Our teams underfunded
By GEORGE GROSS, TORONTO SUN
Only a few months are separating us from the Athens Olympics, the birthplace of the modern Games, the realized dream of Baron de Coubertin. Over the years, Canada's individual athletes have done reasonably well as gold medal performances by the likes of Alex Baumann, Lennox Lewis, Marnie McBean, Mark McKoy, Donovan Bailey and Daniel Igali, just to name a few, can attest to.
But it's vastly different in Summer Olympics team sports. In fact, the disappointing showing might be perhaps best described as pathetic when it comes to our soccer, field hockey, volleyball, water polo, handball, basketball, baseball and softball teams.
Some may argue that our equestrian team won Olympic gold in 1968 at Mexico City, but that "team" consisted of three individual efforts by Jim Elder, Tom Gayford and Jim Day, rather than what we consider a team sport.
This year, most of our team sports have failed to qualify for the Athens Olympics, even though two or three still have a chance to make it. However, I believe, the team gold medal drought will continue.
The soccer team didn't make it to Athens, men's and women's basketball, volleyball and handball teams are out as are men's water polo and women's field hockey.
On the other hand, women's softball is in and so is men's baseball. Women's water polo and men's field hockey will have their fates decided in the next month.
Why is it, I asked myself, that a prosperous country such as Canada cannot assemble powerful teams for the Summer Olympics. The only answer I could find is in three words: Lack of funding. Government funding, that is, regardless whether a Liberal or Conservative government reigns in Ottawa. The only exceptions were the years when Iona Campagnolo (Liberal) and Otto Jelinek (Conservative) were sports ministers.
Some sports officials are also at fault. Swimming has clever executives and, as a result, the sport receives the most funding of any Canadian sport because they convinced the government that swimmers could win several medals, while a team sport can win only one.
The moguls in Ottawa are forgetting that a soccer, field hockey, volleyball, basketball or water polo team has far greater expenses than any of the individual sports. Because of Canada's size, it's extremely costly to centralize a team or bring the players together in training camps. The geography also makes it prohibitively expensive to get regular club competition in the team sports.
By comparison, Europe has an advantage over Canada by having professional leagues in basketball, volleyball, water polo and soccer, all self-sustaining.
Remembering some Olympic Games, I can recall only our men's beach volleyball team winning a bronze medal in 1996 Games at Atlanta. but even there we're talking about two individuals, just as we do when referring to the gold medals won by Daniel Nestor and Sebastien Lareau in tennis in 2000 in Sydney.
"Overseas countries have a big advantage," said Chris Rudge, secretary general and CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee. "They have their players together and can build up consistency. We have to bring players in from long distances and that is very costly."
TAKES TIME, MONEY
What can be done to rectify the situation?
"Some of the sports are not as popular as they are in Europe," said Rudge. "Take soccer for instance. Or water polo. Also, we need bigger financial support for these athletes. The overall situation can be corrected, but it will take some time and a lot of money."
So, perhaps, we should write off the 2004 Games in Athens, but if we have any aspirations to do well in team sports in 2008 in Beijing, we had better start working on it as of next week.
