The Canadian Alpine Team On Hard Times? Really? That’s what they are going with?
The Canadian Alpine Team On Hard Times? Really? That’s what they are going with?
Now before I Go on my “Rick Mercer Rant” I just want to point out that I am truly jealous of the resourcefulness of the Canadian Alpine team. They find every kind of funding that they can and are really great at getting media exposure for the team. Other teams should really take a lesson from them especially mine.
I read an article by Kelly Vanderbeek on her CBC blog yesterday pointing out that the Alpine team was hurting for money and was unable to fully fund their team in certain areas. As a result the team had the tough choice, having to choose the best combination of athletes that were going to get results in exchange for funding. I’m not entirely sure how much the Alpine team is truly hurting and how much of the blog was a plug to drum up some more sponsors. I do however have it on a good authority though that the Canadian Alpine Ski team is doing pretty well for themselves. I guess the point I’m trying to get at is that I’m not really sure certain athletes or NSO’s have the right to be publicly complaining about funding when other sports are in far worse positions.
I would like to know when the last time the Alpine ski team had to pay for their own plane ticket, hotel room, rental car, or even food for that matter at world cups or world championships? I want to know the last time they had to beg one of their teammates mothers to come be their team physio for free? I would like to know the last time that any of the skiers made the senior A world cup team and didn’t get carded? I am just finding it hard to sympathize with certain athletes these days especially the winter athletes. When I have to pay almost $3000/yr just for coaching and have 15 athletes on my team with only 6 cards (Gov funding for Living expenses) for the entire team. Over the past 10 yrs. that I have been competing in whitewater slalom I had this illusion of Canadian athletes, I thought that we were all in the same boat, I thought we were all poor. As far as I can tell this is far from reality. It is a huge hit to the ego as an athlete when you have no funding and other sports have an “alcohol budget” for their technical director to spoil the team and staff with. The reason it is a hit to the ego is the fact that funding in Canada is based on performance, meaning that I am not good enough to get funding. This may in fact be true but I would like to think that I have had some decent results on the international scene and that if I had some actual funding and support I may be in fact prove worthy of it.
Don’t get me wrong it’s our own fault that we don’t have any funding or team sponsors. The simple fact is that in Canada, Medals= Funding but in Sport, Funding= Medals. Now that’s a catch 22 if I ever saw one. This is actually the same predicament that Alpine Canada is in. they didn’t get the results in Vancouver, granted a lot of injuries set them back but it really makes me a bit angry to see them complaining about funding when a lot of summer teams had their funding cut in order to support winter programs for Vancouver*. The Alpine team had their chance to show what they could do when they had almost unlimited resources and they didn’t perform. The sport is a difficult one granted, very unpredictable and I don’t think that one bad showing deserves cuts but how about a shift from winter athletes back to summer ones? How about a little give an take? It should be our turn, London is next year. Where is our funding? Am I not even worthy of the chance to prove that I deserve funding too? I should be the one complaining about making -$30,000/yr not the ski team complaining about only making $80,000* on a bad year.
The system is flawed and needs to be fixed, I’m not the one to tell you how exactly that needs to be done but what I can tell you is that before you consider feeling sorry for some of the winter athletes complaining about funding, take a look at a summer athlete heading to London in a few short months and ask them how they are doing.
Photo Credit Kelly Vanderbeek
*Statement of estimation
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