Morning links, Day 16

The final full day of competition here. The final full day of morning links:

An essential read ahead of tomorrow's Canada-US men's hockey final: Michael Farber at SI.com takes a look at Brian Burke, dealing with the recent death of his son Brendan during these Olympics, "Man of his word":

The Olympics are an obligation, not an option, to the 54-year-old. As Team USA practices in a frigid community arena, Burke says, "Lincoln lost a son in the White House. So did Jefferson Davis in the Confederacy. They didn't go home. They finished the job. USA Hockey didn't ask me to do this on the basis of, Will you do this if your personal life allows it?"
Burke, a Civil War buff, does not mean to sound self-aggrandizing by comparing his situation with Lincoln's and Davis's. He just does. "There's not a shortage of ego to the man," says Mike Milbury, a former NHL player, coach and G.M., and Burke's friend of three decades.

In one of the more remarkable sports stories here, Norway's Marit Bjoergen goes for her fourth gold medal today in cross-country skiing - something no one has done before. But her rival, Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk, has accused Bjoergen of cheating. Kowalczyk has won three medals this Games, and was once cleared of a drug offence just before the Turin Games:

"She wouldn't have won without her medicine," Kowalczyk is quoted on the Polish website Wirtualna Polska. "Marit knows very well she wouldn't have much to show without her helpers, neither against me nor the other women."
Bjoergen uses medication to combat athletically induced asthma, medication that is on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances. However, WADA has cleared Bjoergen to use the medication.

Here's Ron Wilson, behind the bench for the U.S. team and much to some Leafs fans' surprise, showing he can, you know, coach. From Damien Cox's early column yesterday:

"When you've got great goaltending, very mobile defencemen and skill up front, you just try to stay out of the way," Wilson, who coached the U.S. to victory in the 1996 World Cup, said after the resounding victory over the Finns.
Then he added, "I didn't come into the tournament to prove my coaching abilities."

Quote of the day, from Hayley Wickenheiser: "Get real. We were enjoying the moment. Things happen. Everybody just take a deep breath. Nobody on the team smokes. We are aware that it's not the image that we want to portray. I'm not ashamed or embarrassed."

And finally, Vancouver's English Bay lights have been illuminating the night sky during these Olympics. Vectorial Elevation is the installation that winds up tomorrow, so there's still time to enter your lights pattern from your computer at home. Check out Randy Risling's video for a lovely look-in.

Morning links, Day 14

 And a busy one it is, with more to come today in figure skating, hockey, curling and aerials. We're almost home:

A bobsled one-two for Canada. Kaillie Humphries' secret recipe for gold: “I’m not really looking at times. I just push my butt off and make it to the bottom.”

Short-track silver for Canada, after Korea was disqualified – another medal for the Greggs, and a nice going-out present for Tania Vicent. (Photo above by Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star)

And one for the ages, as Clara Hughes goes out with another medal and heads into a new career (photo, Tara Walton/Toronto Star). From Randy Starkman's report:

“There is nothing like this. The thing working in broadcasting in China showed me is it's a really special thing to be an Olympic athlete.

“I thought 'I get to do this one more time.' And I never lost sight of what 'this' is. Because when it's over, it's over. And now it's actually over. Wow.”

The earth's rotational wobble has been corrected. Canada beats Russia at the Olympics for the first time in 50 years. Bryzgalov on the Canadian men: “Like gorillas coming out of a cage.” And from Yahoo! Sports' Dmitry Chesnokov's Twitter updates, a quote from Russian coach Bykov on the Russian media: "Let's put up guillotines & gallows in Red Sq & kill all players & staff. Why look for someone to blame?" and "Right now we're taking our hats off for Canada. They were better. The level of our team is lower. For today."

Outside the Canadian news, the latest episode of Vonncouver continues on the feud with teammate Julia Mancuso.

Don Draper goes shopping.

And a York University study says that wearing red helps you with the judges. Maybe that explains yesterday's run. Except that Canada wore their whites last night. But oh, that was hockey: “All things being equal between two figure skaters – including their actual speed on the ice – the judges will perceive a skater in red is moving with greater speed than a skater in blue, and may reward the skater in red with higher marks.”

Morning links, Day 7

Happy (belated) b-day, Marianne St-Gelais, her silver in last night's women's 500m short-track event coming on her 20th birthday. St-Gelais is the youngest member of Canada's short-track team, and the country's youngest medalist at these Games so far. A surprise to some, perhaps, but not so much to her teammates, as this April 2009 Montreal Gazette report shows:

Only 16 at the time, St-Gelais was about to embark in the A final of the 500 metres in a Canadian elite series event when national team veteran Anne Maltais - 10 years her elder - skated over and said: "Don't take off too quickly, we'd like to try and keep up."

