Belt tightening and lean budgets will become the norm this year for winter sports, as two national sports organization received bad news from Own the Podium.
Following a year where they placed an athlete in the top three in the world, but fell very short of their two-medal goal at the Sochi Olympics, Cross Country Canada saw a 25 per cent reduction in its Own the Podium funding for the upcoming season, which takes hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the team budget. Last year, Own the Podium gave Cross Country Canada $1.9 million, which covered the national team and the ParaNordic team. High Performance Director Thom Holland said the organization was expecting a cut after they failed to win a medal in Sochi, but they will maintain funding at the high performance level.
“We have to be strategic when making any cuts. To support a team at the World Cup level, it costs a lot of money and we still need results, or else we’ll get more cuts. Our approach this year is to make cuts in training camps and ISTs (Integrated support teams),” Holland said.
The blow is lessened since only four Canadian athletes qualified to race the World Cup this year. With Dasha Gaiazova and Chandra Crawford’s retirement, and Perianne Jones’ placement on the development team, Canada will have no women racing at the top level overseas to start the year. Last year, seven Canadians started on the World Cup. Younger ‘B’ Team athletes such as Jesse Cockney and Graeme Killick will be asked to pay their own way for European tours, while world junior athletes costs have also increased. Some could face a $30,000 bill for their season.
“Unfortunately, these cuts affect everybody. It filter’s down and once the cuts come, you’ve got to trim all around. Our younger athletes, we’d like to have a B tour and some World Cup starts, but we can only pay so much,” Holland said.
The team’s annual training camp in New Zealand is now gone, and the club has chosen to train closer to Canmore more often. The team used Sunshine Village for an early spring camp, axed a Haig Glacier camp and replaced the New Zealand camp with one in Bend, Oregon. They also retained their altitude camp in Park City, Utah.
While Holland said the World Cup team has been protected from the cuts, technical support will be reduced. Wax techs, massage therapy budgets and other support crew costs will be cut.
Biathlon Canada had high hopes after the Sochi Games, where they had a string of top 10 performances – but no medals. The sport was only given $228,000 last year from Own the Podium, and picked up an additional $50,000 this year. No winter Olympic sport receives less than biathlon, which only two years ago received nearly $500,000 from Own the Podium.
Head coach Matthias Ahrens said he disagrees with the decision, as biathlon showed they have medal potential at the Sochi games. J.P. LeGuellec was in a gold medal position when he broke a ski, and the women’s relay team was also in contention for a medal. He’s concerned OTP provided much more funding after the 2010 Games, where the Canadians didn’t have as solid a team.
“Overall, it’s just a disappointment. We made huge progress, whether on the Olympics and the World Cup. We had bad luck with LeGuellec when he lost the leading position with a broken ski. That could have been a medal. (Own the Podium) based their funding purely on medals. It has value, but overall if you want to develop a sport which is close to a medal, the funding should follow,” Ahrens said. “We’ve clearly showed potential.”
The team will not change its training camp schedule this summer, and will race against the Americans twice over the summer in order to help bridge the competition gap.
They brought in a functional movement coach over the spring, and the former Norwegians national team shooting coach to work with the team for two weeks.
“The theme is individualization. We are getting each individual the right methods to really work on their strengths and optimize their performance,” Ahrens said.
Biathlon Canada High Performance Director Chris Lindsay said he understood OTP’s decision.
“I’m happy we got an increase. There aren’t many sports that did. We’re cognizant our position, given the criteria, puts us in a challenging spot for Own The Podium. They are about funding strong bets, and while we are doing better, we’re not a safe bet,” Lindsay said.
He said the new funding will go to support its nine athletes on the World Cup, with more physiotherapy, massage and other systems.
“The entire amount will be directed to training activities, or the medical and support team,” Lindsay said.
OTP wanted to see results from biathlon, or they would have been completely cut, Lindsay said, as was the case with Nordic Combined.
