Petro-Canada helps fund non-carded athletes through FACE program
Feature photo: Brandie Wilkerson (left) is one of the funding recipients of the FACE program from Petro-Canada.
On Thursday, Petro-Canada announced the names of 50 athlete-coach pairs who will each receive $10,000 in funding for the upcoming year.
The Fuelling Athlete and Coaching Excellence (FACE) program has existed in some form since 1988. Over that time more than 2,700 athlete-coach pairs have been helped, totaling in over $9 million in support from the company owned by Suncor Energy.
One unique aspect of FACE is that it targets high performing non-carded athletes, who need help the most when resource-challenged federations are unable to support them through tightly allocated Sport Canada funds.
Gallery: A few of the athletes to receive funding for 2015-16 by FACE.
Past funding recipients of FACE include Olympic legends Mark Tewksbury and Hayley Wickenheiser. Younger Olympic champions such as Marielle Thompson and Kaitlyn Lawes have also benefited from the Petro-Canada initiative in early stages of their respective careers.
FACE funding this term spans athletes and coaches in 28 Olympic and eight Paralympic sports. A full list of the 50 athlete-coach pairings being supported for a total of $500,000 can be found here.
