Rewarding Hard Work and Success
We should have no problem rewarding hard work and success. Paying Canadian athletes for Olympic medals is one real way of rewarding their successes. The feelings of national pride instilled across our country, over the past two weeks, by the successes of athletes like Brad Gushue, Cindy Klassen and Chandra Crawford are well worth a small portion of Sport Canada's $ 140 million budget.
From my numbers, at the Torino Olympics, at last count, we won 20 medals which means around 65 Canadian athletes are wearing medals (i.e. don't forget that the one gold for ice hockey means 24 medals!). If we average say $ 30,000 per medal (i.e. $ 50,000 for gold, $ 25,000 for silver and $ 15,000 for bronze) - that means a total payout of just under $ 2 million.
Comparatively speaking, this is less than 1.5% of Sport Canada's budget, less than 2% of the combined salaries of the Canadian men's Olympic hockey team or put another way Todd Bertuzzi's salary for about 30 games. Some $ 2 million given directly to our athletes seems a small price to pay.
Directly rewarding Olympic medalists is the least we can do to say thank you to them for their hard work, success and allowing us to wave the Maple Leaf fly proudly.
From my numbers, at the Torino Olympics, at last count, we won 20 medals which means around 65 Canadian athletes are wearing medals (i.e. don't forget that the one gold for ice hockey means 24 medals!). If we average say $ 30,000 per medal (i.e. $ 50,000 for gold, $ 25,000 for silver and $ 15,000 for bronze) - that means a total payout of just under $ 2 million.
Comparatively speaking, this is less than 1.5% of Sport Canada's budget, less than 2% of the combined salaries of the Canadian men's Olympic hockey team or put another way Todd Bertuzzi's salary for about 30 games. Some $ 2 million given directly to our athletes seems a small price to pay.
Directly rewarding Olympic medalists is the least we can do to say thank you to them for their hard work, success and allowing us to wave the Maple Leaf fly proudly.
posted by Pete at 10:03 PM
