Re posted from www.metroblenznewssquad.com

Own the Podium dream over. That’s that’s the head line that read in a CBC / National Post article on Feb. 22 2010 And certainly there has been a lot of talk about Canada’s uncharacteristically bold statement and the public declaration of its Big Hairy Audacious Goal: To be a world leader in high performance sport. Own the Podium or OTP, quite clearly set its goals for these 2010 Games as follows:

• Place first in the total medal count at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games
• Place in the top three in the gold medal count at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games

OTP has been for more than a commitment to Athletes is has been our battle cry to the world that we intend to dominate these games. That’s why it was like an elephant left the room when Canadian Olympic Committee CEO, Chris Rudge, said Monday that Canada wasn’t going to finish first at these Games. Our National Pride was beaten and the media attention around it didn’t do our top contenders any favors.

But I’d like to take the opportunity of looking at this program, which is at risk of being unfairly seen as a failure simply because of its own wildly optimistic measure, through a different lens. I think if we look at the entire context, we’ll see that OTP and our Olympic Team has been a HUGE success.

Limited Time First off, OTP has only been in effect for 5 years and with limited funding of just $117 M. “The limiting factor here was time,” Roger Jackson, the CEO of OTP, said in an interview Friday. Own the Podium did not have enough time to guide a solid amateur up to international level, he said, and so the spending was focused on athletes who were already “in the system,” and especially in sports with an already deep talent pool, such as curling and hockey.

Limited Selection Ratio The other factor that I have never seen acknowledged anywhere is country population and the selection ratio we have to draw from. Let’s put this in perspective and take a look a the populations of Top competing countries in these games. Here are the Top 10 in Population in order:

• China 1.3 Billion population, 20 % of world Population
• United States 309 Million 4.5% of world population
• Russia 142 Million 2.1 % of world population
• Japan 127 Million 1.9% of world population
• Germany 82 Million 1.2% of world population
• France 65 Million .96% of world population
• UK – GBR 62 million .91% of world population
• Italy 60 Million .90% of world population
• South Korea 50 Million .73% of world population
• Ukraine 46 Million .68% of world population

Canada isn’t even on the list. Simply from a population perspective of nations participating in these games Canada isn’t even in the top 10. For the purposes of this post I’m not going to get into the funding, politicism or retirement incentives that many countries offer its top athletes, I just want to look at the talent pool to draw from. Simply from a selection ratio perspective Canada is at a huge disadvantage with a population of just 34 million.

At the time of this writing Canada is sitting number 3 in total medal count (21) and is sitting in 1st Place for Gold (10) ahead of the USA and Germany (tied at 8). The games aren’t over yet and we are guaranteed at least 3 more medals and are contention for Gold for each. If you look at the limited time frame of the OTP program, our small population, limited athletic funding, and focus on “athletes already in the system” I think it’s a fair statement that OTP has been a Huge Success.

Let’s return briefly to the original vision and Mission for OTP:

Vision
For Canada to be a world leader in high-performance sport.

Mission

To lead the development of Canadian sports to achieve sustainable podium performances at the Olympic and Paralympic Games

If those were the goals and you look at the results we achieved, I’m proud to scream out Go Canada! - We Do Own The Podium!

Keep it up and with a continued commitment to develop and nurture yet undiscovered talent, we will own the podium for many generations to come

Howard Olsen is President of High Output Training Systems and is one of Canada’s leading sales performance experts . He is on the Board of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers and every year his perspective shifting keynotes and profit producing training programs help thousands of business people and their companies positively impact their bottom lines. For more information visit high-output.com and HowardOlsen.com Follow Howard on Twitter @howardolsen