By BEVERLEY SMITH
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
The Canadian Olympic Committee has no plans to follow the lead of countries that reward their athletes with money for winning Olympic gold medals, officials said yesterday.
Russian wrestlers and boxers are prime targets for rewards from the Russian Olympic Committee. They will get the equivalent of $100,000 (U.S.) for winning a gold medal, while all other gold medalists will get $50,000 and a further $50,000 if they break a world record in winning the event, Leonid Tyagachev, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee, said at a news conference yesterday.
Greece, the United States, Romania, Japan and Ukraine also offer rewards for Olympic medals.
A U.S. athlete will get $25,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for a silver and $10,000 for a bronze.
The Japanese Olympic Committee is enthusiastically dishing out the equivalent of $35,750 for a gold medal in canoeing, $23,830 for a silver and $11,915 for a bronze. A gold medal in table tennis, which would mean the Japanese would defeat the powerful Chinese, is worth $236,320.
Romania will pay the equivalent of $86,000 for a gold medal. Ukraine offers a medalist a free apartment.
Canadians get nothing from the COC other than adulation, and the organization has no immediate plans to change that.
COC president Michael Chambers said that because other Olympic committees are adopting the reward system, the issue has come up in board discussions, but not intensely.
He said the COC board, which includes some athletes, decided that with limited financial resources, it is better to put them toward the training of athletes rather than giving them money for accomplishing their goals.
"Our athletes need the money more before than they do after," Chambers said. "When we get to that day when we get all the ingredients for the cake so that we can start working on the icing," then the COC would consider rewarding athletes.
"It would have been nice [to have been paid for medals]," Canadian flag-bearer Nicolas Gill said with a laugh. He is Canada's most successful judoka, with silver and bronze medals in two Olympic Games.
"There are many countries that do that," he said yesterday.
But he said he agrees with the COC's philosophy since the Salt Lake Winter Games, when it decided to partially adopt the successful Australian system and target athletes most likely to succeed.
Gill, a beneficiary of the new wave of thinking, said he wouldn't be in the Olympic Games had the COC not supported him financially.
"For the past few years, I've been supported by the COC more than I've ever been supported in my sport before," he said. "They're targeting certain athletes and they're investing a lot in them. It's one of the main reasons I'm still here."
Gill said the COC paid his federation about $40,000 a year to give him the support he needed to get to the world championships last year and the Olympics this year and to recover from serious knee surgery that could have ended his career.
He said he'd rather have the COC support before competitions rather than be left on his own and win a cash prize later.
Kyle Shewfelt of Calgary, the only Canadian gymnast to win two medals at a world championship, said he is not motivated by the promise of riches at the end of his dream. "It's nice to get a little bit of a reward," he said yesterday. "But actually to participate at the Olympics is the reward."
But he added that he has a special situation: his family is his support system. "They've let me continue with my training," he said.
Chris Rudge, the COC's chief executive officer, says there is a place for financial incentives in business, where the measure of performance is the returns gained by shareholders. But the sport world operates under different values.
"People will work hard for the things that money can buy, but they will work harder for the things that money can't buy," he said. "[In sport], I think people are inspired by the pursuit of excellence and the desire to achieve."
Chambers said he doesn't believe the COC will start paying for medals by 2010, even though the Winter Games will be held in Vancouver and the urge to excel is paramount.
The COC has lofty goals for Vancouver: to finish on top in the medal count.
"We are sticking by that goal," Chambers said.
That means the COC will be investing its resources heavily in meeting it and still won't be able to afford a reward system.
For now, Canada's goal at the Athens Olympics is to finish in the top eight ― another lofty goal, considering it finished 17th in Sydney four years ago with 14 medals, three of them gold.
"You don't set your goal what you know you can do," Chambers said. "You race through the finish line, not to the finish line. You set a goal that is a dream, a possibility. ..... You don't feel you've lost everything if you haven't reached it, but that is what you're going for."
He added that the COC would be dancing if Canada finished eighth in Athens.
But the high standards the COC has been setting since the disappointment at the Sydney Games won't necessarily influence the results of the Athens Games as much as they will be felt at the Summer Games in 2008 and 2012, Chambers said.
