Athletics: Ottawa Lions Track and Field Programming threatened by City of Ottawa Budget Cuts

The Ottawa Lions track and Field Club has been threatened with the loss of its city grant. This grant has been in place for over 15 years and has been important in helping the club support its programs.

The main objective for the grant is to promote the sport in the city by offering meets, clinics, and programs such as seasonal camps and the club has been able to fulfill this mandate in an outstanding way.

The Twilight Series Meets over the last 15 years have provided opportunities to athletes of all ages with enjoyable, competitive opportunities and our camps have grown in numbers consistently over the years. For example, the club had 206 athletes in seasonal camps in 2003.

Each year the club provides meets, skill clinics and coaching certification courses. It has made a great contribution to the general health and welfare of the citizens of Ottawa, including the development of high performance athletes in athletics. Last year 13 Lion athletes and 3 coaches were named to Canadian national teams.

From OttawaLions.com.

Runner's Web Editorial Comment:

Once again the City of Ottawa has demonstrated its inability to think clearly. For the past 10 years or more the City has repeatedly demonstrated their lack of support for athletics (Track and Field), the keystone sport of the Olympic Games. Ottawa remains the only city in the country to not have an indoor training centre for athletics.

Now the City appears ready to cut what puny support it has provided for the sport.

This, of course, comes several months after the City Council voted to renew their $4 million subsidy for the Corel Center. The City also subsidizes the Ottawa Renegades Foot Ball Club and built the $25 million single-use baseball stadium for the Ottawa Lynx.

It seems to me that it should be an easy choice to decide between subsidizing a bunch of millionaires or providing core services.

It appears that too many of our councillors played hockey before helmets were invented.

If you wish to lobby on behalf of the local athletics community, visit the Ottawa Lions website.