"Everyone recognizes that that has been an incredible success," says Roger Jackson, CEO of Own the Podium, the centrepiece of the new Canadian system.
"It would be fair to say that this will be a seminal moment in sport leadership in this country," adds Chris Rudge CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee.
However, is the Own the Podium the root cause of this success? Let's not forget that Canada's athletes have improved on their Winter Olympic Medal count at each successive Olympiad for the past 25 years. Further Canada finished third in the Winter Olympic medal count - 1 medal behind the United States - with 24 medals in Torino largely without an Own the Podium type program.
If Canada can win 24 medals at a Winter Olympiad without an Own the Podium type program is $110 million dollars a good use of funds to win an additional 6 projected medals in Vancouver? Is it possible to think that Canada could win 30 medals without an Own the Podium type program, after all Canada's success has steadily improved at each Olympiad? One would think that home soil should certainly assist in turning some of those near misses into medal winning performances.
Maybe just maybe the Own the Podium program isn't the driving force we have been led to believe regardless of how many medals we win in Vancouver.
Roger Jackson and Chris Rudge will certainly tell us otherwise.
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