| Ah yes, another Olympic year. A time to witness unbelievable human achievements, fantastic team cohesion and outpourings of national pride.
It's also a time to talk about money.
Funding, or lack thereof, continues to be a hot topic for all Canadian Olympians, regardless of their international status or past performances. Take the Canadian Ski Jumping Association, for example. Before a last-minute cash contribution from some Calgary MLAs, the province and the Calgary Olympic Development Association, it looked like the program was headed the way of Eddie the Eagle.
Until these groups chipped in some cash, the association’s hopes rested on the shoulders of two teenagers, Stephan Read, 18, and Gregory Baxter, 16. They needed a top-30 finish in the individual competition to prevent the program from collapsing.
Now, however, the program has funding to upgrade the local ski jump facilities, allowing jumpers to continue training. And, two other Canadians, Graem Gorham, 18, and Michael Neil, 21, will participate in the sport in Turin. The team is using these Olympics as a learning experience in preparation for the 2010 Vancouver games.
At the opposite end of the scale, veteran athletes and Olympic medallists continually look for more sponsorship to help with training and new equipment. Lori-Ann Muenzer, for example, despite winning a cycling gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, cited lack of sponsorship as one reason for taking this season off.
Unfortunately, the Olympics are also a time for undignified corporate prostitution, when multimillion-dollar businesses blanket the country with media releases saying how good they are for tossing a few nickels to Olympic athletes.
Here's an example. Some public relations flack from the credit card company Visa contacts Fast Forward asking if anyone wants to interview a couple of Olympic hopefuls who are "prepared to discuss" the discussions they had with former Olympians. Visa has a program putting current Olympic athletes in touch with former Olympians in addition to giving today's athletes some financial support.
First, a discussion of a discussion is seldom interesting, unless you've just been talking with a standup comedian. Second, it doesn't matter what the current athletes learned – if they don't incorporate that into their Olympic preparation and mental routine, it makes no difference what advice they did or didn't receive.
Third, according to the PR flack's notice, discussions with the mentors were to focus around being the best and winning a gold medal. But up-and-coming luger Jeff Christie, as much as he’d love a medal, has said that cracking the top 10 is his main goal for the 2006 Olympics.
Fourth, the other local athlete selected to speak about the program just happens to be one of the best athletes the country has ever produced. Clara Hughes has already earned medals at previous summer and winter Olympics. Chances are, for her, technical tips for speed skating would help more than good advice or an interesting chat with a former Olympian.
Now this isn't to say the mentoring idea has no merit. It does. But turning athletes into corporate pawns is far from the benevolent contribution that such a program should be. After an athlete wins, or turns in a better-than-predicted performance, let's let her tell us how program X may have helped. Unless athletes are also fortune tellers, how about if corporations generous enough to throw some cash at our Olympians let them do what they do best and save the talking for PR flacks.
As mentioned, to say the money these corporations donate to athletes isn't needed or welcome is absolutely incorrect. Ask any Olympian – every penny counts. But compare the tactics of Visa to those of the Calgary outlet of Mountain Equipment Co-op recently. In a simple sign telling customers that it was out of product X because all that product had been donated to victims of a natural disaster, the retailer exemplified the humility most Olympic athletes possess for their sport and/or competitors.
Perhaps Visa’s public relations division could use some Olympic-spirit mentoring of its own? |
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