Looking to own the podium in Russia
The striving- to- win culture puts Canada in good spot to lead overall standings, OTP director says
The mighty Russians will surely try to own the medal podium in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. But two years after Canada audaciously set out to do the same at home — and then gloriously delivered — our sliders and speed skaters, high- flyers and downhillers seem bent on burying Moscow in shame by boldly “Putin” the maple leaf flag all over the podium.
Admittedly, a lot can still happen over the next two years, but at the mid- point of the Olympic quadrennial Canada is still riding the Own the Podium-driven commitment to excellence that saw the country set a record with 14 gold at Vancouver/ Whistler, the most ever by a home country.
“Our goal was to maintain the gain,” says Ken Read, OTP’S director of winter sport. “That meant continuing to invest, continuing to maintain coaches and team personnel and support the athletes.”
With some new medal events in Sochi — snowboard and ski slopestyle, ski halfpipe, women’s ski jumping and team luge — it may well take 15 or 16 victories to lead the gold medal parade and 30 total medals to lead the overall standings. Read says he’s confident that’s within Canada’s grasp, especially given “we’re pretty good” in the new disciplines.
“When I look back at this year, for me there were four dramatic weekends, two of them in December when we won 12- 15 [ World Cup or Grand Prix] medals, X Games weekend and last weekend.”
Canadians were all over the medal podium in Aspen, Colo., at the X Games, the extreme sports showcase that helped push snowboarding disciplines and ski cross into the Olympics in the last decade and convinced the IOC that ski halfpipe and slopestyle could also deliver some of that young demographic it craves.
And then over the course of four days last week, Canadians racked up 22 World Cup podium finishes, including 10 wins, at venues from Whistler to Rybinsk, Russia.
While 2010 heroes such as long- track speed skater Christine Nesbitt, bobsled pilot Kaillie Humphries and short- track speed skater Charles Hamelin have remained at the top of their games, Read is also buoyed by breakthroughs from those who just missed out on medals at Vancouver and some young up- and- comers.
Alpine skiers, lugers and cross- country skiers all came up empty in 2010 ( some just missing, as evidenced by Canada’s seven fourth- place finishes and 17 fifths).
But in the two years since, Erik Guay has won a Crystal Globe in World Cup Super G and a downhill world championship and Devon Kershaw has teamed with Alex Harvey to win the team sprint at the cross-country world championship and a World Cup 15K skatesprint. Luger Alex Gough has snapped a 105- race World Cup win streak by German women, captured a bronze medal at the 2011 world championships and helped Canada win two World Cup team relays.
And Quebec teenager Mikael Kingsbury won six straight World Cup moguls events to start the 2011- 2012 season.
• While there was a predictable post- 2010 lull in corporate sponsorship — sponsor fatigue, some call it, after a major, jump- on- the- bandwagon event — many of the sport federations were able to maintain programs for targeted highperformance athletes thanks to OTP funding.
“We definitely have to tip our hat to the federal government, which stepped in and filled that gap and maintained that stability,” said Read, whose organization distributed more than $ 21 million in the 2011- 2012 season to 13 winter sports.
That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t some challenges ahead.
Alpine Canada’s 2011- 2012 budget is down about 30 per cent from four years earlier after losing GMC, Bombardier, Pricewaterhousecoopers, President’s Choice and Panasonic as sponsors.
“You expect that, the reality is people are focused on major events,” said Alpine Canada CEO Max Gartner. “But you’re so immersed in the project that when it happens, when people jump off the bandwagon, you go ‘ Holy smokes, now what?’
“We were under tremendous stress for a period of time to find new partners. You pick your team at the beginning of May, but our funding wasn’t confirmed until June. It creates uncertainty.”
Fortunately, Alpine Canada was able to secure KLM Airlines, Osisko Mining and Audi as sponsors.
“What’s positive, too, is that support from individual sponsors went up, people who stepped up when they realized that ‘ Oh my god, [ sponsor pull out] has a major impact on the program’ and they made significant donations.”
Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton is another federation that is looking for corporations who see value in being connected with Olympic athletes. Visa, a title sponsor for 20 years, cut back severely this season, and will pull out altogether next year.
“We can’t say enough about Own the Podium, they cover our operational costs,” says CEO Don Wilson. “We need to compete against the Germans and they have a multi- million dollar program. We’re well ... but we need to be able to do the things that are a little bit over and above.”
The federation has a lucrative deal with addidas and new sled- builder, Eurotech, is a solid partner, but “we are looking for two or three more sponsors,” said Wilson.
“We’re not alpine skiing, we don’t have an industry behind us. The greatest asset of our program is our athletes. They’re older athletes, more mature. They’re great for companies as representatives.”
Read says some sport federations have managed sponsor attrition better than others and are “very stable.” He pointed to Hockey Canada and the Canadian Luge Association as two of those in good shape, noting that the CLA’S very public campaign to land a sponsor — athletes slid with big FOR SALE signs on their helmets at Whistler and Calgary in 2009 — had been successful in landing First Tracks Capital as huge benefactor.
“There is a tremendous reservoir of interest and support across this country ... but you have to be open about [ your needs],” said Read. “You never know where you’ll find people. But if you’re silent, they’re just going to assume everything is okay.”
Read said one of the most encouraging developments over the last few years has been the public acceptance of the striving- to- win culture, an acceptance helped by the fact that the sport system is finally seems fully co- ordinated in that goal.
“There was the sort of nagging feeling in the back of one’s mind, and it was felt through the public at large, that we want them to do well, but we’re not quite sure how to do it.
“The beauty of OTP is that it created an independent highperformance focus. ‘ We’re going to give you the dollars and you’re going to decide the alignment.’ Well, it resulted in a great Games [ in 2010] a great team performance. We’re supporting programs properly and the government sees it all as something the whole country likes.”