Canada and China Reach Bilateral Agreement

There was an interesting news item from the COC this week, which I didn't see reported in my local paper or anywhere else. It seems that Canada and China have agreed to an exchange program between the two countries.

The agreement will provide Canadian athletes early access to training and acclimatization sites prior to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing while offering Chinese athletes training opportunities in Canada. … The Canadian delegation identified that the key to performance in 2008 was to have Canadian athletes benefit from training, coaching and competition opportunities in China leading up to the 2008 Olympic Games while the Chinese indicated interest in learning from Canada's highly regarded Canoe/Kayak and Rowing programs as well as a number of winter sport programs … In addition to athlete exchange programs, the agreement supports the exchange of officials, trainers, judges, experts and scientists for participation in seminars, courses, conferences and meetings of mutual interest. The agreement also includes closer cooperation between the two National Olympic Committees …

I know that physical and cultural acclimatization are big concerns for the COC leading up to 2008, and I think it is great that they have secured at least some access to Chinese facilities for preparation. But maybe calling it the "key to performance" is a bit strong. Perhaps there are some readers out there who competed in Seoul who want to comment on this?

The Chinese, too, are being pretty clear about what they want out of this exchange; they've identified current areas of weakness, and don't see any shame in borrowing expertise where they can find it. (As an example, China won its first-ever medal in canoe/kayak in 2004. The C-2 is coached by a Polish-born Canadian citizen.)

China's sporting strengths don't overlap much with Canada's — diving and short-track speed skating being the two sports I can think of — so Canada could also benefit by extracting expertise from China. I hope that this is part of the plan, but the press release doesn't mention any sports where Canada is hoping to learn from the Chinese. Frankly, the COC does not put much emphasis on sport development, preferring to spend its money and energy on sports where Canada is already strong (witness Own the Podium). Bringing Canada's table tennis or badminton teams up to elite international standards might simply require money that the COC doesn't have, and the Canadian government won't spend.

China, on the other hand, doesn't appear to have those same limitations, and is spending a big pile of money on sports where it hasn't had much past success. These bilateral exchanges seem to be part of their broader plan, as I notice that they have reached a somewhat similar agreement with Kenya, too.