Canada's Dylan Armstrong makes an attempt at the Men's Shot Put qualification during the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, March 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)Martin Meissner/The Associated Press
On a day when numbers stood out, the number 12 was paramount for Olympics-bound Canadian athletes.
It's the place the Canadian Olympic Committee has designated as Canada's goal among 204 nations at the London 2012 Olympic Games. It will take a total of about 20 medals. Canada had 18 in Beijing four years ago – three gold, nine silver and six bronze – to move up to 14th overall from 19th at Athens.
"Twelfth is an ambitious objective," said Dimitri Soudas, the COC's executive director of communications. "Quite frankly, a lot of work remains to be done."
Wednesday marked 100 days to the opening ceremony of the London Games. Predictions for Canada's performance rank from a very conservative 14 medals on the website SportsMyriad.com, to 17 from Canadian-born economics professor Daniel Johnson at Colorado College (he uses economic factors in predicting medals and has an accuracy record of 93 per cent) to the more than 60 Canadian athletes for whom a "top three" ranking in 2012 is projected by Canadian sport officials tracking World Cup and world championship performances.
The Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, at which Canada finished third in the medal count but topped the standing in golds with a record 14, has set the bar high for the summer athletes. The COC won't get into specific predictions, Soudas said. "Our focus is on getting the entire team prepared.
"It may appear simple and easily achievable to move up to 12th, but there's a lot of countries competing for those spots."
Own The Podium, established five years before the 2010 Winter Games, provided the finishing details for athletes who showed Olympic medal potential at World Cup and world championship events – nutrition, coaching, travel to and from competitions, technology and research. That became the model for Canadian high-performance sport. OTP paid out an average of $30-million over the past three years to summer sport federations with a high of $34.5-million for the crucial year before the London Games. The budget for both summer and winter Olympic sports is about $70-million annually. OTP's money comes from Sport Canada, the federal government arm that oversees sport.
The COC is more than the travel agency it used to be, outfitting athletes and sending them to Games. Today, the COC gets involved in development, science and technology. "The scope and reach of the COC is broader than before in terms of preparation of the athletes. We want to dive deep for fine tuning, to find that 0.5 centimetre or 0.08 second that makes a difference in attaining a medal," Soudas said.
Leadership is important to the mission's achievement, he said, and that's what the COC says athletes will get from two gold medal winners – swimmer Mark Tewksbury and diver Sylvie Bernier, the chef de mission and assistant chef, respectively.
"They can help the athletes get through those difficult moments at the Games," Soudas said.
Even Olympians of the past are contributing to the boost for Canadian athletes. With the collaboration of the COC, Olympians Canada, chaired by COC board member Charmaine Crooks, created a program called Home Suite Home at the Vancouver Games.
"The intention of the program was to outfit each Canadian Olympic athlete's room with the kind of creature comforts that would help them relax and feel settled," said media-relations manager Jane Almeida. "Athletes were thrilled with the furnishings and small refrigerators in their rooms.
"Historically, these living quarters have been pretty basic, stark spaces with few of the comforts of home. They were far from inspiring and while everyone always makes the best of things, a number of us here in Vancouver felt that we could do better," Crooks said in a statement.
London will play host to the Olympic Games for the third time in history from July 27 to Aug. 12 and will welcome 10,500 athletes. The Canadian team – the bulk of which will qualify and be selected in May and June – will number about 300 athletes and coaches, Soudas said.
Canada should have multiple medal threats in track and field, rowing, paddling, cycling, swimming, diving, women's boxing and women's wrestling. Triathlete Paula Findlay, paddler Adam van Koeverden, trampolinist Karen Cockburn, hurdlers Priscilla Lopes-Schliep and Perdita Felicien, shot putter Dylan Armstrong, divers Jennifer Abel and Alex Despatie, track cyclist Tara Whitten and equestrian Eric Lamaze are among the Canadian athletes to watch. More than nine million tickets to Games events have been sold around the world.