million annual funding commitment Friday to support Canada’s “next-generation” athletes, putting a dollar figure on a promise made in the 2015 budget.

The money, to be matched by private donations collected by the country’s Olympic and Paralympic committees, will be allocated on an ongoing basis, said Carla Qualtrough, federal Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities.

“Our government is proud to support our next generation of high performers,” Qualtrough said.

She said the funding, earmarked for younger athletes who are not yet part of the development system covered by other programs like Own The Podium, will help with the hiring of coaches and training staff and will allow young athletes to be “better prepared to transition to targeted funding,” meaning initiatives like OTP.

Chris Overholt, chief executive of the Canadian Olympic Committee, called Friday’s announcement “the most significant injection of capital into the high-performance sports system in a long, long time.”

He noted that at Rio 2016, eight of Canada’s 22 medals came from first-time Olympians, showing there is a benefit to catching athletes at a young age and helping them train early. (Half of those, though, came from one person, swimmer Penny Oleksiak.)

Qualtrough’s announcement was the first discussion of funding since a consultant report was published last month that called for a “major rethink” of the way Canada distributes its high-performance funding, saying the emphasis on medal winners left behind too many athletes who have to scrape and scrounge to train. The next-generation funding is over and above the $37 million over four years to be spent on Own the Podium.