Canada aims to turn near-misses into medals at Rio Olympics

Remember all of those fourth-place Canadian finishes at the London Olympics? Own the Podium has a complex plan in place to turn those heartbreak moments into medal victories in Rio.

Converting more top-eight finishes into medals is a key for the organization's strategy, which has a mission to improve Canada's medal prospects at the Olympics. The Rio Olympics run Aug. 5-21.

Looking at the past seven Summer Games, Canada has recorded at least 52 top-eight finishes in each Olympics. But only 113 — or 35 per cent — were medals.

Contrast that with Korea, which had a similar amount of top-eight finishes in the same time period, but converted more than 40 per cent of those into medals. In two instances – 1988 and 2008 – it was above 60 per cent.

"Canada's low percentage of gold-medal winners from its podium places is another issue in the country's relative lack of success at Summer Games," said Simon Gleave, head of analysis at Gracenote Sports (formerly known as Infostrada Sports), a company that specializes in international sports statistics.

Only 23 of the 113 medals won by Canada at the last seven Summer Olympics have been gold. Korea has won twice as many medals and three times as many golds in the same time, according to Gracenote.

The latest Gracenote predictions for Rio put Canada at 57 top-eight finishes with 18 of those being medals. (Only two of those are expected to be gold: heptathlete Brianne Theisen-Eaton and canoeist Mark De Jonge.)

• See the Rio medal predictor on the right-hand side of CBC's Road to the Olympics website (desktop and tablet view only)

Own the Podium has set a target of beating the medal total from London (18) and finishing in the top 12 of the overall medal count.

The organization is focusing efforts on Canadians ranked in the top five in the world, trying to do more to ensure they reach the podium in Rio. It could involve anything from access to training camps to recruiting top coaches to more competition opportunities to analytics-based strategies.

"For some athletes it might be having more exposure to Rio," said Anne Merklinger, CEO of Own the Podium.

"For another sport it might be providing … a head coach. For another one it might be providing a sport science expert."

Merklinger believes the well-rounded approach will address a gap that saw Canada narrowly miss the podium in many events in 2012.

The Olympic medal table, based on total gold medals, is different from the medal count, however, which weights all medals equally.

But Own the Podium is not setting an objective for gold medals.

"Every medal achieved at an Olympic Games matters," she said.

"Each one of the athletes that comes back from Rio with a medal around their neck is a hero, role model, regardless of the colour of the medal."