Way to go girls. Canadian women rule Olympics Medal tally exceeds any other country
Timing, equal funding get some credit Feb. 24, 2006. 01:00 AM JIM BYERS SPORTS REPORTER
TURIN, Italy—The official medal standings do not make the distinction, but unofficial tallies reveal a surprising story: Canada’s women Olympians are No. 1 in the world.
A bronze yesterday for Shannon Kleibrink’s curling foursome took Canada’s record-breaking medal haul to 19, with 14 of them won by women. No other country’s women have won as many.
German women have 13 medals, Russian females 10 and no other country is close. American women have just seven medals.
Some say the Canadian women’s results speak to the sports opportunities available here.
“I think Canadians are simply more progressive,” said Chris Rudge, chief executive of the Canadian Olympic Committee.
“Some European nations haven’t seen fit to give women the same role.”
Former Olympic rower Marnie McBean, in Turin to help run the Canadian athletes’ village in the mountain resort of Sestriere, pointed to equal funding for both genders in Canada.
“When you put money into any program it will improve. In Canada, if we fund a men’s program we generally fund a women’s program, too.”
`It might be a matter of them being mature, experienced athletes.'
Dr. Julie Stevens, Brock University
The unquestioned Canadian star of the Olympics is Cindy Klassen, the Winnipeg speed skater who has already won four medals, the most ever by a Canadian at a single Games. She has as many medals as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Great Britain put together.
The women have won nearly three times as many medals as Canadian men, in contrast to the three previous Winter Games when each gender shared the total roughly equally. Nobody seems quite sure why Turin has proved an exception.
McBean said it might simply be a cycle. When she competed, Canadian women rowers took the lion’s share of Olympic medals, but the Canadian men were much stronger in the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Karen Lofstrom, executive director of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity, pointed out that Canadian women who had been favoured to win medals here came through in competition, while several high-profile Canadian men did not.
“It might be a matter of them being mature, experienced athletes and the Games coming along at the right time in their careers,” said Dr. Julie Stevens, a professor of sport management at Brock University.
The Canadian men have good opportunities to correct some of the imbalance in the remaining three days of competition. The men’s curling team will win a gold or silver today and further medals are expected in short-track speed skating and the four-man bobsleigh.
But then again, the women may not be done yet.
Klassen will go for an unprecedented fifth medal in a single Games in tomorrow’s 5,000-metre speed skating race.