Oct 3, 2014
Westhead: Officials predict No. 2 finish for Canada at Pan Am Games
"We're Number 2." Canadian sports officials figure that may be the Canadian rallying cry at next summer's Pan Am Games. As TSN Senior Correspondent Rick Westhead writes, Own the Podium has predicted Canadian athletes will win 160 medals at the Pan Am Games, which may be good enough for second place.
"We're Number 2."
Canadian sports officials figure that may be the Canadian rallying cry at next summer's Pan Am Games.
Own the Podium, Canada's publicly-financed high-performance sport funding initiative, has predicted Canadian athletes will win 160 medals at the Pan Am Games, which the organization says may be good enough for second place at the Games.
The prediction was detailed in board meeting minutes obtained by TSN from the Ministry of Canadian Heritage through Canada's Access to Information Act.
Own the Podium was established a decade ago to help Canada boost its medal count at the Olympics. It has achieved impressive results. During the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada captured a record 14 gold medals. Critics, however, worry about establishing targets and then describing a Games as disappointing if those medal targets aren't met.
The U.S. has dominated the Pan Am Games in recent years. In 2011 at the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, Canada finished fifth in the medal count with 119 medals, including 30 gold. The U.S. had 237 medals, followed by Brazil (141) and Cuba (136).
Own the Podium predicts a third-place medal finish for Canada in the Para-Pan American Games, a Paralympics version of the Pan Am Games, with 130 medals. That would be more than double the 63 medals Canada won in the 2011 event in Mexico.
Sports marketing experts say Pan Am Games officials will be hard pressed to build interest in the Games.
"Consumers nationally will rally around the (soccer) Women's World Cup in the time leading up to the Pan Am Games, especially if Team Canada has any success," said Andy Harkness, a senior vice president with sports marketing firm SDI Marketing. "There seems to be no national appeal (to the Pan Am Games). This will be a Greater Toronto Area event, which would be a concern as history has shown people in the GTA only seem to support perceived 'tier-one' events."
Still, the Pan Am Games will help to bring significant and needed capital improvements to several sports facilities, including the Hamilton Tiger-Cats stadium and a pool and athletic complex in Scarborough, Ontario.
"It gives Canadian athletes a chance to succeed at home and hear their national anthem being sung and played," said Bob Stellick, a Toronto sports marketing executive. "I think the best comparison is to see how Glasgow got behind the Commonwealth Games last summer. They sold over 90 per cent of their tickets. The actual Pan Am events will be interesting and relatively cheap to attend.