CALGARY — Money, and there's more of it now, makes a difference in Clara Hughes' preparation to defend her speedskating gold medal at the 2010 Olympic Games.
Own The Podium, the plan designed to get Canada to the top of the medal standings at the Winter Games 16 months from now in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., will spend $27-million on Canada's winter athletes in 2008-09, but the total money pie has also expanded.
What was a $110-million, five-year plan in its inception in 2005 is now $120 million.
The additional $10-million came from a $7.5-million contribution from the Canadian Olympic Committee, some funding from the Canadian Paralympic Committee and fundraising dinners, auctions and golf tournaments the COC organized, according to OTP chief executive officer Roger Jackson.
Hughes will spend about five weeks living and training this winter in Richmond, B.C., which is where the Olympic speedskating races will be held.
She's been able to rent an apartment in the city with help from OTP.
"When I go there and I train, I can feel like it's home and I'm not living out of a hotel and a suitcase and two-thirds of that is funded by OTP," Hughes said Tuesday at an OTP event at Calgary's Canada Olympic Park.
The reigning Olympic champion in the 5,000 metres says the money also makes a difference in the amount of quality time she has with coaches and medical staff.
"My coach and support staff are also able to do their jobs better and there is a noticeable difference with the amount of time they're able to spend on an individual basis with the top athletes," she said.
Olympic silver medallist Jeff Pain says the money that is funnelled into Top Secret, which is the sport science and technology component of OTP, is crucial in his sport of skeleton because sliding on the right equipment is a huge advantage.
"The things we get to do to develop ourselves technologically with wind tunnel visits, new sleds and new runners, training time in Whistler, lumped together to access to the Canadian Sport Centre and their therapists, it's a package and you have to have the whole package," he said. "Otherwise, you're not going to get to the top of the mountain."
OTP has steadily upped its spending since its first winter sport season in 2005-06 when the budget was $19-million.
Jackson expects to drain OTP's bank account in 2009-10 by spending the remaining $28-million.
"We'll have expenses with the men's hockey program we haven't had up until now and the women's team will be centralized in Calgary and that's a big cost," Jackson explained.
"The skiers will want to open up the Whistler training venues for more training camps and that's extremely expensive for snowcats and safety nets and all the things they require."
Athletes demonstrating the most potential to win medals in 2010 get the most money, which pays for equipment, travel, training camps abroad and their support teams of physiologists, nutritionists, psychologists and chiropractors.
Canada's speedskaters won 86 World Cup medals last winter, which was almost half the country's total of 184 in 2007-08. So speedskating will receive more money from OTP — $3.5 million — than any other sport this season.
Alpine skiing, at $2.28 million and freestyle skiing, at $2.22 million, get the biggest pieces of the pie behind speed skating. The snowboard federation increased it take by $400,000 to nearly $1.9-million.
"Snowboarding, we need lots of medals," Jackson said. "We've got pretty strong medal potential already in freestyle. But the swing sports that are going to make the difference for us will be speedskating in both long and short track.
Germany is the world power in winter sport and Canada has some distance to go to catch them by 2010.
The Germans won 230 World Cup medals last winter and topped the 2006 Olympics with 29 medals, including 11 gold. Canada was third in overall medals with 24, but ranked fifth with seven gold in Turin, Italy.
Canada is currently running second to the Germans in World Cup podium finishes.
"The sports that really have to step up are bobsleigh, skeleton, ski cross and snowboarding," Jackson said. "They are the ones where we have the most to gain and if we don't get that gain, we're not going to be able to achieve the extraordinary medal totals that we think we're capable of doing."
He predicted Canada would win about 165 World Cup medals last winter and the athletes exceeded that with 184.
Jackson won't predict numbers for 2008-09 because he doesn't know how many athletes will skip World Cup events this winter to train at the Olympic venues in Vancouver and Whistler.
"It's really difficult to peg, but the bottom line is we will be better this year than we were last year, but how that reflects itself in World Cup podiums is something I can't accurately predict," he said.
