For Olympic medallists, the Games are not only a time to bring home some hardware but also to cash in. Athletes like 16-year-old swimmer Penny Oleksiak and sprinter Andre De Grasse have their profile enhanced by Olympic success, which entices corporate sponsors.
But that’s not the case for all elite athletes with Olympic aspirations – something two-time Olympian Neville Wright thinks most people might not fully understand.
“I think they vaguely understand, but I mean, I don’t think they realize what happens behind the scenes,” the 35-year-old sprinter-turned-bobsledder said.
“It can be pretty stressful for a lot of these athletes because they’re looking for the money, the support, to try to be the best they can be.”
For years before they reach the world stage, Olympic athletes dedicate their entire lives to their sport: training for hours a day, working with specialists to enhance their abilities, travelling to competitions, buying new equipment and outfits, not to mention the cost of food and day-to-day living expenses.
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“Training can be anywhere from four to six hours a day, based upon your sessions, if it’s a split session. You can be doing that five to six days a week, so it can be really hard to keep a job,” Wright said.
“The hours they put in, they cannot actually work a full-time job to be at that level.”
Wright is on the four-man bobsleigh team. He said the team receives $18,000 a year in federal funding – or $1,500 a month.
“It doesn’t go very far because there’s other costs of living that you have to pay for. Any additional income I make is from either working, speaking engagements, to finding sponsors from other companies.”
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The Edmonton athlete’s career began in track and field as a sprinter.
After coming up short in his attempt to qualify for Beijing 2008, he sought out a new sport.
Wright first tried his hand at bobsleigh in the summer of 2009 and less than a year later, was a member of the four-man squad competing in Vancouver.
He also competed in Sochi 2014 and is training for the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Being an Olympian is a job in itself – and one that Wright nearly quit.
“Two years to Sochi … I was on the verge of quitting. It was too expensive and my body wasn’t recovering properly because I had injuries and I was trying to get that dealt with,” Wright explained. He said there are two types of sponsors: product sponsors and cash sponsors.
“I was actually fortunate to have some companies sponsor me. River Valley Health, they sponsored my rehab and therapy as well as CSA Physio, they helped me as well. And then I was lucky to get a food sponsor, and I think just having that amount there helped boost me to being able to make it to the next games.”
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In 2014, Sport Canada completed its Status of the High-Performance Athlete Study, a survey looking at Canada’s federally-funded athletes. Conducted every four years, the study revealed that, on average, Canadian athletes spend $13,900 per year more than they earn, or roughly $1,200 a month.
Multiply this by the number of athletes supported by the federal government through Sport Canada’s Athlete Assistance Program — approximately 2,000 — and the deficit faced by Canada’s top amateur athletes is roughly $27.5 million a year, a more than 170 per cent increase from 2009 according to the Sport Canada report.
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