Fund sports better, local Olympians' families say

Even as Canadians rejoice over the end of a medal drought this past weekend with the Great North stepping it up and earning eight of them, family members of Olympic athletes from the West Island area spoke to The Chronicle about their loved ones' trials and tribulations, and exactly what all of the pressure on their shoulders means to them.

"We shouldn't be focusing every four years on whether we want to get on the platform," said David Bone, 30, a Beaconsfield resident and brother of Oliver Bone, who competed this year in the 470 mens' sailing event and finished in 16th place.

"I think that he's happy to be there," David said of his brother. According to him, Oliver had been training for the last seven years to get to the point he is at today, and the very idea of competing at a world-class level is the achievement of a dream on its own.

However, he said Oliver would perhaps try again in London in four years.

At first, sailing was just "a summertime activity for him," David said, until he gradually decided to take it more seriously. A bit of an athlete himself, David has been sailing along with his brother ever since their parents introduced them to the activity as boys, but he decided not to pursue it professionally.

As for the pressure placed on athletes like his brother, David said he does understand the frustration that Canadian sports watchers were feeling last week as the nation had still scooped up any medals. "To be honest, I think it's a good point that people are making," he said. However, he added the problem does not just lie with specifically under-funding the Canadian Olympics Committee, but most sports in the country in general.

"If you take Olympic-size swimming pools, in Canada you have about 20-40," David said as an example. Comparatively, Australia has four times that amount, he said.

David added perhaps more of an emphasis should be placed on other sports in the country besides just hockey. "I love hockey," he said, but for some kids the violence associated with the sport might be a turn-off. Individual sports, rather than team-based ones, should also be promoted more, he said.

Meanwhile, Keith Wilkinson, 60, retired John Abbot College teacher and father of womens' soccer team player Rhian Wilkinson, emphasized the under-funding that goes on at the Olympic level.

For example, his daughter's team would have been unable to have a residential training camp without the aid of sports mogul Greg Kerfoot, who helped set them up with such a facility at University of British Columbia, Wilkinson said.

"Other countries have placed more money (into their Olympics teams)," Wilkinson said. Without the aforementioned facility available, he theorized, his daughter's team may have been forced to meet only "once or twice a month."

Though his daughter's team did not move on beyond the quarter finals, losing to the United States of America, Wilkinson said he was proud of the team's achievements. "It bodes well for the future," he said.

Though his daughter Rhian did pick up a love of sports from the father, she wound up falling just a little bit far from the tree. "I'm a rugby player, so she must have grabbed the wrong ball," Wilkinson said with a laugh.

courtesy photo