Canada Protects Home Advantage at Olympics
Some people fear that a decades-old agreement between the U.S. and Canada, which would normally have allowed U.S. athletes a chance to familiarize themselves with the track at the Whistler Sliding Center, above, has come undone.
By JOHN BRANCH
Published: September 20, 2009
Count the American speedskater Catherine Raney among the athletes, coaches and officials of several sports surprised by Canada’s approach to hosting the Winter Games in February.
Raney, who spent more than seven years living in Canada and training with the Canadian national team, was told after the 2006 Olympics that the Canadians did not want foreign athletes training with them leading to the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
She and many other foreign athletes had expected to spend quite a bit of time practicing at the Olympic sites, but have been granted only minimal access.
“They’re playing nasty,” said Raney, now living and training in Utah. “I think every one of us would love to prove to them that what they did wasn’t right, and we’re ready to show it on the ice.”
Canadian officials said they were following rules of access to competition sites, as set by each sport’s governing body. But they also intend to protect the Olympic host’s home-field — or home-ice, home-snow or home-track — advantage.
Canada has made a public quest to win more medals than ever, and more than any other country.
“By virtue of being at home, you have more access to venues,” Cathy Priestner Allinger, the executive vice president for sports of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, said in her office this summer. “That’s the nature of it. There’s no country or organizing committee that would tell you otherwise, or that wouldn’t try to take advantage of some of that.”
The sometimes conflicting notions of sportsmanship and gamesmanship require a delicate balance. Some say Canada may have tilted too far.
A decades-old open-access agreement between the luge teams of the United States and Canada has come undone. Americans said that most Canadian athletes took 60 to 100 extra practice runs in Utah before the 2002 Salt Lake Games. Canada offered the United States 18 this time, in a trade for 18 Canadian runs at this year’s world championships in Lake Placid, N.Y. The Americans refused.
“I guess I can intellectually say I understand it,” said Ron Rossi, the executive director of USA Luge, upset that a gentlemen’s agreement dating to the 1980 Lake Placid Games has ended. “But as an honorable thing, I don’t support it, and I think it shows a lack of sportsmanship.”
Last winter, speedskaters from several countries were denied access to the Richmond Olympic Oval, Canadian officials said, because they did not make proper arrangements and because of a last-minute decision to shut the site to add lighting. A German team spent days waiting to be allowed in. Kevin Crockett, a Canadian Olympic medalist now coaching for China, was among those who went in, only to be escorted out. The conflict and confusion made headlines in Canada.
At the Whistler downhill course, unfamiliar to most of the world’s best skiers, several medal contenders were left watching over a fence as the Canadian team trained.
“Everybody was pushing to get on that downhill,” said Max Gartner, Alpine Canada’s chief athletic officer. “That’s an advantage we cannot give away.”
Canadian officials said that they had provided more access than any previous host country, largely because their sites were completed early. But the officials acknowledge that they are also driven to succeed at these Olympics, perhaps more than any previous host country.
“We’re the only country to host two Olympic Games and never have won a gold medal at our Games,” Priestner Allinger said, referring to the summer of 1976 (Montreal) and the winter of 1988 (Calgary). “It’s not a record we’re proud of.”
The target is 35 medals, 11 more than Canada won in 2006 in Turin, Italy. Canada’s Own the Podium program is pumping $110 million into the medal push, focusing on athletes most likely to finish in the top three. Alpine skiers, for example, are being counted on to win two medals. Besides gold medals in hockey and curling, Canada expects big hauls from speedskating and the sliding sports.
Own the Podium emphasizes the advantage gained by giving athletes time to acclimate.
“Increased track exposure will provide athletes with the confidence they need to reach the podium,” reads a section about bobsled and skeleton in the program’s promotional literature. Speedskaters were given “a strategic plan to maximize their comfort level” at the Olympic oval. Even biathletes were granted “additional training opportunities to ensure athletes know every inch of the course.”
The benefits of familiarity vary by sport. It is particularly important on one-of-a-kind new sites like the track for luge, bobsled and skeleton. Canadian athletes will have had hundreds of trips down what is widely considered the world’s most treacherous course. Foreign athletes will have had a few dozen.
“For sure, there’s an advantage,” said Tim Farstad, the executive director of Luge Canada. “That’s the nature of our sport — every country has an advantage on its own track. It’s not like a 100-meter sprint, where it doesn’t matter where you sprint.”
At last February’s luge world championships in Lake Placid, the American Erin Hamlin became the first non-German woman to win in 16 years. Weeks later, on the same track, Steven Holcomb and his four-man bobsled team became the first American world champions in 50 years.
To improve Canada’s chances in skiing, the downhill course at Whistler was built each of the last two springs and surrounded with safety fencing, at a cost of more than $100,000. Although Canada’s ski team has strong alliances, particularly with Norway, they go only so far.
“Once we go to downhill training in Whistler, it has to be exclusive to Canadians,” Gartner said. “Knowing Whistler and the conditions that can possibly happen there, it is an advantage if you’ve run that downhill a few times. There’s no question.”
Some rivals, including the United States ski team, expressed disappointment. But many understand Canada’s reluctance to extend invitations to competition sites, even if the pressure to win stems largely from the organizing committee.
Still, others wonder if the emphasis is misplaced.
“It just doesn’t seem like it’s in the Olympic spirit,” said Derek Parra, who won gold and silver speedskating medals for the United States in 2002 and now coaches the team. “It’s un-Olympic.”
Among Parra’s charges is Raney, who remains close friends with Canadians whom she will race against in February. She might have provided the sharpest rebuke to her neighbors to the north.
“It’s un-Canadian,” Raney said, laughing. “Isn’t it?”
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