Tech Wins Gold: How Canada Can Rebuild Its Olympic Pipeline

Tech Wins Gold: How Canada Can Rebuild Its Olympic Pipeline

From Disruptors by RBC Thought Leadership, John Stackhouse

March 10, 2026 · 31 min · Season 10 · Episode 5

About this episode

The episode discusses how Canada can modernize its Olympic pipeline through sport science and technology to enhance athlete performance.

Canada’s Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics delivered unforgettable moments — and also a hard signal: podium success is increasingly won upstream, through systems, sport science, and technology. In a world where competitors treat sport science as infrastructure, Canada is trying to win with a thinner pipeline and a funding model that can push costs onto athletes. That’s not just unfair — it’s strategically risky. In our latest Disruptors episode, host John Stackhouse sits down with David Shoemaker, CEO and Secretary General of the Canadian Olympic Committee, and Jennifer Heil, Olympic champion (Turin 2006 gold; Vancouver 2010 silver) and Chef de Mission for Team Canada at Milano Cortina 2026. This episode unpacks what “modernization” means. It’s the same logic that drives performance in business: small gains compound when the system is designed to learn. You’ll also hear why talent identification matters and how RBC Training Ground points to what a scalable pipeline can look like when measurement meets opportunity.

People in this episode

Host: John Stackhouse

Guests: David Shoemaker, Jennifer Heil

Topics covered

  • Olympics
  • sport science
  • technology
  • Canada
  • athlete funding
  • performance

Keywords

  • Olympics
  • Canada
  • sport science
  • technology
  • athlete funding
  • performance
  • RBC Training Ground

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Canadian Olympic Committee, RBC Training Ground

Places: Canada

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