CANMORE – Along with 55 other young Canadian athletes, local biathlon Matthew Strum was recognized with a $10,000 program grant to help him and his coach continue to succeed in the sport.
The Fuelling Athletes and Coaching Excellence (FACE) program grant is split between Strum and his coach, and is awarded by Petro-Canada, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC). The goal is to support advancements in their athletic development, which can be used towards training, equipment, coach education and travel expenses.
“He’s that typical athlete of someone who has big goals and aspirations in this sport, but his actions are always being compromised by affordability,” said Chris Jeffries, high performance director for the Alpine Insurance Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA).
“To be able to recognize and receive financial support to help in that area is massive for athletes like him.”
For about 30 years, Petro-Canada’s FACE Program has supported the athletic and coaching careers of over 3,000 Canadians. Before receiving the FACE grant, Strum was working a part-time job to cover team fees, travel and living expenses.
“I’m super grateful. Biathlon as a sport is quite expensive. As soon as you get to higher levels, it starts to consume most of your life and most of your time … To have this grant given to me makes a huge difference, so I can focus more on training and a little less on worrying about how I’m going to pay for everything,” Strum said.
Near the end of the 2018-19 season, Strum competed with Canada's Senior National Biathlon Development team and is currently training with AWCA. While biathlon remains Strum’s main sport, he wanted to further his skiing performance by training with Jeffries and the best cross-country skiers.
“What I really needed to work on was my skiing. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been working hard with Chris to improve my skiing performance and my ski speed and I think that’s helping me get to the next level,” Strum said.
As for Jeffries, he is currently pursuing his advanced coaching diploma at Canadian Sport Institute Calgary, he plans to use his portion of the FACE grant to help out with funding for the cross-country ski team program.
“Every year our ski program receives less and less funding from our partners and being a cross-country based program all of our funding partners are also cross-country specific. Some of the funding that I would receive will actually go to help close some of the gaps that we have in the program to help deliver the tools and resources on a coaching side that they need,” Jeffries said.
Coming up next for Strum will be the Canadian National team trials which will take place in Canmore from Nov. 4-8.
