Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear with you again. It is of enormous importance to Canada's athletes to know that the Government of Canada and you, the elected politicians, continue to care about how they perform. Allow me to acknowledge the critical role the Government of Canada plays in high-performance sport in Canada. As we heard earlier from Marcel Aubut, the Government of Canada is the single largest contributor to excellence in sport in Canada, and it is the primary reason why Canada's athletes and coaches have enjoyed the successes they have to this point on the world stage.
I've circulated a detailed performance update for you on the Sochi Olympic and Paralympic Games for your review. I'll focus my remarks on three primary components: first, how Canada stands heading into Sochi; second, Canada's performance objectives for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi; and third, the level of financial investment and investment strategy that we've adopted throughout the last four years.
Let's look at how Canada stands heading into Sochi. As we just heard Karen say in terms of the Paralympic team's preparation, and as we heard as well from the Canadian Olympic Committee's statement, we are in an excellent position heading into the games.
Our performances at the 2013 world championships are the best indicator we have as a nation in terms of how we will perform in Sochi. In 2013 Canada's athletes and coaches won 29 medals in Olympic events. This placed Canada in a tie for second place on the overall nation ranking list. There's a tight race amongst the top five nations, as we heard earlier. Finishing second, third, and fourth on the overall medal ranking can be decided by a single medal.
On the Paralympic front, as Karen just mentioned, Canada finished fourth overall based on gold medal ranking in the 2013 world championships. We were only one medal away from second place. We know it's an extremely tight race in terms of the gold medal race.
Importantly, when you look at the detailed material I've circulated, you can see that we showed significant depth in our silver and bronze medal finishes in the 2013 Paralympic world championships. We're now very focused on working with those national sport organizations to convert those silver and bronze medal performances to gold.
The margin between second, third, and fourth is so tight. As Karen mentioned, the goal of finishing top three in gold medal count is still well within our reach.
Moving on to Canada's performance objectives for 2014, we've been talking about that all morning. In the Olympic Games, our goal is to improve on our medal count from Vancouver. We won 26 medals in Vancouver and finished third overall in total medal count—the third-ranked nation based on the number of medals won in the Olympic Games. Our goal is to contend for number one in Olympic medal count, so to do better than we did in Vancouver. In the Paralympic Games, we want to finish top three based on our gold medal count. Again, both of those objectives are very obtainable.
We want to be the first host nation to have won more medals in the next set of games—ever. No other nation has won more medals in the subsequent set of games of their hosting experience.
The final area I would like to address is the level of financial support that has been provided for Canada's Winter Olympic and Paralympic sports heading into Sochi.
An additional $10 million has been provided for the four years heading into Sochi compared with the level of investment heading into Vancouver. That's remarkable when you think that we were the host nation in Vancouver: $10 million over the last four years into Sochi.
The lion's share of that investment comes from the Government of Canada. This is testament to the tremendous commitment that you, our elected politicians, and our government have made in high-performance sport. Of course that includes our private sector partners. We are always out there, together with our partners, the Canadian Paralympic Committee and the Canadian Olympic Committee, trying to leverage additional resource investment from the private sector.
Own the Podium's investment strategy is very deliberate and focused. Our goal is to ensure that every podium-potential athlete and team has access to three key ingredients.
The first is access to the world's best coaches and technical leaders. We know that without the best coaches, our athletes have a slim possibility of reaching the podium.
Secondly, we want to make sure they have access to a great daily training and competition environment. Those are the basics.
Finally, quality sport science and sport medicine support is the last critical ingredient. Research and innovation is a key element in sport science support. Research and innovation can be the 1% factor that brings an athlete from being fourth to being on the podium.
In the final year of preparation for Sochi we have focused on ensuring that all athletes are fully prepared and have had the opportunity to fully familiarize themselves with Sochi. We know Sochi will be a very challenging environment, and it's those athletes who are the most resilient and adaptable who will find their way onto the podium.
Last but not least, keeping athletes healthy and injury free is a key area of focus with 80 days to go before the Olympic Games and 108 days to go before the Paralympic Games.
Winning medals in sport continues to be important to Canada. We continue to develop a culture of winning and focus on excellence in Canadian sport, maintaining the momentum we generated in Vancouver and maintained in London. A whole new generation of heroes will emerge from Sochi. With each medallist crowned, we need to ensure that these heroes go back to their communities, your communities, and reinforce the importance of sport and physical activity, healthy living, and being active for life.
Canada's children need Olympic heroes. They need positive role models whom they can aspire to emulate. Success in high performance sport, we know, strengthens and builds Canadian communities. We have seen our athletes and coaches and we know they are our future leaders. We know they will play a critical role in developing civic pride and instilling a belief that we can win and that it is okay to win.
Thank you once again on behalf of all of Canada's athletes and coaches for the tremendous support you have provided in Own the Podium's quest to help more athletes win more medals in Sochi. Knowing that you care, believe in, and support the athletes in their pursuit means so much to them and to all the sport leaders who are trying so hard to help Canada's athletes. Knowing that they have an entire government and a country behind them will truly make a difference as they head into Sochi.
Thank you very much.