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Canada's Olympic chief calls for sports funding boost as medal target missed
Reuters ^ | February 22, 2026 | Ilze Filks

Posted on 02/23/2026 7:32:01 PM PST by MinorityRepublican

At a Games that delivered fewer medals than Canada hoped for, the country's Olympic chief David Shoemaker delivered a pointed message to Prime Minister Mark Carney: if the nation wants to remain a winter powerhouse, it must invest like one.

Canada's target at Milano Cortina was to surpass the 26 medals won at Beijing 2022. But they will leave short of that benchmark, with a chance to finish with 21 at most — a result that has sharpened calls for an increase in funding.

"It was just a month ago that Prime Minister (Mark) Carney made international headlines with his inspiring speech at Davos (World Economic Forum)," Canadian Olympic Committee Chief Executive Shoemaker said at a press conference on Sunday.

"In that speech, he talked in large part about ambition, about the strength of Canada at home and the values we can and should project to the world. We realise sport isn't the answer to all of this government's many urgent priorities.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Sports
KEYWORDS: canada; olympics
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1 posted on 02/23/2026 7:32:01 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

As the 51st state, they will be part of the country that will win the most medals.


2 posted on 02/23/2026 7:44:16 PM PST by FatherofFive (We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Adopting the same policy as our publik skools.


3 posted on 02/23/2026 7:44:24 PM PST by Nervous Tick (Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Canada has other concerns like being run by the ccp. That’s a fact.


4 posted on 02/23/2026 7:45:57 PM PST by toddausauras (47 47 47 )
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To: MinorityRepublican
Canada's Olympic chief calls for sports funding boost as medal target missed

Because shaving the roster to eliminate the opposition at meets didn't work?

-PJ

5 posted on 02/23/2026 7:46:44 PM PST by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: MinorityRepublican

Out of control government.


6 posted on 02/23/2026 8:04:56 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Mo Money, Mo Money Mo Money, gimme Mo Money!!!!


7 posted on 02/23/2026 8:20:15 PM PST by LegendHasIt
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To: MinorityRepublican

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for our Canadian Friends, their Men’s and Women’s Hockey teams both lose the Gold Medal to the USA and over the weekend a story comes out that based on per capita GDP Canadians are poorer than people who live in Alabama and are very close to being poorer than the people of Mississippi.

But, hey “Elbows Up”....we love our Globalist Banker PM who now wants to recruit foreign military recruits to fill the shortage in the Canadian Military.


8 posted on 02/23/2026 8:30:07 PM PST by srmanuel
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To: MinorityRepublican

And Alberta is to pay for this?


9 posted on 02/23/2026 9:10:53 PM PST by Paladin2 (YMMV)
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To: All

Non event, medal total was close to the historical average and there were all those winter sports legends there. They became legends by training like crazy. Our people could train like crazy as well, but they want a middle-class salary so they don’t have to hold down a job to stay alive.

As to the two hockey teams, they could hardly have played any better, I have seen a team play a near-perfect game and lose before on several occasions, it happens. And they are pro athletes (the top women are also pros nowadays). A young woman from my current location finished 18th in the 50km ski race, she was first in among four Canadians taking part. I don’t know her or her family, but she looks like she’s barely out of high school. We have tremendous cross-country facilities all around us here. I’m sure she trained on those as much as school time would allow. She did really well considering that the Scandinavian countries dominate this sport and have full-time coaching and training. We could do that too but really, a lot of money to spend to get somebody in at 10th instead of 18th? In the grand scheme of things, this is a nothingburger.

I said this in another thread, not that concerned about how national sports teams and individuals do, but a lot of people are and they conflate this with politics, national identity and culture, even religion. To me that smells like East Germany and that’s a bad smell.


10 posted on 02/23/2026 9:15:00 PM PST by Peter ODonnell (Tagline will be made available to premium donors to the O'Donnell Foundation)
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To: srmanuel

This story about lower GDP than AL or MS, does that really make much sense? I live in Canada, I don’t see any real difference between middle-class living standards here and south of the border. I have never been to AL or MS and would imagine the average there is likely brought down a few notches by larger than average rural black populations living in near poverty.

I am not saying this story is factually wrong but I would love to see the details and get inside the nuts and bolts of the calculations. To me (and I have traveled a lot in other parts of the U.S.) the range of lifestyles looks about the same, when we go south we don’t ooh and aah as we pass all the incredibly wealthy Americans. And when they come up here they don’t think they are in rural deep South or Appalachia.

So it’s probably just one of those “hey why not join us” think tank stories made up to pull people into the big tent. The problem with the big tent is, as soon as we stumble in there, the ringmaster will change from Donald Trump to Gavin Newsome and then we really will have third world living standards.


11 posted on 02/23/2026 9:22:32 PM PST by Peter ODonnell (Tagline will be made available to premium donors to the O'Donnell Foundation)
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To: MinorityRepublican

This man is very upset. I’m sure if he asks any member of Canada’s mens hockey team they would give him the stuffed animal comfort bear they received with their Silver medal.


12 posted on 02/23/2026 9:40:07 PM PST by allendale
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To: Peter ODonnell

The GDP story is probably true, but it doesn’t really matter, it was used over the weekend on twitter to make fun of the Canadians who were proclaiming how great their economy was and how they were going to overtake the US and how Carney was leading them to the promise land. I exaggerate but the story was used in good natured ribbing to irritate Canadians on top of the hockey loses and it was a tough week for our friends up North.

As much as Americans like to complain about our economy, if you look strictly at the numbers, the US economy is remarkably efficient compared to the rest of the world.

You bring up Gavin Newsom, turns out that Canada and California have roughly the same number of people, maybe vary by 1-2 million people, however, the GDP of California is nearly twice the size of Canada.

In fact, California, Texas, and NY all have economies larger than Canada and Florida is rapidly closing the gap.


13 posted on 02/23/2026 10:21:09 PM PST by srmanuel
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To: MinorityRepublican

Canada needs to invest in at least one ship that can go into blue water and defend their interests.

That one dog sled is not going to get it.


14 posted on 02/23/2026 11:45:09 PM PST by jeffersondem
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To: Peter ODonnell

The GDP bit probably should be looked at in terms of PPP: It is relatively cheap to live in most areas of the deep US South...

The country that really cleaned up with the medals, especially from such a small population, was Norway!

The Canadian men’s hockey team outplayed the US team in the gold medal game - all except the US’ goalie having a phenomenal game!


15 posted on 02/24/2026 1:05:13 AM PST by Paul R. (Old Viking saying: "Never be more than 3 steps away from your weapon ... or a Uriah Heep song!" ;-))
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To: MinorityRepublican
Canada's problem is that they need more Negros and Chinamen on their team.

16 posted on 02/24/2026 2:14:29 AM PST by Governor Dinwiddie ( O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and his mercy endures forever. — Psalm 106)
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