Financier gives seven-figure sum to Canada’s alpine, para alpine and ski cross racers

Alpine Canada’s board chair has made a personal donation of $1.3-million to national alpine, para-alpine and ski-cross racers to reduce the amount athletes pay out of their own pocket to race for their country.

Tim Dattels has given Alpine Canada its largest personal philanthropic gift in its history, the organization said Wednesday in a statement.

Dattels of Caledon, Ont., is a partner in the global equity firm TPG and chairman of TPG Asia. He’s been Alpine Canada’s board chair since 2019.

He’s given the seven-figure sum to the Canadian ski team via the Canadian Olympic Foundation.

“We’re still asking our athletes to put up anywhere, plus or minus, $30,000 to represent Canada at the highest level,” Dattels told The Canadian Press.

“I basically stepped up with this gift because I continue to be frustrated that team fees exist and I wanted to stimulate philanthropy in sport.

“It reduces the average team fee from $30,000 to $20,000 and it will do that for a couple of years.”

Top skiers can get sponsorship deals with gear companies and World Cup prize money is higher than in many winter sports, but ski racing at the highest international level is an expensive endeavour for Canadians because of constant international travel to train and race.

“It’s heavy travel because it’s largely competed in Europe and they’re there almost all winter,” Dattels explained. “They’re sharing rooms. It’s just expensive. There’s a lot of rehab to it. Injury rate is very high in the sport.

“I really wanted the athletes to feel that people are focused on them. That goes at all levels from financial sport to safe sport to coaching and doing the best we can for them. There’s still lots of wood to chop here but we’re getting there.”

Dattels, who lives part of the year in Whistler, B.C., represents Canada on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council.

Before joining TPG in 2004, he was a partner and managing director for Goldman Sachs. Dattels grew up skiing at the Caledon Ski Club.

He was among heavy hitters from the financial world joining Alpine Canada’s board three years ago alongside Bank of Montreal chief executive officer Darryl White, former Teck Resources CEO Don Lindsay and Alberta Investment Management chair Mark Wiseman.

Dattels was a personal sponsor of several Canadian skiers before joining the board, including downhillers Marie-Michele Gagnon of Lac Etchemin, Que., and Brodie Seger of Whistler.

“Tim has kind of become my mentor,” Gagnon said. “He’s almost like a second dad over the years. When he announced [the donation] I was in tears and I thought it was the most beautiful thing. I think everybody could really feel that his support goes far beyond what anyone else has done before.”