Shaun White, last night's emphatic halfpipe gold medalist, has been doing this snowboard thing for a long time. Here's the erstwhile Flying Tomato, ca. 1994 (HT to Yahoo!'s excellent Fourth-Place Medal blog):

On a big day for the U.S. yesterday, who looked most impressive - White, Lindsey Vonn or speed skater Shani Davis? I'd go with Vonn on her strong downhill over a course that everyone was having trouble with: "The pressure, for me, is gone. I got exactly what I came here to get. That was a gold medal and everyone expected me to get it, but it’s not as easy as just saying, ‘You can do it.’"

Teemu Selanne, who will meet up with fellow puck silverback Peter Forsberg in Sunday night's finale to the group games here, tied the Olympic scoring record with an assist in the Finns' 5-1 win over Belarus yesterday: "Nobody expects us to challenge the big teams, but you never know. We all come from the same league and drink the same beer."

Johnny Weir says he's planning a tell-all book, but really, what's left to tell? Here's Weir, telling People how he handled nerves before Tuesday's men's short programme: "I Pledged [as in Lemon Pledge] everything in my room. Some people eat, some people drink – but I Pledge everything." 

And colleague Randy Starkman, who's been carrying around Flat Stanley for so many of these Olympic things it's no wonder he's so skinny, landed no ordinary Olympian in the frame yesterday - Eric Heiden, and just so you know, Tuesday it the 30th anniversary of Heiden's gold-medal sweep at Lake Placid:

 

Morning links, Day 6

All hail Maelle Ricker, and as emphatic a gold-medal performance as has been seen at these Games. Ms Ricker is a local success story - born in North Van, raised next door in Seymour and now living in Squamish. Four years ago in Turin she was airlifted off the course and missed the podium in a race best recalled for Lindsay Jacobellis' moment of tomfoolery. Yesterday Ricker was the most comfortable of winners and Jacobellis failed to reach the final. 

Today the women's downhill is up at Whistler, and Lindsey Vonn, helped along by the most overhyped medicine since the swine flu shot, finally gets her chance to perform - on tape delay at home, maybe, where in the age of Twitter NBC is standing firm while taking a bollocking for its packaged, hours-later coverage.

Evgeni Plushenko stomped it in the men's short programme, then finished with a sword foil stab move that was aimed straight into the hearts of the rest of the field. It's close, but I'm betting he gets the gold in Thursday's skate-off, and prepare for a memorable flourish and perhaps some vintage kiss-off line from one of sport's prima divas.

On the subject of kiss-off lines, the Times Online's Matthew Syed takes a well-aimed shot at the contemporary Olympic movement itself, as the body of Nodar Kumaritashvili arrived home in Georgia at dawn this morning:

But it is the collateral damage to the Olympic movement itself that will be of most concern to its regal custodians at the International Olympic Committee. After all, even if the Own the Podium is not found to be responsible for Kumaritashvili’s death, it nevertheless hints at just how far the notion of Olympianism has morphed from the original vision of Baron De Coubertin. The very fact that an organising committee was prepared systematically to undermine the medal prospects of overseas competitors — even to the point of taking risks with their safety — reveals the sham at the heart of the Olympic ideal and the hypocrisy of the Olympic Charter, with its talk of dignity, solidarity and the “harmonious development of man”.

And finally, the sun came out in Vancouver yesterday and, Olympics or no Olympics, a reminder of what a beautiful part of the world this is. Here's another reminder:

Bring on the hockey - and some Olympian atmosphere

RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR

Defenceman Brent Seabrook and the rest of Team Canada start their quest for hockey gold tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET.

The differences between Whistler and the Vancouver-Richmond axis couldn't be more marked.

Whistler is compact. You take the chairlift to the sports, instead of the SkyTrain. The most popular fashion accessory is a snowboard, slung over the shoulder just so. It's quaint and cozy - maybe too cozy. At yesterday's men's downhill, there were cowbells and real snow and a chill in the air (thought not too much). It felt almost like the Winter Olympics. Though it sure wasn't Europe:

"Compared with Kitzbühel and Wengen (World Cup events) it's like a kid's event," stormed Wolfgang Maier. "I find it all a bit thin for an Olympics. This race is a huge event for North America and then only 8,000 spectators come along.”

The actual attendance was 6,120. Today in Whistler, the skiing has been wiped out by snow - which always sounds strange but heavy snow is actually a problem. It's richly ironic, though, given the continuing woes of snowless Cypress Mountain, these Olympics' designated disaster area, as tickets have actually been declared invalid. Just don't expect any sympathy from VANOC, only a vacuous description of the venue as the organizers' "special child" coming as close as they'll get to regret. 

