By JAMES CHRISTIE
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Saturday, July 19, 2003

Chris Rudge walks a tightrope between idealism and reality as the chief executive officer of the Canadian Olympic Committee.

In this precarious balancing act, the former publishing executive looks to one side and sees the Olympic motto of faster, higher, stronger and believes Canadian athletes should be able to live up to it. Winning should be their mission and they should be rewarded financially for getting medals.

Then he looks to the other side and he sees the realities of a fragmented Canadian sports landscape. There are few bridges connecting promising recreational athletes to the upper levels of competitive sport. Developing athletes fall between the gaps in the system before they can advance to the Olympics. Some quit in frustration, others opt to compete for other nations.

At the Athens Olympics next summer, embarrassment looms more likely than medals for Canadians in the Olympic core sports of swimming and track and field. There's not much that can be done to change that in the 56 weeks before the opening ceremony. Rudge is braced for the outcry -- and searching for solutions, rather than alibis. He has visions of an integrated sports system in which the provinces play the key development role for athletes and corporations take teams under their wings.

Among Rudge's other ideas:
The COC needs a bigger presence in Quebec.
The COC board of directors must be cut drastically.
There must be greater sponsor opportunities, to make corporate links more desirable and lucrative.

The biggest goal by far is to design a system that turns Canadian athletes from also-rans into winners. In that regard, Rudge said in an interview, the COC has to be meaningful in the lives of athletes and have their respect.

"We have to work with them and they have to understand what we do, not just see us as some travel agency that sends me clothes that don't fit. How can we have them so cynical about what we do?"

Part of that cynicism dates to the previous administrations of the former Canadian Olympic Association, when a tightly controlled office got more attention than the duty the COC owed Canadian athletes.

"I'm not here to perpetuate my role in the office," said Rudge, who took over as CEO this past January, five months after the death of Jim Thompson. Thompson died suddenly in August, 2002, after a few months as the CEO. He had replaced Carol Anne Letheren, who died in February, 2001.

Athletes could be forgiven for thinking their Olympic dreams were in free fall and that little was being done to turn the team around after a disappointing 2000 Sydney Olympics. Not only were two CEOs dead, but Denis Coderre had been replaced as the federal minister for amateur sport by Paul DeVillers, who was not a full cabinet minister, but a secretary of state.

In his first week on the job after being hired out of retirement, the 57-year-old Rudge talked with Canadian IOC members, with former athletes -- his wife, Janet Nutter, was a 1980 Olympian in diving -- and with long-time authorities on the Olympics such as former COA president Roger Jackson and current COC president Mike Chambers. He sent 400 letters to sports organizations asking them how they viewed the COC's role and how it could be better. "I listened carefully," Rudge said. "I had some opportunities to think outside the box. I'm not encumbered by traditions. I can be naive and be able to make mistakes and stand up and try again. I see a better marriage of support systems and facilities, not unlike what we have with the Calgary Olympic Development Association and the National Sport Centres, who have access to university testing and research programs. It's the No. 1 priority."

Rudge, a former professional lacrosse player, said he wants a new deal for the athletes. "We [the COC] have to mean something in their daily lives. We'll have an enhancement of a program to help athletes get jobs. We want to help them from a holistic perspective, not have to build training around an inflexible job schedule. We'll mentor them."

Rudge said the COC's mandate is to get accomplished athletes up the last few steps of the Olympic medals podium. In some cases, that means setting the bar high, reducing team numbers, concentrating finances and sending only athletes with proved medal potential. No more sports tourists.

The COC's official vision is counting on Canadians to finish eighth in the medals at Athens, fourth at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and first in medals at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler.

But to get to that level, there has to be a continuum of development. Rudge returned Thursday night from Vancouver where he met with B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell about how that province plans to groom athletes for the 2010 Games. He'll combine that information with what Quebec has been doing for its athletes -- usually Canada's most successful at the Olympics -- and form some plans other provinces can emulate.

"The COC has an incumbency to create change and create a better system," Rudge said. "I want a bigger presence in Quebec. We can't be a meaningful national organization if we don't relate to the sport and business communities there. We'll grow the size of the COC office there. They do many things so well."

These things are geared to improving athletes' lives and their performances. What Canadian will see in Athens will be the result of the old system, which let development slip because it was short of cash.

"For 2004, we gave something extra [from the COC's $8.7-million Excellence Fund], but in the world of sport at this level, you're not going to affect major change in the next year," Rudge said. "It takes many years to move an athlete from midrange to elite.

"What we can do is try and take the ones with the best chance and give them the support we can to get them to the podium, a Mark Boswell [high jumper] or Diane Cummins [800 metres]. But right now, we're not strong in athletics or swimming, which unfortunately are the marquee sports of the Summer Olympics."

Some Canadian sports have real medal chances next summer, among them rowing, canoeing and kayaking, diving, women's water polo, some cycling events, triathlon and wrestling. But those have come about in spite of Canada's sports system rather than because of it, Rudge said.

Athletes would like to know they don't have to overcome the system to succeed. They want to be confident going into an Olympics, especially with the Winter Games coming up in Vancouver. When the world's athletes went up against the Australians in Sydney or against the U.S. athletes in Salt Lake City they knew they weren't up against an individual, but an entire development process, an entire country.

That's a feeling Canadians want to experience, said speed skating star Jeremy Wotherspoon. "It's important to show people you can be your best, that you think you're good. It's motivating. We want them to feel intimidated . . . feel it's tough to beat the Canadian team because they know how to win, they want to win and they're great athletes.

"Funding at all levels would help, as well as creating awareness of athletes. Raise the profile of sports. Make sure people know who our athletes are."