At the end of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Canadian athletes showed not the best results. Having won 18 medals, including 1 gold, 5 silver and 12 bronze, Canada was in 36th place in the overall team event. This situation has found a kind of reflection in the Canadian press.
The journalists of the Canadian newspaper The Global Star, reflecting in their articles the reasons for the poor performance of their athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, have come up with a "Canadian formula for success." Its essence is as follows. To win a sport, one of the following conditions must be met:
- this sport should be popular and well developed in the country;
- the country must have a large population to create a competitive struggle;
- the members of the national team, in preparation for the Olympics, simply must make every effort and be in excellent sports form.
Commenting on the articles of the Canadian press, foreign colleagues, not without sarcasm, noticed that these principles have been working for the Chinese team for a long time.
Nevertheless, Canada remains one of the permanent winners of the Winter Olympics so far. Recall that at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canadian athletes won 26 medals and were in first place in the overall medal standings. Canada's success was largely due to its strategic five-year plan for training athletes - Own The Podium.
This plan was developed by 1976 Olympic speed skating champion Katie Allinger and her husband Todd. To implement the developed plan, Canada spent $ 117 million. For comparison: Russia at the Vancouver Olympics took 11th place in the overall team event, while training athletes took $ 198 million.
Since the Allinger spouses did not want to develop a program for Canada for the 2014 Olympics, the organizing committee of the Sochi Olympic Games did not miss the opportunity to offer them cooperation as consultants. Canada is also ready to provide Russia with the best sports facilities for training athletes during the construction of Olympic facilities.
