Canada's (Dis)Own The Podium Intiative

Okay, so I should be working on report cards right now, and I have been, honestly I have, but…I’m not right now.

So Canada has had this big push to “Own The Podium” during the 2010 Olympics, complete with funding for athletes and bonuses for getting a medal.  I have been watching quite a bit of the Olympics over the past week and some of the athletes have not medalled simply by circumstance.

Take the 1500 m men’s short track event last night - Apollo Anton Ohno really screwed it up for our guys…and ended up 3 in the end (at least he didn’t get gold).  He pretty much hip checked one of our guys and almost knocked him off balance.  It really did suck.

We also watched the second run of the men’s two man bobsled last night.  First, holy cow, how do you walk away from crashing and running a good part of the course upside down?! (I don’t know how far they travelled, but it was far enough)  It completely sucked to watch because they really were medal hopefuls. What was amazing however, was that they finished the run, upside down and were not even 3 seconds behind the leaders - how crazy is that?

Then there is Patrick Chan.  Oh watching his fall coming out of a jump in the long program was heartbreaking.  But, I have to put this into perspective.  He’s 19!!  Surely he will have atleast one, if not two more Olympics in his future.  Fine, he didn’t medal on home territory, but it’s not the end of the world.

I didn’t actually read the article (forgot to look it up online actually) but apparently the funding for the Own the Podium initative is in jeopardy.  Nice going Canada, let’s give them one chance and then pull the rug out from under the athletes.  Nothing like showing support, giving hope for the future of these sports and showing the athletes that they are in fact important.  I find that the government is being way too shortsighted in their hopes for Olympic medals.  Our athletes have never had this much support, EVER, and after one chance we shouldn’t support them any further?  Man, if I took that approach in my classroom I wouldn’t have many students I _would_ be supporting…heck I probably wouldn’t even had a job!  What a way to look at things, you get one short and that’s it.  That just seems wrong to me.

While our government is considering ending/cutting back on their funding of Olympic athletes other countries are increasing their support.  I would bet that with the possibility exception of endorsement deals, and really Alexandre Bilodeau is the only one likely going to benefit from this, there really isn’t going to be much money flowing towards the athletes that did medal (we currently have 4 gold medals!).  Korea for example (as reported on CTVs coverage) the long track speedskater who won gold - yeah, he’ll be set for life!  Gosh, I wonder how great things are going to be since he has now accomplished two gold medals in this Olympics.

Really the Canadian government needs to get their shit together and support our athletes more. How else can we “Own The Podium” if the support isn’t there?