Feds commit $5 million to ‘next generation’ athletes

‘Significant injection,’ says Olympics official

TORONTO • The federal government announced a $5-million annual funding commitment on 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, meaning there is no end date for the funding to disappear.

“Our government is proud to support our next generation of high performers,” said Qualtrough, at a news conference at the former Maple Leaf Gardens, now an Penny Oleksiak athletic facility of Ryerson University. She said the funding, which is 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, the 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 that 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 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. But the nextgeneration funding is over and above the $37 million over four years to be spent by Own the Podium, so there was no update on whether the government will follow the report’s advice.