Members of Team Canada make their way into the stadium during the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics on Feb. 28, 2010. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Finishing third in the medal haul — and with more golds than any other country — Canadian athletes performed impressively at the Vancouver Olympics.

But at the same time, the much-debated Own the Podium program did not meet its stated goal.

Launched in 2005, the sponsorship program set winning more medals than any other country as its main objective — a feat not accomplished by a host country since the Norwegians pulled it off at the Lillehammer Games in 1994.

Over the five years of its existence, OTP spent a total of almost $117 million on winter sports, a sum that includes the Paralympics and operating costs.

From this amount, OTP spent not quite $70 million over the last four years solely on developing Vancouver-bound Olympic athletes.

But as you crunch the numbers, it becomes apparent that success — or the lack thereof — can be measured in a number of ways, a debate that takes on more importance as a cash-strapped federal government considers the future of funding amateur sport at this level of intensity.

For example, the 26 medals that Canadian athletes won in Vancouver is an all-time record, but it is just two more than Canada won in Turin, Italy in the 2006 Winter Games.

The Vancouver haul, in fact, ties for the second smallest medal increase of the last 30 years, despite OTP organizers having spent almost 40 per cent more this time than in the run-up to Turin.

The smallest increase, an interesting bit of Winter Games trivia, was at the Calgary Games in 1988.

Going for gold

As the Games wound down, Chris Rudge, the head of the Canadian Olympic Committee, suggested that, "through some kind of transference, I might segue over to gold medals and say Own The Podium met its goal."

He has a point. Alexandre Bilodeau's gold medal in freestyle skiing broke the jinx and went into the record books as Canada's first Olympic gold on home soil. Then Canadian athletes went on to set a new Winter Olympics record with their 14 golds.

But, Rudge conceded, "that would be unfair and a rationalization. Our goal was the most medals and we didn't get the most medals."

Rudge went on to observe that coming into the Games, the COC debated whether to look at gold medal wins as the standard for the OTP program.

"There are a number of countries, such as Japan or Brazil, who only evaluate the performance based on gold medals and maybe that is a standard we will move to," he said.

The irony here is that if the COC slogan had been that old favourite, Go for Gold, the post-Games discussion likely would be different.

Spending on the top 5 sports
Olympic sport	Four-year funding	Medals
Alpine skiing	$8.74 million	0
Freestyle skiing	$8.42 million	3
Long-track speedskating	$7.89 million	5
Snowboarding	$6.9 million	3
Hockey	$6.25 million	2
Total Winter Olympics	$69.67 million	26

Source: Own the Podium Winter comparisons

But gold was not the standard that the OTP set for itself.

That was because, going into the Games, the COC did not think Canada was strong enough to challenge for the most gold medals.

It is different in the case of the upcoming Paralymic Games, mind you.

There, the OTP goal is for Canada to be one of the top three gold medal winners.

The podium at home

Home advantage is almost a given in sports. Would that alone be worth two more medals in Vancouver?

It was not for Italy in 2006. Their medal count dropped to 11 from 13 in the previous Winter Olympics.

On the other hand, at those Salt Lake City Games in 2002, Team USA won 34 medals, up from just 13 at Nagano, Japan in 1998. And when Japan hosted, they doubled their medal count from the previous games.

Was the American performance in Vancouver — it was their athletes who owned the podium this year, with 37 medals — helped by competing such a short distance from home?

For Jessie Venter, goalie for the U.S. women's hockey team, "It's as close as you can get to home and still be in a separate country."

Women rule

This year Canada seemed to put women on a pedestal. That was certainly the case in the early going when women dominated the podium.

In the end, Canadian women won 14 medals, compared to 11 for the men. (Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir shared a gold medal in ice dancing.)

But when you parse the numbers, it is actually the men who performed proportionately better this time.

Excluding Virtue and Moir, Canadian women were down two medals from the 16 they won at Turin in 2006, while the men went up three.

Of course, this year there were 21 more medals available for men than women. Women were not allowed to compete in ski jumping, Nordic combined and the four-person bobsleigh.

"We had a targeted list of about 300 athletes and we funded based on that list, regardless of gender," Buffone-Blair said. "Women just capitalized on the opportunity and had great success but there was no strategic thinking around that."

For the team

But Own the Podium's post-mortem will likely look at spending and performance sport by sport.

From a funding perspective, alpine skiing must be one of the biggest disappointments. Despite a near doubling of spending on alpine, the best performance by a Canadian athlete was Erik Guay's two fifth-place finishes.

Comparing individual medals with dollars spent can be problematic, however.

Canada won both the gold medals in hockey, with a much smaller spending increase over the previous Winter Games.

That feat required 42 athletes but at Turin, one athlete, Canadian speedskater Cindy Klassen, won five medals (including a silver in team pursuit).

This year, Canada did quite well in team events, which are usually more expensive to support. Half of Canada's gold medals and 11 of the 26 total medals were won by teams.

At the Olympics only 28 per cent of the contests are team events. And while each of the 21 players on a hockey team takes home a gold medal, in the medal tally that only counts as one.

Many Canadian athletes have spoken about the importance of Own the Podium for them. Ice dancer Scott Moir, for example, said his gold medal in the pair's figure skating, "simply was not possible without it."

Canadian speedskater Clara Hughes on her way to winning a bronze medal during the women's 5,000m event at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Richmond, BC on Feb.24, 2010. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The same for snowboard gold medalist Jasey-Jay Anderson: "I'd be sitting at home without OTP. I wouldn't even be here."

Also, OTP's importance probably can't be assessed without considering all those Canadians who missed the podium by the barest fraction of a second, or an outstretched ski.

Canadian athletes had six fourth-place and 15 fifth-place finishes.

But the last word should go to Clara Hughes, one of Canada's greatest Olympians.

No Canadian has won more Olympics medals than Hughes, the 37-year-old cyclist and speed skater who led the Canadian team into B.C. Place during the opening ceremonies. (She is tied at six with Cindy Klassen).

"I think that these Olympics, and how excited Canadians are right now about being Canadian and celebrating excellence, I think that shows that there is value to sport, and I don't think that value lies in an overall medal count."

With files from Canadian Press