About Road to Excellence
The Road to Excellence (RTE) initiative is a comprehensive plan for Canada to improve its podium results at the Beijing 2008 and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The RTE initiative is led by legendary Canadian swimmer Alex Baumann, who won two gold medals at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, and, following a very successful stint working with a number of sport organizations in Australia, returned to Canada in December 2006 to lead the RTE initiative. Baumann works as part of a team with Dr. Roger Jackson and the Own the Podium 2010 staff.
Similar to the OTP winter sport initiative, the Road to Excellence plan marks the first time Canada's summer sport organizations have come together with their sport partners to map out a comprehensive plan for podium success. The goal for the RTE program is for Canada to place in the top 16 nations at the Olympic Games in Beijing and top 12 in London in 2012. The goal for the upcoming Paralympic Games is for Canada to place in the top five nations at both the 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games.
The RTE initiative targets sports with the ability to achieve success at the Olympic and Paralympic Games and recommends increased financial and technical support to give Canadian medal potential athletes the help they need to train and compete at the highest levels in preparation for the upcoming summer Olympic Games.
Although RTE has only been in operation for a few months, it has already started to make a difference for Canada's summer National Sport Federations who are preparing for the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. Examples include:
- A performance technology position has been established to help targeted summer sports prepare for Beijing and to make interventions as necessary from a technological perspective. In addition, as part of a "train the trainer" initiative, this position will be responsible for training personnel at Canadian Sport Centres to deliver relevant programming.
- A coaching professional development program has been created to assist top level coaches who have athletes with Olympic medal potential.
- Coaching and technical leadership has been established to ensure that quality support services are provided to targeted summer sports.