Owning The Podium

Yesterday the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC)came out with a statement that they would not Own The Podium at this Olympics. The dream of the last five years to win the medal count at our home games in Vancouver was lost. In fact, the plan that was implemented, bragged about in the media and carried out by sport federations, had not worked as planned conceded the COC in a statement and most Canadian sports fans have been in agreement.

With less than a week to go before the closing ceremonies, Canada is not close to the medal count of the Turin games and we currently sit fifth in the medal standings, really not acceptable for a country that has the nickname "great white north". Although Canada is not going to win the medal race, did we improve at these games like the Own the Podium program wanted us to?

By the looks of it, Canada will set a record for the most golds ever won for itself. This is a big accomplishment for a country that went into the games never having won a gold on home soil. Winning this many gold medals (currently only one behind the US-with among other sports both hockey and curling to go), is huge and in my opinion exactly what Own The Podium was supposed to do. COC funded athletes so they could concentrate on preparing for the games. They wanted all Olympic athletes to be in top form in Vancouver and that is what we have received.

Where the Own The Podium breaks down is when the medal favourites don't live up to expectations. There were certain Olympians that were being counted on for medals because of their past history. Athletes like Pierre Leuders, Patrick Chan or some of the speed skaters who have past world championship wins or Olympic gold medals. As Canadians, we believed that with the extra funding they could repeat their wins. Unfortunately, in most cases our past successes were not repeated in Vancouver. What we have received are the athletes that were top 10 in the world come to the forefront and win medals in Vancouver. Our first medalist - Alexandre Bilodeau was not the favourite coming into the games, but perhaps because of the Own The Podium program he was able to put in the extra time and become the best in the world.

If the program helped our fringe medal athletes become medalists, I believe the program worked and it should continue through to London 2012 and Sochi 2014. Now, if we can just figure out how to prepare our medal favourites so that they can put the pressure behind them and perform in crunch time...