Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun this week lamented Canada’s poor performance at the World Championships (“London’s Going to Suck for Canadian Track Team”) and the bad omen it portends for the Olympics, which are less than one year from today. Dylan Armstrong’s medal aside, the most troublesome statistic of all is the shockingly low number of Canadians (four) that made finals, let alone medaled.
Buffery seems to think Donovan Bailey might have something to offer the sport in administrative role. Part of Bailey’s criticism of the leadership in Athletics relates to the stagnation of personnel in high positions in this sport for decades and the fact that nobody from Athletics Canada has reached out to him.
Sadly, this is exactly what we heard from Alex Baumann two decades ago before he left this country (the first time) to go help build the Australian sporting machine. Whether Bailey has the same organizational and leadership characteristics as Baumann is undetermined, as is the question of whether he can play nice with others. But the real question is: can he do any worse?