Search

The article profiles sports funding agency Own the Podium (OTP), which is training the Canadian Olympic team for the 2012 Olympic games. Topics include the success of OTP at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, how the company is using training techniques including altitude training, nutritional supplements, and heart monitoring to improve the athletes' overall fitness, and testimony from athletes including Erica Wiebe, Katy Murdoch, and Desiree Scott on the program's success.

Reports on the use of Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Alberta as an ideal training place for athletes competing in the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. The various facilities available to athletes; The large number of foreign athletes residing in Calgary to train; History that was made during the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

Reports on the costs of training and competing at an international level. How most Canadian athletes have no corporate sponsors, and rely on their families for money; Funding for athletes from Sport Canada; Necessity for private sponsorship; Vital role of government funding. INSET: Seeking the wrong kind of help.

Profiles Canadian Olympic rowing member Ben Storey. Importance of rowing in his life; His doctoral work in plant biology; How he has been Yukon's male athlete of the year three times; How he has put school on hold to train for the 2000 Olympics.

Reveals a group of Calgary businessmen have decided to underwrite some of the Latvian bobsled team's Olympic training costs, and have picked up part of the $13,000 tab for the athletes' trip to Calgary, where the Latvian athletes trained on a racing sled that belonged to the Canadian bobsled team. Community spirit behind the effort.