Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmidtyboosh
Take a vote, who thinks OWN THE PODIUM has been a success so far?
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It's been neither a success or a failure. Those upper-eschelon athletes who have succeeded or even failed have often thanked the own-the-podium program (even Montgomery last night just minutes after winning), so obviously it's had a big impact on the success that we've had. We're still on pace to win more medals than any winter Olympics yet, and winning the gold medal standings is still a realistic outcome.
The success of the OTP program is that it's successfully created a much more results-oriented approach to funding; it's allowed us to break through the 'everybody deserves equal funding' mentality to create more accountable system where funding decisions are made based on the goal of more medals. If you're critiquing the OTP program, you have to say where they went wrong in allocating money. Should they have focused more money on Hollingsworth, for example? Should they have spent less money on her and more on someone else? Or was the monetary allocation correct, and the failing was outside of their control?
edit: If I was going to critique the OTP program, I would say that long-term, they need to focus on getting Canada to the point of being one of the top nordic event countries. There are 22 events up for grabs in cross country and biathalon combined, and there's no reason why Canadians, who already have success in other stamina-based events like distance speed-skating or cycling, shouldn't be more competitive in nordic, if they're given proper funding.