Every two years, everyone’s eyes are on the Olympic Games, tuning in for the incredible feats of athleticism. Team Canada fans watch with pride as Canadian athletes represent the nation on the world stage.
Probably no one is watching a Canadian pole vaulter soar over the bar and thinking, “Hmm, I wonder how that pole got transported to Paris?” or watching a Canadian sailor round a buoy and pondering, “I wonder how hard it is to ship a boat?”.
That’s because when logistics and cargo providers, like Team Canada’s Official Freight Forwarder and Customs Broker, Rock-it Cargo, do their jobs right, no one has to notice such things.
“If anyone is talking about their logistics providers, it’s usually because something has gone wrong and they’ve got a problem that’s now affected their operations,” Josh Gordon, Director, Sports & Broadcast at Rock-it Cargo said with a chuckle. “In a perfect world, nobody talks about us because it means things are going perfect!”
When you really start to think about the logistics of the Olympic Games, it can quickly become overwhelming. Each National Olympic Committee, like the Canadian Olympic Committee, needs to transport everything from the athletes, coaches, and other personnel, down to something as small as a heart rate monitor for a cyclist or an ice vest that a marathoner might don pre-race. For Paris 2024, Rock-it Cargo shipped approximately 154,177kg of cargo by ocean freight and 10,779kg by air freight, making 139 deliveries.
Some sports have gear that is, well, tricky to ship—like sailing masts or pole vault poles. But if that equipment fails to arrive, or arrives damaged, it can ruin an athlete’s Games.
And when it comes to something like a pole vault pole, no, you can’t just borrow someone else’s.
“I could make a ton of money if I invent a pole that’s collapsible,” jokes Kristine Deacon, Manager of National Teams at Athletics Canada. “But we trust Rock-it with our poles and that they’ll be in one piece when they arrive so that the athletes have what they need to perform at their best.”
Nicole Clarke, also a Manager of National Teams at Athletics Canada, admits that they’re not an easy team to deal with logistically.
“We are a very decentralized team in that we don’t have all of our athletes training together in one location, like a basketball or a soccer team would. We had over 50 athletes that went to the Olympics and they come from all over North America.”
Athletics is also an integrated sport, which means that Olympic and Paralympic logistics are housed under the same organization, adding another layer of planning—some equipment from the Olympic Games needs to stay for the Paralympic Games, while other cargo needs to be brought in specifically for Para athletes.
Gordon says that though Rock-it Cargo doesn’t pretend to know what it feels like to be an Olympic or Paralympic athlete, embedded in their operations is a healthy respect for what is at stake when transporting essential equipment.
“We take it so seriously. And we take pride in the fact that everything runs smoothly for the team—so that they have what they need, when they need it, and where they need it.”
Logistical planning for the Games begins years in advance. And like for athletes, practice makes perfect. In their work with Athletics Canada, Rock-it Cargo used the World Athletics Championships in 2023 to do a full dress rehearsal for the logistics of Paris 2024.
But even the best laid plans aren’t immune to life’s unpredictability.
Gordon was already in Paris when he got a call from an airline contact. Due to a natural disaster, the plane that had originally been slated to carry pole vault poles had to be switched for another plane that couldn’t accommodate them. A Plan B would be required.
Rock-it sprung into action, organizing a truck to pick up the poles and transport them to a different airport—despite a global outage from Microsoft grounding many communications. But then the truck got rear-ended, leaving a shaken driver on the side of the road with Olympic poles in the back.
“It’s just one of those things where you can have the perfect plan, but something can always go wrong,” says Gordon. “And then we have to rebound again and find a solution.”
And those poles? They were picked up from the athlete’s home on July 20 and by July 23 they were waiting for her at the Athletics Canada pre-Paris camp in Barcelona. Mission accomplished for Rock-it Cargo.
