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The chef de mission for Canada's Paralympic team says Canada's boffo performance at the Games in Athens means the upper structure of the national team is solid. It's the foundation that's starting to splinter.
"We have a very talented team, but if you look at the base, it's pretty shaky," Louis Barbeau said on the phone from Athens, moments before the team boarded a flight to come home to Canada. Barbeau was talking about the 5% portion of overall Sport Canada money that goes to Paralympic sport. The Canadian Paralympic Committee, with a mission to develop and grow the Paralympic movement, would like to see that doubled.
The goal would be to beef up grassroots levels in Canada, giving people with disabilities who are thinking about entering sport opportunities to do that, and providing those who are already in the sport more competitions -- the introduction of a Canadian Paralympic Games, for example. At this point, the provincial affiliates, such as Paralympics Ontario, handle grassroots sports.
FAIR SHARE
"We're only asking for our fair share, which we believe we're not getting at this point," Barbeau said.
Canada has been a dominant player at the Paralympics, introduced in 1968. In Sydney in 2000 -- with carded athletes receiving the same monthly stipend, recently upped to $1,500 tax free, as the able-bodied athletes -- the Canadian team brought home 96 medals, third place overall.
The team concluded the 12th Paralympiad this past week with a total of 28 gold medals, 19 silvers and 25 bronzes, for a total of 72, good for seventh in the standings. It was the rapid rise of China, first overall with an impressive 63 gold medals, and the improvement in performance by countries such as Australia, Great Britain, France and Russia that was the story, however. The gap between Canada and countries formerly on our heels, nations with larger population bases, is closing.
"We have to develop every possible athlete we have," wheelchair rugby player David Willsie said.
Canada's elite-level Paralympians, including Benoit Huot, 20, the swimmer from St. Hubert, Que., who won six medals in Athens, are in a different class of funding than the bulk of disabled athletes. Huot, afflicted with club feet, benefits not only from the $1,500 monthly payment but also receives $10,000 in tax-free money from the province and is part of Home Depot's program where employees on national sports teams get paid full-time wages but have to work only 20 hours per week. That allows him to train more at the national swimming centre in Montreal.
Barbeau also would like to see corporate Canada step up more. Pfizer and Petro Canada are CPC sponsors, and their funding plus the government money helped cover off the $2.1-million Athens budget for things such as travel, clothing, and getting equipment overseas.
Jeff Adams, one of Canada's more popular and successful Paralympians, in wheelchair track, has deals with Bell Canada and Pfizer. Huot and Adams, though, are the exceptions.
"You can imagine in sports like judo and power lifting, sports that aren't being well publicized for athletes with disabilities, it's very difficult to get money," Barbeau said.
Phyllis Ellis from the See You in Turino Fund (formerly See You in Athens), the group dedicated to raising money and handing it directly to amateur athletes in Canada, said she has seen first-hand the struggles of many disabled athletes in Canada: A single mom sleeping on a floor, grateful for the donation of a mattress; a wheelchair athlete desperate for a chair, not able to get to the Paralympics without it, and the See You in Athens people finding a sponsor to get one to her.
"Five thousand dollars (a typical See You in Turino hand-out) for a Paralympian is a massive contribution," Ellis said.
That does make the Athens performance even more impressive, especially when measured up against the 12 Canadian medals in the Olympics. There are more opportunities to win medals in the Paralympics compared with the Olympics, but that's not a factor for those national team athletes who just returned home.
"Well, we have good athletes, right?" Huot said.
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WORLD CLASS
How some of the GTA-area athletes did at the Paralympics:
- Chelsea Clark, Mississauga, athletics, T34 (classification), 100 metres, gold, 200 metres, gold
- Curtis Thom, Mississauga, athletics, T54, 800 metres, 16th
- Jeff Adams, Toronto, athletics, T54, 400 metres, bronze, 800 metres, ninth, 1,500 metres, fifth, 5,000 metres, 18th
- Bill Morgan, Brantford, judo, B2-81 kg, fifth
- Karen Van Nest, Mississauga, shooting, SH1 10-metre air pistol, fifth, 25-metre sport pistol, 17th
- Elisabeth Walker, St. Catharines, swimming, S7, 100-metre backstroke, seventh, 100- metre butterfly, 11th, 200-metre individual medley, sixth, 400-metre freestyle, ninth, 4X100-metre medley relay, silver, 50-metre butterfly, bronze
- Andrew Haley, Toronto, swimming, S9, 100-metre backstroke, ninth, 100-metre butterfly, seventh, 200-metre individual medley, ninth
- Anne Polinario, Toronto, swimming, S10, 100-metre backstroke, silver, 100-metre freestyle, gold, 200-metre individual medley, silver, 4X100-metre freestyle relay, silver, 4X100-metre medley relay, silver, 50-metre freestyle, gold
- Stephanie Dixon, Brampton, swimming, S9, 100-metre butterfly, silver, 100-metre freestyle, silver, 4X100-metre freestyle relay, silver, 200-metre individual medley, silver, 400-metre freestyle, silver, 100-metre backstroke, gold, 50-metre freestyle, bronze, 4X100-metre medley relay, silver