So it's going to be down to men's hockey, after the lambs-to-the-slaughter opening of the women's tournament, as a saviour, as it so often is in this country. True, today's games are likely to be tuneups for the Canadians and the Americans. But this appears to be a good, deep tournament with two legit favourites in Canada and Russia, and some live longshots like the U.S. and Sweden. More to the point, the stands should be full and in an NHL arena, the facility will be first-class.

Related: I'll be out at the U.S.-Switzerland game for a live chat with Damien Cox and Paul Hunter, then will text comment through the opener while you're in the office waiting to get home for tonight's Canada-Norway opener.

Morning links, Day 5

Big day ahead, with men's hockey and both bonspiels getting underway. Here's a few things to set you up for the day.

The age-old practice of waxing skis is a little more complex than it would seem, including the final, last-minute layer on the skis - not wax, actually, but pure flourocarbons. From wired.com:

“During the technical inspection of the course, I’ll take the snow temperature and humidity,” says Schiller. “Then I’ll pick the right fluorocarbon for the flatter sections of the course, where gliding speed matters the most.”
These pure fluorocarbons, which come in powder or solid form, are insanely slippery, and shockingly expensive. A 15 gram block can run $109, or a cool $3,290 a pound.

Remember Lindsay Jacobellis? Sure you do. She's the U.S. snowboard racer who, way out in front four years ago in Turin, blew the gold medal with some shameless hot-doggery - then wouldn't own up to it afterward. Well, she's back, and along with her in the field vying for favourite status in the betting is World Canada's Maelle Ricker, fourth in Turin and then out with one of the more memorable descriptions for the Olympics' most lamented of spots: "Placing fourth is like seeing the love of your life on the subway but never getting to meet them." 

One more time with the video (no commentator; if you're impatient, skip ahead to 1:30 for the unshining moment):

And finally, in honour of today's opening of the curling, here's a Swedish comedy troupe called Galenskaparna, and their take on it all. Full marks if you can make it to the end:

Live from Men's Downhill at Whistler Creekside

WHISTLER, B.C.

(UPDATED BELOW at 5 pm Pacific time.)

Live here at the men's downhill, one of the Winter Olympics' glamour events and on the alpine calendar, the most glittering.

Great day for it, too: 0C, overcast. Good-sized crowd arriving by chairlift up the finish area at the foot of Creekside's Dave Murray course.

Weather conditions are good - and a field of 64 starts flying down the hill here at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Follow along with me on Twitter. I'll be back after with a post off the action here, where Manuel Osborne-Paradis is Canada's leading hopeful against the likes of favoured Didier Cuche of Switzerland and Michael Walchhofer of Austria.

Here's your first look up the mountain at Creekside, from the finish area halfway up the hill:

 

The skiers out here at Creekside today travelled at speeds of 100 km/h or so, covering 3.1 kilometres in just under two minutes. Now just imagine doing that without quite knowing what's ahead.

They weren't quite doing that, but the first man down Creekside's course named for the Crazy Canuck Dave Murray assesed the visibility thusly: "I had no frickin' visibility," said Sweden's Patrik Jaerbyn.

Manuel Osborne-Paradis's radio report up to the Canadians at the start area was along the same lines - "Dark and bumpy," he warned, and seemed glad to put the experience behind him.

But it wasn't just vision that was erratic (and the sun did come out for a bit, ). The Canadians said they felt different, the pressure of being their own backyard affecting them in different ways. Osborne-Paradis, the top hope going in - he was third on the odds board, anyway - said he didn't sleep well and was jittery all morning. Robbie Dixon, even more of a Whistler local than Osborne-Paradis, caught himself coming out of the gate and nearly fell then went down for good at a spot aptly called Double Trouble.

Even Erik Guay, who finished fifth, said he didn't start feeling comfortable until 30 seconds or so into his run. "It's just a shame (the finish) wasn't 200 metres longer."

Look for Osborne-Paradis to improve greatly in Friday's Super-G, after a 17th-place finish in this race. He won a World Cup event in that discipline earlier in the year, and "I feel better now," he said in the finish area, "I feel - angry."

Related: Final results. Switzerland's Dider Defago takes gold, Bode Miller of USA second and  in between them...

Silver medalist Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway, during his post-race press conference, made sure everyone in the house would understand how sweet his silver medal was, and just who was behind denying him access to the Olympic course last spring: "The Canadian team, and Alpine Canada, are great to work with. Erik Guay gave me a great report on the hill here. I want to thank the Canadian ski team. It wasn't them who kept me off the hill. It was VANOC, Own the Podium, or something."

