A virtual afterthought after the Olympic cauldron has been extinguished Jungle Jim Hunter is trying to make amateur sport important 12 months a year.
An Olympic medalist in Alpine Skiing and one of the original Crazy Canucks, Jungle Jim became disillusioned with the lack of information about amateur sport here in Canada and decided to do something about it. Using his own money, Jungle purchased air-time on the Calgary Sports Radio Station - the Fan 960 - and started up his own radio show.
Every Saturday from 9-11am on the Fan 960 Jungle Jim hits the airwaves and discusses events that matter to amateur sport enthusiasts. If you are outside of the Calgary area you can listen to the show via the internet simply by going to www.fan960.com.
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Real changes are being made within Athletics Canada and while not everyone is pleased this blogger thinks it is about time. For the first time in the history of the National Sport Organization - Athletics Canada is toying around the idea of a National Training Centre. Under the current structure high performance athletes are scattered across the country under the direction of a "Personal Coach".
A National Training Centre would have the nation's best athletes train in 1 locale thus giving the nations best athletes the opportunity to train beside the best. The system has worked wonders in Rowing, Speed Skating, Swimming, Bobsled, Cross-country skiing etc.. and for a sport that has won one a single medal at the past three Olympiads the proposed system will certainly do better than the current one.
Not everyone agrees, however. Gregory Portnoy in a interview with the CBC noted "This system almost eliminates the personal coach. The personal coach is key in track and field.....the national federation is incapable of developing athletes by itself..." Portnoy however, is a coach serving his own personal interests. Portnoy is a personal coach to long and triple jump record holder Tabia Charles.
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Rumors are abound that the COC wants to take full control of the Own the Podium (OTP) program. Qudos to Own the Podium CEO Alex Baumann who noted in an interview that this would in fact be a bad idea. Baumann was quoted as saying that the the program (OTP) has to make difficult decisions to move sport forward and may be unable to do that if it was part of the COC.
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Glad to be back looking into the world of amateur sports once again.
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