New Winter Olympic sports require creative financing from Own The Podium

<p>CALGARY – New sports in the 2014 Winter Olympics have forced Own The Podium to get creative with how it will divide up money for Canadian winter-sport athletes next season.</p> <p>OTP even put some money aside in case the International Olympic Committee approves the addition of more sports next month.</p> <p>”The new sports made it quite a bit more interesting,” said Ken Read, a former alpine ski racer who now heads the winter section of OTP. “You added six new events or disciplines and then deferred decision on a few more.”</p> <p>The IOC added women’s ski jumping, men’s and women’s freestyle halfpipe, a mixed relay in biathlon and team events in luge and figure skating to the 2014 menu in Sochi, Russia.</p> <p>The IOC will decide in June whether to also add slopestyle events in snowboard and freestyle skiing and a team Alpine ski event.</p> <p>OTP oversees the preparation and performance of Canada’s athletes on the international stage in both summer and winter sports.</p> <p>It has divided up $20,746,100 between the winter sports for the 2011-12 season, which was an increase on the $19.6 million it had to work with this past winter.</p> <p>Most of it is federal government money from Sport Canada, but the Canadian Olympic Committee also contributes about $5 million to the coffers for both summer and winter sports.</p> <p>Luge, figure skating and biathlon don’t require an influx of money because of new events in their disciplines. They already have the athletes and resources in place to compete in those events, said Read.</p> <p>But OTP funnelled almost $300,000 into women’s ski jumping, which is starting from scratch, and $430,000 into freestyle halfpipe. Canadians won gold and bronze in halfpipe at this year’s world championship, with three men and three women finishing in the top 10.</p> <p>Another $130,000 for freestyle slopestyle and $190,000 for snowboard slopestyle went into the hopper in case the IOC gives the go-ahead for those events.</p> <p>”That’s set aside because we can’t actually give that to them yet until they are officially (in the Games),” Read explained. “We’re going to wait for the powers that be who have their fingers on the green light or the red light to make the move.”</p> <p>If the IOC doesn’t sign off on slopestyle for 2014, Read says the money can be used to grant requests from other sports. A constraint on Sport Canada money is it has to be spent in the fiscal year and not be held over in reserve, he added.</p> <p>Read says OTP dipped into its reserve fund to find money for the new sports.</p> <p>”We didn’t want to be in a situation where we were taking away from other sport programs to be able to add them in,” he said.</p> <p>Canada’s goal for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., was to win the most medals, regardless of colour, at its own Games.</p> <p>The Canadian team finished third with 26 behind the U.S. (37) and Germany (30), but was a surprise winner of the most gold medals at 14. That was a record for gold medals won by a country at a single Winter Games.</p> <p>Canada also hit the target of a top-three finish in gold medals won at the Paralympics with 10, good for third behind Germany (13) and Russia (12).</p> <p>OTP’s goal for 2014 is to be the No. 1 winter sport country, which will be difficult to achieve without the myriad of advantages Canadian athletes had at their home Games. OTP also has yet to say clearly whether the No. 1 designation means winning the most medals or the most gold.</p> <p>But at this stage, almost three years out from 2014, Read says the mantra is “maintain the gain” that Canada established in its 2010 medal haul.</p> <p>Canadians finished second (13) to Norway (14) in gold medals won at 2011 world championships, and second in overall world championship medals (31) to Germany (35). Those figures include world championships held in the new Olympic sports.</p> <p>OTP determines who gets how much money based on medal potential in 2014. Athletes’ performances in world championships and World Cups go a long way in determining whether a sport has that medal potential.</p> <p>Most sports received similar levels of funding to last winter. Para-Nordic skiing got a big bump in dollars by almost $280,000 for two reasons: They got their organizational house in order, including the hiring of a high-performance director, and also won five gold and two silver at the Para-Nordic world championships.</p> <p>OTP slots the sports into three categories of strong, medium and low medal potential. They are funded accordingly, although some sports are more expensive than others because there are more athletes on one team or their sport requires more travel or a larger coaching staff.</p> <p>Speedskating, freestyle moguls, figure skating, ski cross, curling and hockey remain in the top category. Bobsleigh, skeleton, alpine men’s downhill and snowboard cross and giant slalom are in the second category.</p> <p>Cross-country skiing, freestyle aerials, luge, men’s and women’s Alpine technical skiing (slalom and giant slalom) and biathlon are in the third tier, although Read says those sports can still produce medals in 2014.</p> <p>OTP established a project called Nordic Consortium, which develops ways and means to get Canadians on the podium in cross-country, biathlon, Nordic combined and ski jumping.</p> <p>Those sports produce multiple-medal opportunities that Canada historically has not won. OTP put almost half a million dollars into the Nordic project this past season and will pump another $417,00 into it next winter.</p> <p>”There’s 90 medals here and now more than that with ski jumping added in and we’re not winning any of them,” Read said. “So what do we need to do to try to tap into that with medal potential for 2014 and to be considered a player in 2018.”</p>