[Anne Merklinger skipped the PEI Junior Women’s championship rink in 1976, with teammates Kim McLeod (now Kim Dolan), Kathie Burke (now Kathie Gallant), and Karen Stewart].
Photo: Anne Merklinger
Anne Merklinger has worn a multitude of hats. Thursday, she wore a crown.
The 53-year-old Ottawa sports leader was named chief executive officer of Own the Podium, one of the most powerful positions in sport in the country.
She came to the job as a former national team swimmer, a two-time Ontario curling finalist as a skip, a canoe-kayak executive who sent 11 boats to Olympic finals at Athens in 2004 and a three-year summer sport director at OTP.
As an athlete and executive, she holds the hammer on what it takes to win, says John Furlong, chairman of the OTP board of directors. OTP is the federally funded body that has a mandate to turn World Cup and world championship medals into Olympic medals. The elite sports finishing project selectively doles out about $70-million a year to summer and winter Olympic athletes on the verge of becoming medalists.
Furlong said Merklinger has the savvy to direct Canada to at least a 12th-place finish in total medals at the Olympics this summer in London. As a former athlete, Merklinger is “tough … particularly tough on herself. She holds herself accountable for all the decisions being made,” he said as he introduced Merklinger as the replacement for Alex Baumann, the swim icon who will take a similar administrative position in New Zealand.