'We saw $0 in support': Top Canadian skeleton racers claim they had to self-fund Olympic pursuit

Mirela Rahneva raced to Canada's best finish in skeleton at the Beijing Olympics — but it came with a steep price tag.

The 33-year-old slider from Ottawa flirted with a podium position last week at Yanqing National Sliding Center after recording the fastest time in the first of four runs. She went on to finish fifth.

Rahneva estimated her costs of competing this season at close to $30,000, and in a social media post Friday questioned where national team funding went, saying athletes paid out of pocket for everything from flights to accommodations to car rentals and even Canada's racing fees at World Cups.

"We saw $0 in support this important year," she posted on Twitter.

"A lot of the athletes have been really struggling, not only financially but mentally with the difficulties of competing," Rahneva said in a phone interview with The Canadian Press.

The Bulgarian-born athlete, who receives $14,000 a year from the federal government's Athlete Assistance (or carding) Program, tweeted a spreadsheet of costs incurred this season, totalling $26,585.

Where'd the money come from?

"It's been carding, it's been savings, it's been grants here and there. Basically, family and friends funded me," she said. "I had a GoFundMe page as well."

The program's lack of support, according to several national team athletes, was probably most glaring at the Olympic test event in Beijing in October. Canada sent no coach.

Elisabeth Vathje, who was the top Canadian finisher at the event in 13th, posted a selfie of her badly bruised arm.

"Some of the damage from that trip in October w/o coaches, we're lucky to only come away with bruises," she wrote.

The 27-year-old from Calgary said, without coaches to help them navigate the track, the huge bruise was from repeatedly bumping the same place on the track.

"As athletes, we were looking at the track being like, oh, I wonder if we could try this line or that line or things like this. So, we worked very well together as a team, as athletes," she said in an interview. "But we got no feedback between runs.

"To think we can compete with the Germans that have their 20-person squad there is insane."

"Definitely learning a new track... and you have to take the hits to figure it out the hard way, it was definitely rough," the athlete said. "It definitely made us stronger as a team, and it made me a better slider.

"But on the other hand, when you watch other teams show up with six different support staff, and within a day they're able to figure things out, and it takes us two weeks, you stand there and think: what are we doing here?"

The athlete said they also paid for flights, accommodations, rental cars and training runs out of pocket this season.

What was the final tally?

"I decided to stop keeping track, because it's kind of painful, but definitely north of 10 grand," they said.

Jane Channell, who was 17th in Beijing, commissioned a brand new helmet for herself for the Olympics — a gift to herself in a difficult season.

"It was almost like I get to wear my little personal trophy," the North Vancouver, B.C., athlete said. "This season cost me a lot money because we were all self-funded.

"Everything from coaching to rental cars to flights, accommodation, everything, food, everything, was on each of us to pay. So this was my Christmas gift to myself, my good-job, you-made-it gift."

Olympic funding frustrations

The anger and frustration on social media this week stemmed from a CBC report that the national skeleton program received the largest proportional funding boost of any sport organization this quadrennial, more than doubling its funding since 2018.

This year, she said, skeleton received $350,000 — $200,000 for targeted senior team athletes, and $150,000 for the "NextGen" program for athletes.

Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton president Sarah Storey resented the suggestion on social media that money is being funnelled somewhere other than to athletes.

"We hardly have any staff. This is as thin an organization as it can possibly be. It really is," she said in a lengthy interview Saturday.

"It's not that we're taking money from athletes and not spending it on them. $200,000 doesn't go very far."

Storey said the Beijing test event was pricey, with flights alone costing several thousand dollars.

The national organization, she said, covered the costs, but athletes were told they potentially could be asked to pay a portion retroactively. She hopes to recover much of those costs so they don't have to.

Storey said no coach was sent to the Beijing test event, so BCS could send an additional two athletes instead.

Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton culture-shift initiative

The national organization launched a culture-shift initiative.

"We've worked really hard to improve the culture of this organization," Storey said. "It's a little bit difficult when there are these limited resources, and frustration about the limited resources to kind of feel, I don't know, feel like there's hope and it's positive.

"We do get frustrated, too. You want to do so much more than you can do. And the system is not perfect.

"We're very hopeful that the investment our funding partners are making into NextGen will build that up."

Humphries won gold in monobob for the U.S. in Beijing.

"Would I ever tell an athlete to compete for Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton? A hundred times no," said Vathje.

Vathje lost her spot on the Olympic team in a one-race trials event at Whistler in November.

The selection process drew criticism from athletes, who weren't informed of the criteria until late October. The selection race Nov. 3 was a tight turnaround for the athletes who'd been at the Beijing test event. Vathje said she's turned down offers to compete for Austria or Ukraine, but vows never to compete in the sport again.

"I'd love to do another sport, potentially," she said. "But in the realm of skeleton, that ship has sailed. Skeleton is done. And I legitimately loved this sport."

Rahneva would love to compete for Canada through the 2026 Milan Olympics, "if I don't get blacklisted and booted out of the program," she said.

Despite the financial costs, she said it's been worth it.

"The amount of support, video, photos that I've been sent from people's kids sliding on hardwood floors on towels, makeshift sleds, I think there's something so good and pure about children seeing that representation at the Olympics that I will never give up," she said. "I would spend $50,000 to do it over again.

"I would just like to not know that there's money in the program, and that I've spent $50,000 for nothing."