Dave Perkins has more.

Morning links, Day 4

Somewhat lost in the shuffle yesterday: Jean-Phillippe Le Guellec's sixth-place finish in the men's 10-km sprint - best biathlon finish by a Canadian man. According to his Canadian Olympic team bio (pdf file of the guide is here), the 2004 world youth champion from Quebec City likes to warm up by doing a "fist thrust" with his dad while quoting Gladiator. 

And are you ready for some hockey? Me too. And Finland too. The Czech Republic.

And furthermore, here's Part I from the Hockey Webcast's series on the tournament:

Alexandre Bilodeau, the new gold standard

UPDATED, 8 p.m. Pacific:

So that's your gold standard, Canada. Take a look. Enjoy it. Savour it. 

Big thanks and big ups to Alexandre Bilodeau, his gold medal tonight in the moguls the first gold medal ... - aw, let's just retire that one now. You know the rest of it. We don't need to write it any more, and hallelujah to that. It was too early for the the beads of sweat to start forming on the stiff upper lips of Marcel Aubut & Co., but that's never stopped us before. 

Bilodeau stopped it - history, at the age of 22, from Montreal, the place where the whole drought began in 1976, born a scant few months before it continued in Calgary. Appropriately, he was something of a longshot.  

For a generation of us who grew up being put to sleep at night by the national anthem TV sign-off, Greg Joy's silver medal-winning high jump was the accompanying, True North Strong and Free shining moment.  

For GenX, it was Liz Manley biting her medal. Two times hosting the Olympics, and oh-fer.

Now comes this one to live on for the YouTube generation. Until this brilliant run out at Cypress Mountain - maligned Cypress, snowless Cypress, our "special child" according to this morning VANOC press briefer, now become a field of dreams, an ugly duckling story wrapped up in the red-and-white Maple Leaf.

One night after Jenn Heil was second best then faced the question of pressure with typical grace, Bilodeau picked her and everyone else up. 

So this Olympics is underway in terms of host-country momentum, always important at these kind of global sporting affairs, but also in terms of simple history. The guy at the bottom of the hill, wrapped in the flag, deserves the last word, because he made it happen: "The party's just starting for Canada."

Canada's next shots

Getting anxious yet?

Having only done a couple of these Olympic shindigs, the feeling of angst that surrounds Canada's usual troubles finding the podium is familiar, but strange. Throw in Marcel Aubut's opening-week guarantees, the money invested in Own the Podium, and the home-country fervour, and it seems a little over the top at times. The sense of disappointment at the finish line for the women's moguls, of deflation, was palpable in the crowd and in Jenn Heil. Both recovered quickly, but you know as long as this goes on it'll only get louder with us in the media, especially (the first real question Heil got last night was about pressure).

With Kristina Groves in the books with a bronze medal today at the speedskating oval, Canadian eyes turn to moguls tonight and the Alexandre Bilodeau Show against Vancouver native Dale Begg-Smith, now with Australia - and if DBS, the defending Olympic champion can repeat, unfortunately we can't claim a half-medal. Cue Chris Rudge, the Canadian Olympic boss, handicapping the field:  "In a sense, we have five athletes. Unfortunately, one of them is wearing an Australian uniform."

So we'll see there. It won't be easy. Since Begg-Smith came back from an ACL injury this season he's been in ripping form, but he managed just a fourth placing in this afternoon's qualifying session (the final goes at 8:30 Eastern tonight). Bilodeau can only hope that that kind of favourite's form in the home snow/slush - or whatever it's rated as tonight - will give him some wings and indeed he was second best in the ranking (same as Jenn Heil in last night's women's event, and we know how that worked out), France's Guilbaut Colas qualifying best of all. Begg-Smith remains the solid favourite, and Dave Feschuk will be tweeting throughout and reporting from Cypress Mountain.

Elsewhere, it's full speed ahead here at Whistler for tomorrow's men's downhill. There will even be some women's downhill training, with Lindsey Vonn taking a fitness test. The weather forecast has a nice window Monday, then more nasty stuff moving in. 

All eyes tomorrow with be on Manny Osborne-Paradis, considered to have a decent shot at a podium place in the downhill. Erik Guay, Robbie Dixon and Jan Hudec round out the Canadian contingent in an event that's wide open, Switzerland's Didier Cuche favoured but only slightly.

I'll be out there blogging here and twittering here, so join in. Wireless problems for me here in Whistler have limited the blogging today; tomorrow will be better.