CBC/Radio Canada and Petro-Canada Partner on the First Annual Face Event

CBC/Radio-Canada and Petro-Canada, a Suncor business, recently announced a multi-year partnership aimed at connecting Canadians with the young athletes and coaches who are recipients of Petro-Canada’s FACE (Fuelling Athlete and Coaching Excellence) program. The first annual FACE Summit, a milestone event in this partnership, will take place Friday, Dec. 11 through Sunday, Dec. 13 in Toronto. CBC/Radio-Canada and Petro-Canada will host current and former FACE athletes at CBC’s Toronto headquarters where they will take part in events and activities that will help them as they develop into Canada’s high-performance athletes.

"A major part of our sports strategy is elevating the profile of Canada’s high-performance athletes and the sports in which they participate so that our audience is more familiar with them and more invested in their stories and results," said Greg Stremlaw, executive director, CBC Sports. "Partnering with Petro-Canada on the FACE Summit and Faces of Tomorrow allows us to extend this strategy even further by introducing another generation of athletes to Canadians even earlier, before they’re representing the country on the national and international level."

"The FACE Summit gives us the opportunity to continue to support athletes in an innovative way, helping to build FACE athletes capabilities and enhance their skillsets," says Marc Goodman, director, loyalty & strategic partnerships, Suncor. "By working with CBC/Radio-Canada, we will also be able to also bring their experience at the Summit to a Canadian audience leading up to Rio, by showcasing the efforts of our FACE athletes."

This year’s FACE recipients will gather to learn from previous recipients, Olympians and Paralympians, as well as subject matter experts in the areas of media training, public speaking, social media, and personal brand development. The skills these athletes acquire over the three-day event will help prepare them for the transition to the next level of their careers in sport. During the summit events, CBC cameras will capture content that will be used to create the Faces of Tomorrow series profiling FACE recipients on a weekly basis during CBC Sports’ ROAD TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES broadcasts. Faces of Tomorrow will introduce these exceptional young athletes to the Canadian viewers who will cheer them on when they compete on the national and international stage.

The weekend will kick-off on Friday evening with a welcome address from ROAD TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES host Andi Petrillo. The summit will resume on Saturday morning as Petrillo’s co-host Scott Russell and Radio-Canada’s Marie-José Turcotte provide opening remarks, followed by a keynote address from Olympian and former FACE program beneficiary Mark Tewksbury.

Saturday evening will feature a VIP red carpet reception and FACE program induction ceremony at CBC’s Toronto headquarters, where each athlete will be officially welcomed into the program by Petro-Canada executives. Members of the media are welcome to attend the red carpet for the opportunity to speak with the FACE program dignitaries. The weekend will wrap up on Sunday morning when the athletes will hear from Paralympian Josh Dueck prior to taking part in their final training sessions of the weekend.

Petro-Canada’s FACE program supports aspiring Olympic and Paralympic athletes when they need it most: when they are striving to become a part of Team Canada, but don’t yet qualify for government funding. Every year, Petro-Canada awards fifty grants of $10,000 to promising athletes from across Canada and their coaches. These funds help them along their journey and are often used for training, equipment, and travel expenses for competitions. Since 1988, Petro-Canada has supported over 2700 Canadian athletes and their coaches by providing more than $9,400,000 in financial support.

As Canada’s Olympic Network, CBC/Radio-Canada will be the official broadcaster of the Olympic Games through 2024. The multi-platform ROAD TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES program reflects CBC Sports’ commitment to connecting audiences with Canada’s high-performance athletes and their sports year-round. ROAD TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES is comprised of weekly television broadcasts on CBC-TV and online at cbcsports.ca as well as a dedicated microsite, all of which combine to offer a 360-degree storytelling model that positions athletes and their stories at the centre, chronicling the athlete’s journey on and off the field of play to ensure Canadians know them and hear from them in their own voice, never meeting them for the first time on the podium.

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