As of Friday afternoon, Canada has 20 medals at the Rio Olympics – beating its goal of 19 medals by one.
READ MORE: Canada aiming for top 12 finish in overall medal count
But, similarly sized Australia is doing far better sitting at 28 medals. Even tiny New Zealand, with a population of just 4.5 million, is giving Canada a run for its money, winning 15 medals, eight of them silver.
So what accounts for Canada’s comparative underachievement at the Summer Olympics?
Part of the reason is money. Australia invested some $340 million in summer sports in the four years leading up to Rio, according to the Australian Institute for Sport.
Canada invested about $116 million over the same period.
But it’s not all about money, according to John Furlong, chairman of Own the Podium – the Canadian sports funding organization. Canada can never hope to match the sports investment of countries like the United States, Russia, China and a few others like Germany, he said.
“If you spent all your time worrying about how much money everyone else had, you would just never sleep. There is unlimited money in some countries, it just doesn’t matter.”
So instead a lot of thought goes into which sports are funded.
“There’s a limited number of funds available. We identify the areas where we think that we can get the best result,” he said.
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Athletes are divided into “certain,” “possible” and “long shot” medals, he said, and the medal target of 19 was based upon the number of “certain” medals that Own the Podium estimated in its analysis of Canada’s chances.
“We hope that we’re going to overshoot that target if we can,” he said. “Typically we’re pretty close to where we set it.”
Planning for the future
Canada was slow off the mark to develop a strategic funding program for its summer athletes, said Furlong.
“We started late. We’re chasing everyone at this stage,” he said. Own the Podium was created for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, and the first test of its summer program was in London in 2012.
“The fact of the matter is, Australia has taken the position that winning is in their national interest for decades.”
Their sports institutes have been hard at work developing athletes for years, he said, which has meant that they can see success Olympics after Olympics.
READ MORE: Why Britain is dominating the Olympics and what Canada can learn
Some sports have a bigger medal payoff than others too, like swimming, which has multiple distances and events. Australia has targeted those sports, and Canada is starting to do the same.
More than that, according to Furlong, Canada is now starting to think ahead to future Olympics and develop talent before it reaches the international stage.
“You can’t develop an Olympic champion by and large in a short time. It takes a long time to get to best in the world.”
The medal target will get a little bigger each Olympics, he thinks, as more and more Canadian athletes become medal hopefuls.
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