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
The Canadian Olympic Committee has no plans to follow the lead of countries that reward their athletes with money for winning Olympic gold medals, officials said yesterday.
Russian wrestlers and boxers are prime targets for rewards from the Russian Olympic Committee. They will get the equivalent of $100,000 (U.S.) for winning a gold medal, while all other gold medalists will get $50,000 and a further $50,000 if they break a world record in winning the event, Leonid Tyagachev, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee, said at a news conference yesterday.
Greece, the United States, Romania, Japan and Ukraine also offer rewards for Olympic medals.
A U.S. athlete will get $25,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for a silver and $10,000 for a bronze.
The Japanese Olympic Committee is enthusiastically dishing out the equivalent of $35,750 for a gold medal in canoeing, $23,830 for a silver and $11,915 for a bronze. A gold medal in table tennis, which would mean the Japanese would defeat the powerful Chinese, is worth $236,320.
Romania will pay the equivalent of $86,000 for a gold medal. Ukraine offers a medalist a free apartment.
Canadians get nothing from the COC other than adulation, and the organization has no immediate plans to change that.
COC president Michael Chambers said that because other Olympic committees are adopting the reward system, the issue has come up in board discussions, but not intensely.
He said the COC board, which includes some athletes, decided that with limited financial resources, it is better to put them toward the training of athletes rather than giving them money for accomplishing their goals.
"Our athletes need the money more before than they do after," Chambers said. "When we get to that day when we get all the ingredients for the cake so that we can start working on the icing," then the COC would consider rewarding athletes.
"It would have been nice [to have been paid for medals]," Canadian flag-bearer Nicolas Gill said with a laugh. He is Canada's most successful judoka, with silver and bronze medals in two Olympic Games.
"There are many countries that do that," he said yesterday.
But he said he agrees with the COC's philosophy since the Salt Lake Winter Games, when it decided to partially adopt the successful Australian system and target athletes most likely to succeed.
Gill, a beneficiary of the new wave of thinking, said he wouldn't be in the Olympic Games had the COC not supported him financially.
"For the past few years, I've been supported by the COC more than I've ever been supported in my sport before," he said. "They're targeting certain athletes and they're investing a lot in them. It's one of the main reasons I'm still here."
Gill said the COC paid his federation about $40,000 a year to give him the support he needed to get to the world championships last year and the Olympics this year and to recover from serious knee surgery that could have ended his career.
He said he'd rather have the COC support before competitions rather than be left on his own and win a cash prize later.
Kyle Shewfelt of Calgary, the only Canadian gymnast to win two medals at a world championship, said he is not motivated by the promise of riches at the end of his dream. "It's nice to get a little bit of a reward," he said yesterday. "But actually to participate at the Olympics is the reward."
But he added that he has a special situation: his family is his support system. "They've let me continue with my training," he said.
Chris Rudge, the COC's chief executive officer, says there is a place for financial incentives in business, where the measure of performance is the returns gained by shareholders. But the sport world operates under different values.
"People will work hard for the things that money can buy, but they will work harder for the things that money can't buy," he said. "[In sport], I think people are inspired by the pursuit of excellence and the desire to achieve."
Chambers said he doesn't believe the COC will start paying for medals by 2010, even though the Winter Games will be held in Vancouver and the urge to excel is paramount.
The COC has lofty goals for Vancouver: to finish on top in the medal count.
"We are sticking by that goal," Chambers said.
That means the COC will be investing its resources heavily in meeting it and still won't be able to afford a reward system.
For now, Canada's goal at the Athens Olympics is to finish in the top eight ― another lofty goal, considering it finished 17th in Sydney four years ago with 14 medals, three of them gold.
"You don't set your goal what you know you can do," Chambers said. "You race through the finish line, not to the finish line. You set a goal that is a dream, a possibility. ..... You don't feel you've lost everything if you haven't reached it, but that is what you're going for."
He added that the COC would be dancing if Canada finished eighth in Athens.
But the high standards the COC has been setting since the disappointment at the Sydney Games won't necessarily influence the results of the Athens Games as much as they will be felt at the Summer Games in 2008 and 2012, Chambers said.
