Canada’s Own the Podium program worked, Pound says

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Canada’s Own the Podium program may have been criticized at times during the Olympic Games, but Canadian IOC member Dick Pound said the program was successful, forced the country to be more ruthless when it handed out Olympic Training funding, and the blueprint should be used for future games.

“It allows you to say, ‘you know your program is really good and we’ll fund you to the hilt, but your program sucks. We’re not going to give you anything because you haven’t merited it,”’ Pound said following a speech in Winnipeg on Thursday.

“Those are the kind of things Canada has been loath to do in the past. We’ve tried to be too nice to everybody.”

Own the Podium pumped millions of corporate and federal dollars into training Canadian athletes, and focused on those who had the best chance of winning medals. Throughout the program, Olympic officials made bold predictions that Team Canada would be a dominating force.

The recent federal budget gave the program a larger boost, earning an extra $17 million a year for the next two years.

While Canada didn’t end up collecting the most overall medals, it did win the most golds which muted the criticism, Pound said.

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