There was already a fair bit of derogatory sneering amongst “conservative” bloggers about the Olympics in general and our country’s “embarrassingly wasteful” team in particular, but those feelings are sure to turn into outright hostility following this story in today’s Globe & Mail about Canadian athletes blaming their lack of success at the games on government funding that “lags behind that of China, Russia and other modern countries.”
Doubtless, the assorted cranks and molemen of “The Blogging Tories” will soon be clambering out of their burrows to rail at what’s likely to be perceived as the ungrateful impertinence of our Olympic athletes. Oh look, there’s one now!
Do you really want to steal money from people and give it to some guy so he could learn how to run faster? Does a physiological freak (which is what most athletes are if you think about it) really more deserving of your hard earned money?
Toss another group of people that aren’t “ordinary” or “hardworking” Canadians onto the Conservatives’ free market Bonfire of the Vanities, I guess.
I thought Montreal Simon said it beautifully in a recent post. We are not the world and we shouldn’t pretend to be.
I wonder if Harper was thinking that the “free market” would produce better athletes. This is the first year that Canada is offering money for medals all the while cutting funding.
I think obviously everyone wants our athletes to do well.. but if we do poorly at the end of these Olympics, it will be interesting to hear the Conservatives defence or explanation regarding current funding.
That said.. I have my doubts anyone will vote against them because of how they choose to spend funding on the Olympics.. though it might bring pressure on them to make sure we wouldn’t have a repeat of this in Vancouver (though we do better at winter sports anyhow).
CWTF — I believe that “Take the Podium” (or whatever it’s called) initiative whereby athletes receive bonuses for medals was a Liberal program from 2005.
Own the Podium 2010
“physiological freak”
That…would be someone with enough muscle structure to get up and walk away from the cheetos, and lung capacity for something other than shrieking and wailing??
I’d like to see that descriptor plastered everywhere young Canadian athletes could see it, just so they know where they stand in comparison to this staunchly ‘real’ Canadian.
And yet somehow, it’s ok to fund our armed forces so we don’t look like desexed losers next to the ur-tech warriors of the US?
Not enough bloodsport in the Olympics to get the testosterone working for this fine pundit I guess.
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Own the Podium… there we go. Thanks. “Own” — sounds much sportier.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/amateur/story/2007/11/19/canadian-medals.html
Canadian athletes will receive cash rewards for winning medals at the Olympic Games.
The Canadian Olympic Committee announced the decision Monday as it prepared for the Summer Games next August in Beijing.
Canadian kayaker Adam van Koeverden could pocket a lot of money if he earns a medal at next year’s Olympics in China.
It’s the first time Canada’s athletes will be paid for winning medals at the high-performance competitions.
The move will be appreciated by athletes struggling to make ends meet, says Olympic kayaker Adam van Koeverden.
“You don’t want to make your athletes starve and keep your athletes starving,” van Koeverden said at a hotel in Ottawa.
He said training needs to be treated like a career.
“If you want me to go and compete with the world’s best, then I’ve got to be able to train like the world’s best,” he said. “And I don’t think I should have to live in poverty in order to accomplish my goals.”
Athletes will receive up to $20,000 per medal at the Games, with the highest amount paid to those who win gold.
Offering an incentive program to the best performers has been debated — and rejected — in Canada for over two decades as Canadian athletes watched other countries reward their athletes with varying amounts of money for gaining medals.
However, the COC decided recently to concentrate its efforts more on achieving results at Olympic Games and less on spreading money thinly across a wide range of programs.
The committee believes it has found the right mix of training assistance and cash incentives with its new Athlete Excellence Fund, says COC president Michael Chambers.
“It varies wildly (in other countries, from) huge amounts to lesser amounts than we provide,” said Chambers.
“But in most of those other countries that have large rewards, at the end of the trip if you win a Games, they have very little in the way of development programs leading into the Games,” he said.
“So it’s all or nothing. That’s not where we wanted to go.”
The athlete support and reward program is a way to compensate high-performance athletes for the financial burdens they often face while training for Olympic Games, the COC said in a statement.
While gold medals will garner the highest amount, silver medal winners would be paid $15,000 and bronze medal winners $10,000.
The performance awards will apply to all Olympic sports, and will be the same whether athletes are in a team or individual sport.
The first athletes to qualify for the awards will compete in Beijing next year. Canada will have roughly 300 athletes performing in 28 sporting events at those Games.
Google is your friend….
So is Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Own_the_Podium_-_2010
Own the Podium – 2010, or À nous le podium en 2010! in French, is a Canadian sport technical program launched in January 2005 to prepare Canada to become the top winter sporting nation in the world by 2010 — when Canada will host the next Winter Olympics.
“Own the Podium” is a program geared towards certain winter sports. The summer equivalent is “Road to Excellence”. The “Athlete Excellence Fund” is the one that ties money to performance and is recent. The decision of the COC to use money as an incentive was a controversial one.
To achieve sufficient funds for the “Athlete Excellence Fund”, the COC pilfered from other programs.
In the end, they may not end up having to pay much of it out.
The free market may produce better athletes or it may not. If you really care about someone winning gold, donate money to the cause. I don’t care so why should I have my money stolen from me? (By the way the government offering money for winning medals may be incentive based but its still not the free market)
Niles, I confess that it was me who described them in this way. I did not mean it as a nasty comment (I don’t consider the word freak to be derogatory and I often forget that other people do).
And RT, of course they are ordinary Canadians, to the extent that everyone is ordinary. The point is that they shouldn’t receive government funding for their hobbies, just like how most ordinary Canadians don’t get such funding.