Achi news desk-
Olympic bobsledder Cynthia Appiah is thousands of dollars in debt to her sled runners and for travel to competition.
Her Canadian teammate, Melissa Lotholz, recently sought out free accommodation at a church while competing in Lake Placid, NY
Olympic rowing champion Andrea Proske says she is still paying off debts, and her mother planted an extra garden to grow fruit and vegetables to meet her caloric needs when Proske trained and raced on a tight budget.
With the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris on the horizon, Canadian athletes are requesting a $6.3 million increase to the Athlete Assistance Program (AAP), informally known as “card” money, in the federal government’s April 16 budget.
There is a monthly check of $1,765 – $1,060 for a development-level athlete – for living expenses and competition costs not covered by their sport’s governing body.
“Cardio is my main source of income,” said Appiah. “It’s pretty much the only thing I know that will be sustainable through a whole year in and out of competition.”
Over 1,900 athletes across 90 sports are eligible for AAP, which offers other financial support such as training and childcare.
Athletes saw their AAP increase by $265 per month in 2017, or 18 percent, in the first increase since 2004.
The latest request, which would be an increase of 18.8 per cent, is independent of a joint demand by the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees for an injection of $104 million into the sports system.
One goes hand in hand with the other, however, as athletes pay costs that their national federations cannot. Appiah pays runners $10,000 for her sled and still has $6,000 on her credit card from traveling to the World Cups in Latvia and Austria last year.
The 33-year-old woman lives with her sister in Toronto “because I can’t afford to live alone in a city like Toronto.”
When Appiah goes to the bobsled team’s training center in Calgary, she says she “couch surfs” and drives a 2007 car with rusty wheel springs and 360,000 kilometers on it.
The AAP, which is worth $21,000 annually, is the main source of income in many athletes’ financial traps which may also include provincial grants, prize money or sponsorship.
Appiah says income from Ontario’s Quest For Gold program, her status as an RBC Olympian and sponsorships that come and go from year to year get her to about $28,000 annually.
“A lot of people I’ve had this conversation with seem to have the idea that Canadian Olympians are living in the lap of luxury when it comes to finances. There is this illusion that we are getting high dollar sponsors,” said Appiah.
“Andre De Grasse, Christine Sinclair, those are the few who have those million dollar contracts.”
Teammate Lotholz wants her World Cup status back after taking a year off from racing to complete her University of Alberta degree.
That means competing on the North American Cup circuit last winter and “paying out of pocket for almost everything without the training,” he said.
The two-time Olympian says she stayed for free at a church in Lake Placid while competing in her final event of the season. Lotholz welcomes the additional request from athletes to index the AAP to the inflation rate.
“Literally every penny helps. It all makes a difference for sure,” said the 31-year-old from Barrhead, Alta. “I also really appreciate in this request, that they also ask it to be variable so that it increases with inflation.”
But there is no indication that AAP’s progress is underway in the federal budget.
“Although Budget 2023 has announced a refocusing of government spending, in its ongoing commitment to athletes, this government has strategically reallocated resources within the Sports Support Program to ensure that direct funding for athletes through the Support Program is not Athletes will be affected,” said a statement from the Board. the post of Canada’s sports minister Carla Qualtrough.
Proske was a member of the women’s eight that took Olympic rowing gold in Tokyo. The 37-year-old from Langley, BC, is now vice-president of AthletesCan, which is an association that represents national athletes.
“In women’s rowing, especially as a top tier gold medalist, I put myself and my husband in debt trying to stand in the middle of the podium with the Maple Leaf on my chest,” Proske said.
“We are not professional athletes. We are amateur athletes. Many of our sports do not pair very well with sponsorship. Using rowing as an example, I can’t sell any sponsorship space on my boat, I can’t put a logo on my visor, I’m limited in how many logos I have.”
Athletes know how to stretch a dollar, Proske said, but there is a breaking point.
“We don’t always have control over where we train. Many of these training centers are in very expensive cities,” he said. “It’s also very expensive to be an athlete versus a normal human being. I was eating 4,000 calories a day. Many of the men were eating 10,000 calories a day.”
Canada has a network of seven sports organizations. CSI Pacific has campuses in Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler, BC
CSI Ontario is headquartered at the Pan Am Sports Center in Toronto. CSI Calgary caters to many winter sports athletes.
Vancouver averages $2,181 per month for a two-bedroom apartment, Victoria $1,839, Toronto $1,961 and Calgary $1,695, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s January 2024 rental report.
In the ski resort town of Whistler, which has Canada’s only luge, bobsleigh and skeleton track since Calgary closed, a one-bedroom apartment runs north of $3,000 a month.
A lack of resources contributes to a sport system that is less safe, Appiah said.
“In that conversation about safe sport, very often athletes will put themselves in vulnerable situations because it’s the only option they have, and funding plays a big part of that,” he said. “The AAP, for most people, is their only source of income, so you’re making decisions that no sane person would actually make.
“If we had that 18 per cent increase and then also factored in inflation, we could live like normal human beings for the most part.”
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on March 27, 2024.
