Olympics-Canada's Olympic chief calls for sports funding boost as medal target missed

By Ilze Filks

MILAN, Feb 22 (Reuters) - At a Games that delivered fewer medals than Canada hoped for, the country's Olympic chief David Shoemaker delivered a pointed message to Prime Minister Mark Carney: if the nation wants to remain a winter powerhouse, it must invest like one.

Canada's target at Milano Cortina was to surpass the 26 medals won at Beijing 2022. But they will leave short of that benchmark, with a chance to finish with 21 at most — a result that has sharpened calls for an increase in funding.

"It was just a month ago that Prime Minister (Mark) Carney made international headlines with his inspiring speech at Davos (World Economic Forum)," Canadian Olympic Committee Chief Executive Shoemaker said at a press conference on Sunday.

"In that speech, he talked in large part about ambition, about the strength of Canada at home and the values we can and should project to the world. We realise sport isn't the answer to all of this government's many urgent priorities.

"But to Prime Minister Carney, who addressed Team Canada in a hockey jersey, who called Team Canada athletes as they topped the podium this week, who believes as much as anyone in the power of sport, I would say this: Sport is an integral part of that strength of character and country.

"Sport represents a set of values that define us. Through sport, we have a real opportunity, if not a responsibility, to be ambitious about how we want to show up as a nation, both on the world stage and in communities across the country."

NO NEW MONEY FOR SPORT

The COC, Canadian Paralympic Committee and the country's national sport organisations had hoped for a $144 million increase in funding from Carney's first budget on November 4 to offset two decades without a significant boost.

Instead, the federal budget had no new money for sport.

"Core funding for national sports organisations has not increased in 20 years," Shoemaker said. "It needs to.

"It's the money these organisations count on to fund operations, athletes, coaches and support staff. They safeguard the pathway from playground to podium."

Canada began the Games' final day on Sunday with 20 medals and gold or silver guaranteed in men's ice hockey.

It was a far cry from the best-ever 29 the once mighty winter sports nation brought home from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Canada also finished top of the table in gold medals with 14 in 2010 in Vancouver and third overall with 26 in total.

"Flat operational funding to NSOs in an inflationary world is a cut," Canada's chef de mission Jennifer Heil said.

"We're creating a pay-to-play system in Canada, where wealth and luck are some of the major determining factors as to who gets to stand on a podium."

CANADA'S POWERHOUSE HOCKEY TEAMS

Among the positives, Canada's traditional powerhouse hockey teams both played for gold, with the women losing to arch-rivals the United States in the final.

"Those are two of the greatest rivalries in Olympic sport, certainly in the Winter Games," Shoemaker said.

"We know that people have been trying their best to find jerseys here in Milan and they're not available. And even back home, stores are sold out."

He said the hunger for those iconic moments runs deeper than hockey, or even sport, alone.

"It goes back to that core message, that this feeling of patriotism, pride in country, the aspiration to do great things on the world stage, to sing 'O Canada,'" Shoemaker said.

Yet he said these Olympics also posed difficult questions.

"These Games brought us together, as they always do," he added. "In return, they provided an opportunity to ask ourselves, 'How do we want to show up on the world stage? What kind of country do we want to represent? Who do we want to be?'

"In some ways, I think waiting eight days for a gold medal emphasised this point."

Canada's Mikael Kingsbury finally delivered Canada's first gold medal on Day 9 of the Games, the nation's longest wait for an Olympic title since the 1988 Calgary Games.

"We see the countries ahead of us," Shoemaker said. We aspire to do better. What you're sensing from us is this collective seriousness that in order to do better we have to continue delivering this message."