Yes, to clarify my Sport Canada funding, my carding, will likely end. The list will be out tomorrow, so I can't comment exactly, but I was given a restriction on my funding that I had this past year and the restrictions were only given to those athletes who were over 30, and the majority of those athletes were women. We had to perform on a certain basis at the Olympics to be eligible for funding going forward.
It doesn't matter that my age puts me perfectly in the window to be a finalist in the 2020 Olympics. It doesn't matter that I'll stay in the sport another four years. As a woman over 30, I had to perform and to be in the top 15 in the 10,000 in Rio to be eligible for funding going forward. I was 25th and then I turned around two days later and I was 24th in the marathon and that doesn't warrant anything.
In terms of private sponsorships it is more difficult for women and I don't have a good answer why. I know I'm a very vocal Canadian runner in Canada. I'm sponsored by ASICS Canada, but I know that my ASICS male teammates make more than me. Again, I don't know if it's because our history in sport has been so short that the companies don't necessarily buy into what we're selling, but I know that when I've hosted community runs 20 people will show up and they'll have a brand new pair of ASICS shoes on their feet.
I know I have that power to reach people and I know that with my background in education, and coming from a large family with a single mother, I have an interesting story, and we have so many women with these amazing, interesting stories, but the companies are still looking for the Wheaties box and typically on the Wheaties box we have men.