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COC defends Own the Podium

A senior Canadian Olympic official is dismissing complaints the country’s Own the Podium program gives Canadian athletes more training and a better chance than competitors of winning medals at the Winter Games.

VANCOUVER, B.C. — A senior Canadian Olympic official is dismissing complaints the country’s Own the Podium program gives Canadian athletes more training and a better chance than competitors of winning medals at the Winter Games.

Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Chris Rudge said Monday the program was not set up to disadvantage other countries, but rather to provide Canadian athletes with more financial and training support ahead of the Games.

Some have suggested the death of a Georgian luger during a training run last Friday could have been averted had he had the chance to train more on the Whistler track, considered among the fastest in the world.

Critics say Canadians have had hundreds of training runs on the track ahead of the Olympics, while foreign competitors have been able to get in only about 20 runs.

Rudge says Canada believes in fair play at the Games and every athlete is supposed to have adequate access to training during the competition. The Olympic track was ready two years ago and Canadian athletes have been using it to train since then.

“We did not set up our program to disadvantage anyone else — we set it up to provide to our athletes with knowledge and support that they’ve never had in this country before,” Rudge told a briefing.

“It’s the name — it’s so uncharacteristic of Canada — that has caught people’s attention. Yet we’re still playing catch-up.”

Own the Podium was launched in January 2005 to prepare Canada to become the top medal-winning country at these Games. Its focus is to provide money, training and high-performance programs to Canadian athletes, coaches and support staff.

Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, was killed when he lost control of his sled and slammed into a trackside steel pillar at nearly 145 km/h. Concerns about the course had been raised earlier. There were worries the $100-million-plus venue on Whistler Mountain north of Vancouver was too technically demanding, and that only Canadian sliders would have enough practice time to adapt.

In a joint statement, the luge federation and Vancouver Olympic officials blamed the accident on the Georgian athlete, saying Kumaritashvili was late coming out of the next-to-last turn and failed to compensate.