Biking Bros

We are Dwayner(Svein) and The Young Man(Christian) and this is our word

Mythbusting the Canadian Olympic coverage All right my first bikingbros post is a rant.

The Olympics are over - I barely watched. I have a hard time watching the Olympics because they just make me mad. Maybe I’m bitter because I was never good enough to make it… there would be some truth to that. But really its the commercials on TV and the commentary on CBC.

I get frustrated with the multi-million dollar commercial productions from companies like Bell who just seem to crawl out of the woodwork on a four year cycle to capitalize on the marketing opportunity of the games. All the while I know most sport in Canada operates at third world levels. Then we have CBC commentators bemoaning our athletes performance. So typically Canadian, lets whine aboot something we don’t like - and then blame the government.

So here’s some Olympic myths busted:

• Cinderella stories are rare -that’s why they mostly happen in fairy tales. Sure they happen in real life from time to time. but If all you want to see is the fairy tale of some kid from the praries who trained in his barn with no support and funding and then goes to the Olympics and wins a gold medal… well that’s fine. Don’t whine about it every 4yrs. Keep your effing trap shut and scream in joy when in happens once a century.
• For the love of the game and gold medals don’t mix. Elite sport is about elitism, not love baby. Instill those values in grass-root sport - sure, YES. But in case you didn’t notice the multi-billion dollar commercial production that is the GLOBAL Oympics - love of the game - has very little to do with it. Elite athletes are born out of even more elitist systems. Elite systems take elite money to build, maintain and produce results. Period the end.
• Which brings me to the next myth. It ain’t the governments responsibility to make it better. Get over that will you. Canada is a social democracy. Our government will and always needs to function with actions that are for the greatest good for all, that encourage fairness and equal opportunity. That is what makes Canuck land pretty cool. We’re PC, we strive for equality. But that breeds a strong middle ground. That ain’t elitist… and will never create voluminous sporting champions–you need elitism to do that. Think aboot it, that’s why government funded sport systems that were successful are from countries governed by Dictatorships.
• Finally - it really ain’t that bad. What are we a country of effing whiners. We whine and whine aboot how bad we do at the Olympics, when the reality is we do all right. Above the middle, well into the top 1/3 sorta hanging out at the bottom of the top 25% of nations. That’s pretty good for a country that inspires mediocrity and where 99% of your Olympic athletes live well below the poverty line. Final count in Beijing we are 19th of 81 ranked nations in the medal count.

Sound harsh? It is, but I’ll do something productive now and make some suggestions I think can help. The key point above is you need two things to make Canadian Olympics results improve:

• Elitism
• Money

These are two things our government can’t and shouldn’t provide. But it is something our government can encourage… You see at the root of of the success of democratic countries that succeed in the Olympics is corporate sponsorship. In fact you could build a case that per-capita the Canadian government spends more on sport than the USA - but the USA does better at the Olympics and typically has more money… because their sports attract more private corporate sponsorships. Well that and the fact that they have 250Million more potential athletes to draw on than us - But that’s another story.

Corporations grow and develop in free markets, but free markets are elitist systems - they reward success, punish failure.

I don’t think we lack corporate endorsement of the Olympics in Canada… that’s pretty clear from Bell’s commercials. What happens with it though is is gets misplaced. In Canada that corporate attitude towards Olympic marketing is similar to the government’s which is similar to Canada’s cultural attitudes - spread the wealth, give everyone a fair shake. The effect of that however is dilution to a point of near meaningless impact.

It costs millions of dollars and takes years and years to build a gold medal athlete. Millions. By the time Bell’s money has been spread around our athletes likely see a few thousand dollars in direct benefit. Don’t get me wrong - they’ll never turn that away — they’ll show effusive appreciation for it. They are after all - on Maslov’s scale of needs - just fighting to eat day in day out while they chase their Olympic dream. So a few thousand dollars basically gets them a few months of groceries they wouldn’t otherwise have. Need proof? Look at the UK’s cycling program. A decade ago it was in shambles, today its the best in the world and British Cyclists are topping the medal heap at the Olympics with frightening regularity. It took 10 years and billions of dollars. It’s working.

I’m not saying ‘the Canadian attitude of political correctness and fairness’ should change at a cultural or bureaucratic level - I’m suggesting it change at a corporate one. Which isn’t much of a change really at all, because these corporations have this attitude in their core business already. I’m just suggesting they maintain it when it comes to sport sponsorships.

The other thing we as Canadians have failed to recognize is that the Olympics is no longer about amateur sport - its about professional sport. Well maybe we haven’t failed to recognize it, but we’ve failed to proactively adapt to it. So how can we and how can the government play a part in it?

Simple. Taxes. The government can create tax incentives for companies who invest in sport - professional or amateur. Kind of like what the government has done with Investment Tax Credits for companies in innovation industries. Give them some money back for making an investment and taking a risk. But put stipulations on it that encourage investment in private sport bodies, teams, clubs whatever… not the provincial and/or National federations and associations. This could create an environment of professionalism in sports we’d never expect… a professional Bob-sled team, or lugers or rythmic gymnasts. Hell alpine skiing has been doing this pretty successfully really. Maybe our muched loved S-club would actually find a major multi million dollar sponsor? And our team wouldn’t operate on 1/5 of Fabian Cancellera’s salary - and Dwayner might get to the 2012 London games with a less stressfull lead up.

If the government did this, then the ‘free market’ would be the one being both competitive and elitist. Not Sport Canada, not the government. We’d have a slew of sports competing for corporate sponsorship. Corporations would be incented to sponsor private teams or athletes. The athletes, teams and sports with the winning pitches would win the sponsorships. Teams and athletes would get a lot more direct benefit –likely and hopefully millions of dollars worth. That will build gold medal athletes.

Finally–Way to go Dwayner and Zman. You guys were fantastic in Beijing and we’re all pretty psyched for you buds. You guys were both in the hunt, right up there. Turning those 7th’s into medals in 2012 is a real possibility…