Cam Cole has an excellent article titled “Time To Show We Care” in today’s Vancouver Sun which looks into just how much funding our amateur sport athletes receive versus other countries.
Doesn’t it strike anyone up there at that COC head table, as the organization does its post-Games post-mortem news conference, how pathetically small-time our investment is, compared with what the rest of the world is spending on the athletes they expect to make them proud at the Olympics?
“I wouldn’t use the word pathetically,” said Chris Rudge, the CEO of the national Olympic committee, tiptoeing through the minefield, “but it is significantly less.
“I always find it amusing, every four years, people go through a tremendous amount of angst if we are not winning enough medals, and they care tremendously about Olympic performances. But these things don’t just happen.
“If Canadians believe it’s important, then Canadians should find a way to ask their government to invest in it. In my short history, and I might be the oldest guy in the room, I can’t remember a government that was elected or lost because of their stand on sport.
“It’s not been an issue that’s had political currency.”
Read the full article here.
