Catch Up

It has been seven long days since this blogger last published a post and since that time a number of events have transpired. A quick whirlwhind is as follows.

Roger Jackson - CEO of the Own the Podium program announced that he is stepping down from his post once his contract expires on April 15, 2010. Alex Baumann - Executive Director of the Summer Own the Podium program will assume the role of interim CEO. It is unknown who Baumann's replacement will be but speculation suggests that Anne Merklinger will likely be the succesful candidate.

B2Ten the incredibly succesful initiative that raised over $3 million dollars from corporate entities to support athletes at the 2010 Games is being expanded. The goal of the organization is to now raise $20 million dollars and support Canada's athletes through to the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Good article in the Guelph Mercury about how Athletic Canada is changing the way it funds its athletes http://news.guelphmercury.com/Sports/article/620283. Soon an a 18 year old athlete will be subjected to an easier standard for carding purposes than would be a 23 year old athlete and doubly more so than for a 28 year old athlete. No doubt that development initiatives for our younger athletes is important but imagine a professional sports team using the same analogy to select one of its teams. The end result would be a high school team competing against men. If only Athletics Canada saw things this way.

The financial figures for the Vancouver 2010 Games are starting to be released. It is expected that VANOC and its $1.56 Billion dollar operating budget will break even. However, what is not included amongst this figure is the $1 Billion dollar budget for Security and the $600 million dollars spent on sports infastructure. The citizens of Canada are paying this tab. And don't think that the citizens of Vancouver citizens are getting off easy. The City of Vancouver spent close to $4.5Billion to host the Games and the bill for the Province of British-Columbia will be close to $3.0 Billion. After everything is said and done Vancouver residents the citizens of B.C and the Canadian Taxpayer and will end up paying close to $8 billion dollars to host the games.

Randy Starkam on his Olympic Blog reported a figure from Bob Mackin of High Society that Gary Lunn's - the head of Sport Canada - hotel bill from Feb. 4 to March 1 in Vancouver and Whistler totalled $10,213.49, or an average of $392.83 a night. Lunn's predecessor in the role of Sports Minister is the now disgraced Helena Guergis who was asked to leave the Tory Caucus this week.


Yes quite the week.