1
Canada's summer athletes won't feel like second-class citizens next to their winter counterparts, now that the federal government has come through with funds to fuel the Road to Excellence program, says Alexandra Orlando, one of the world's top rhythmic gymnasts.
But it will still cost Orlando and her parents tens of thousands of dollars to keep chasing her Olympic dream to Beijing in the summer.
"I definitely felt the summer athletes were underappreciated," said the Toronto university student, whose coach left to take a post in Spain because there wasn't enough support to keep her coaching in Canada.
"It's too late to think of getting another coach. Mimi Masleva is one of the best and she's coached me since I was 7. So, when I need to get together with her for a coaching session, my family has to pay for a plane ticket to get me to Spain. It costs between $50,000 and $75,000 a year for me to stay in this sport at the top level.
"Ask any summer athlete at this level, and you'll hear the same story over and over. I get $1,500 a month in federal carding money as an elite athlete, but that's not enough to live and train on, so I'm living with my parents while I'm studying for my exams in politics, philosophy and economics."
In a sport dominated by Eastern Europeans, Orlando had been making breakthroughs for Canada. A five-time national champion, she swept six gold medals in a record-tying performance at the Commonwealth Games at Melbourne in 2006, then took three more gold medals at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last August. She likely would have swept the table there as well, except for a bizarre equipment malfunction in which her ribbon separated from its wand and fluttered away.
At both Games, Orlando was selected to carry Canada's flag in the closing ceremony. She qualified for the Olympics last fall with a ninth-place overall finish in the world championships at Patras, Greece.
Orlando went to Ottawa a week ago as part of the lobbying effort by the Canadian Olympic Committee and the amateur sport community to urge the Conservative government to act on a recommendation by the standing committee on finance to put $30-million a year into the RTE, which is designed to provide medal-potential athletes with the services, coaching, training and competitive opportunities to get them to the Olympic podium. Winter athletes had the Own the Podium program to boost their medal chances but the summer athletes were feeling left out.
The recommendation was for a $150-million package over five years, but instead the government came up with $24-million over the next two years, then an ongoing commitment of $24-million a year. Because there's no sunset for the program in 2012, it should actually be more lucrative.
"I think the MPs we met appreciated that stories of struggles coming directly from athletes," Orlando said. "We have the potential to be on the podium. Canada's not in the top 10 countries in Summer Olympic sports, but we could be."
