By Amy Friel.

TORONTO June 8th 2016. With the Rio 2016 Olympic Games fast approaching, Canada stands poised to send a formidable contingent of distance runners to toe the start line with the best athletes in the world. Among them are runners like Melissa Bishop, Matt Hughes, Lanni Marchant, and Natasha Wodak – athletes who have not only risen to the top of their discipline, but who have also managed to rewrite the national record books in what amounts to a spectacular rebirth for Canadian distance running in recent years.

Earning a place on the Canadian Olympic team is no simple matter. Behind every qualifying time lies years of gruelling work, personal sacrifice, punishing race efforts, thrilling victories, and moments of doubt. It’s a challenge that demands more than mere talent, grit, or determination; earning a place on the Canadian team takes everything you’ve got.

Olympian Olya Ovtchinnikova

“You kind of drop everything for a chance to make it,” recalls Olya Ovtchinnikova, who competed in fencing for Canada at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. A former NCAA athlete, Ovtchinnikova put her studies in New York on hold and relocated to Montreal to train with Canada’s national team, a commitment that ultimately carried her to an Olympic berth.

“I’m really not exaggerating when I say, it’s like eating tuna and rice, because it’s the cheapest thing you can have,” she remembers. “I moved, didn’t know the language, didn’t know the city, and just came to train with the team because you’re chasing a dream. It sounds kind of cheesy, but this is what I did.”

Ovtchinnikova’s story of personal sacrifice and hard-won achievement is familiar to many top-level athletes in Canada, who often struggle to balance the rigours of an elite training regimen with the practical implications of an imperfectly-funded sport system.

“Fencing is not a big sport in Canada,” she explains. “So, I would say we’re almost like a perfect case study of a sport that’s just having the hardest time.”

Now a retired Olympian and the program manager of athlete marketing at the Canadian Olympic Committee, Ovtchinnikova has dedicated herself to assisting Olympic hopefuls in pursuit of their athletic dreams. This summer, she will be completing the Toronto Waterfront 10 as a charity runner, fundraising on behalf of the Canadian Olympic Foundation (COF). An official charity of the Toronto Watefront 10, COF provides funding and financial assistance for Canada’s next generation of athletes.

“There’s a lot of barriers there that make it difficult for kids to continue (in sports),” she explains. “So COF tries to invest in grassroots sports programs, to help kids continue, and to help them become the next generation of Canadian Olympic athletes. And they also support those podium performances as well, so they put some of the money towards helping Canadian Olympians perform and win on the world’s biggest stage.”

The work of organizations like the Canadian Olympic Foundation is crucial to the development of Canadian athletes. While federal funding for top athletes is available through Canada’s Athlete Assistance Program (AAP), it can be limited, with small monthly stipends available to only a handful of athletes in each sport. The practice (known as “carding”) relies on eligibility criteria which often requires the AAP to compare the performances of athletes across different sports, a subjective process that is often fraught with uncertainty.

Pan Am Games bronze medalist Rachel Hannah

“To get to the next level, getting selected for carding and evaluated to show more potential than a fellow domestic athlete is not easy,” explains Olympic hopeful Rachel Hannah. Though a top-ranked Canadian marathoner and Pan Am Games bronze medallist, Hannah was nevertheless excluded from AAP funding. “While you know deep down you ‘have it’ and will ‘make it’, proving that to a selection committee is one of the hardest things.”

For those athletes who do not receive government funding, bankrolling their Olympic dreams often relies on a patchwork system of part-time employment, grants, prize money, and corporate sponsorship. Curating these financial resources while chasing after rigorous qualification standards can be stressful and time-consuming – an experience Hannah can attest to first-hand.

“Getting by as a long distance runner aspiring to elite performances, and increased training loads, is indeed a challenge financially,” she says.

The funding and resources available to Canadian Olympic hopefuls varies widely from sport to sport, prompting organizations like the Canadian Olympic Foundation to employ a targeted approach to athlete assistance.

“It’s not an overnight fix,” Ovtchinnikova explains of COF’s strategy. “It’s a lot of work by the sport system, but also by foundations like COF, that try to really target those little pain points everywhere, instead of kind of just throwing money at the system as a whole. So slowly but surely there are improvements happening, and I’m hopeful for the future.”

In sports where funding and resources have been made available, Canadian athletes have predictably flourished.

Canadian women’s wrestling, for one, has established strong and consistent tradition of Olympic podium performances since gaining inclusion on the Olympic program at the 2004 Athens Games. It’s a success story that is tied in no small part to precisely this sort of targeted athlete assistance.

Canadian Olympic Team Wrestler Jasmine Mian

For wrestler Jasmine Mian, who is poised to represent Canada at the 2016 Games, these resources have made an invaluable difference.

“It’s had its challenges, but the whole process of balancing school and sport has been really rewarding,” she says. “I’ve always kind of had support from our national team, and I’m really grateful for that, because it’s allowed me to perform without that added pressure of financial stress.”

A former competitive track runner and all-around athlete in her younger years, Mian now lives in Calgary, where she trains at the national training centre for wrestling.

“Running is an incredibly gruelling sport,” she recalls. “You have to find a joy in that suffering, and if you don’t, I don’t think you’ll ever fully meet your potential. And wrestling is very much the same way. You have to find something within yourself that keeps you going.”

For the Canadian distance running elite, what keeps them going through challenging times is often the love and support of the Canadian running community, which has been quick to rally around its star athletes in times of struggle.

“Distance running is truly accessible to all to participate alongside us,” says Rachel Hannah. “I get some of the most enjoyment from talking to and motivating fellow runners I see out there, in spite of my financial challenges.”

In partnership with the Canadian Olympic Foundation, the Toronto Waterfront 10 offers a new and unique opportunity for the running community to unite in support of our future Olympic athletes. And with an all-star distance running lineup ready to represent the red-and-white in Rio, there has never been a better moment to lend your footsteps to the pursuit of an Olympic dream.

Find out more about how you can run and fundraise for the Canadian Olympic Foundation at the Toronto Waterfront 10 here.

Amy Friel (@AmyFrii) is a Toronto-based freelance writer, two-time marathoner, and unabashed running geek. As a Digital Champion for the 2015 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, Amy had a taste of the city’s vibrant running community – and hasn’t been able to stop writing about it since. Her work has been featured in iRun magazine, the Globe and Mail, as well as on her blog thelongslowdistance.com