Around The Olympic Blogosphere: From Heartstrings to G-strings

Most people don’t know much about Canadian skeleton racer Jon Montgomery, but visit his website and you quickly get a good idea the guy has a good sense of humour.

“It's nice to sleep in my own bed,” writes Montgomery in his latest blog entry. “That way when I have nightmares about my last race in St. Moritz, Switzerland and wake up crying I know where the Kleenex is at.”

More and more Olympic athletes have blogs these days and they can give you some nice little insights into their character and lives that you aren’t likely to get anywhere else. We're trying to provide links to them on this site (we'd like to be your one-stop shopping spot for the upcoming Games) and we'll be constantly updating.

TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

Jeff Pain, aka the "Raging Beaver".

Downhill racer Erik Guay has the Cadillac of sites, with all the bells and whistles powered by his sponsor Red Bull, and it features a picture of his sweet newborn daughter Logann Elizabeth. But though eloquent in interviews, Guay isn't much for expressing himself too much on his website. Maybe it's a guy thing.

When it comes to content, it’s pretty hard to surpass Olympic champion speed skater Clara Hughes, who pours it out in her blog the same way she does in a 5,000-metre speed skating race. She has an entry currently on what the humanitarian organization Right To Play means to her, prompted the by the Vancouver Organizing Committee and International Olympic Committee move to keep them out of the athletes village at the 2010 Games.

Teammate Kristina Groves has also shown her mettle as a great writer (see some of her work here), but with no website yet you can tune in here for her journal entries in Kristina’s Corner (Or perhaps The Grovesline … We’re mulling over a name change.)  Olympic cross-country skiing champion Chandra Crawford really knows how to turn a phrase, too.

Skier Emily Brydon is currently offering an inside look at her trying weekend in Cortina on her website, while teammate Kelly VanderBeek also doesn’t shy away from talking about her struggles and crash last weekend – heck, she’ll even post the video if she can get her hands on it (which she did in Lake Louise in December … she’s still seeking the Cortina footage).

These athletes also show a big heart. Hughes and snowboarder Alexa Loo have sections entitled “Giving Back” on their website entailing their charitable work, VanderBeek has a link to the Speed Queens T-shirts being sold to support Right To Play.

Skeleton racer Jeff Pain, Olympic silver medallist in Turin, shows himself to be a bit of an entrepreneur on his site -- and good for him. He plastered a “Raging Beaver” logo on his helmet leading to the 2006 Turin Games to denote the fighting Canadian spirit.

On his website, he’s selling “Team Pain” gear and also has a “Raging Beaver”  line and a “Niiice Beaver” line, which features a thong emblazoned with the logo and the catchphrase.

Valentine's Day is fast approaching.

 

Rick Mercer Shoots Off More Than Mouth With Biathletes

You gotta give Rick Mercer credit. He’s become Canada’s very own George Plimpton.

Plimpton, if you recall, was the genteel British American man of letters who waded into very dangerous sporting territory and wrote so eloquently about it. He stepped into the ring against world light heavyweight champion Archie Moore, played quarterback for the Detroit Lions and got between the pipes for the Boston Bruins among other adventures.

Okay, Mercer’s not quite in Plimpton territory when it comes to taking risks. He’s tried out synchronized swimming with the Olympic team (yep, he had the noseplugs) and tread water with our women’s water polo squad (see both here), and plied his skills on a speed skating oval (this isn't that bit, but it's good).

On this week’s show, Mercer not only skied with legend Nancy Greene (the newly-minted senator doesn't suffer fools but made an exception in Rick's case) but, pictured above, he also blazed a trail with national team biathletes Rosanna Crawford (foreground) and Megan Tandy. The photo was taken by Glen Crawford, father of Rosanna and big sister Chandra, the Olympic cross country skiing champ. (He works as a freelance cameraman for CBC)

The biathlete piece was a great lark with Mercer having some fun with the skiers, who were part of a nude calendar called  Bold Beautiful Biathlon that they did as a fundraiser. Mercer auditions for the calendar, hiding his naughty his bits with … Well, you oughta watch it.

It's caused a spike in calendar sales – there’s less than 100 left -- and generated nearly $1,000 in donations to the hard-working team.

The thinking here is that it’s time for Mercer to take it up a notch. How about stepping into a bobsled with Pierre Lueders? Asked if he’d be up to taking Mercer for a ride, the Olympic champion was totally pumped by the prospect.

“That would be great,” said Lueders from Whistler, where he’s getting ready for next week’s World Cup. “We did a thing for the show It's a Living. It was a lot of fun. It would be nice to see if he (Mercer) is a man.”

Whaddya say, Rick?

PS If there ever make biathlon an extreme sport, I imagine it might look like this.

Sing Like Kreek: Right To Play Ouster A Dumb Move

Canadian rower Adam Kreek is an inspiring athlete. His rousing rendition of O Canada when he and his teammates in the men’s eight won Olympic gold in Beijing motivated triathlete Simon Whitfield in his stirring silver-medal performance at the Games. Whitfield wrote “Sing Like Kreek” on the handlebars of his bike.

Kreek, an ambassador for the humanitarian group Right To Play, sent an email yesterday saying he can’t fathom last week’s move by the IOC to ban the organization from the athletes village at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and future Games. It was the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) who made the original decision to bar Right To Play for the first time since its inception in 1992.

REUTERS FILE PHOTO

Speaking of Adam Kreek and inspiring.

Here’s what Kreek wrote:

I hope you have been following the dumb move by the IOC. The exact same values I was touting for using sport for development and inclusiveness in our last correspondence have been thrown out the window. Let's keep support for the grass roots. Let's keep support for the poor children. Let's give a helping hand. Exclusion and elitism does not do this.

To re-state we often overlook the importance a more inclusive event can have on the goals of human development and peace, the humanitarian side of the Olympic movement. A big part of the Olympics is about bringing as many people together with divergent heritages and backgrounds on a common playing field. We need to be able to overlook the petty differences that keep people disconnected and find ways to integrate as many cultural participants in the Olympic games as is fair and ethical.

Right to Play is one of the best humanitarian efforts that the Olympic movement has produced. This organization needs all the support and help it can get!!!

Olympic champion speed skater Clara Hughes has posted in her blog on what Right To Play means to her. Here’s an excerpt telling how Right To Play motivated her when she was looking for inspiration before the 5,000 metres at the 2006 Turin Games. She saw a feature of the group's work on a CBC feed:

I saw clearly how these shy little kids who literally had nothing were transformed when engaged in sport; engaged in play. Their eyes told the stories of horrors beyond belief, yet these same eyes shone with what I can only qualify as joy when they played. Right to Play had been in Uganda for some time at that point, and the programs were proving more than effective. In fact, many people said that these were the programs having a true, lasting impact on these children.

I remembered a passage in a book I read throughout my time in Italy. It was a book about the mythological historian Joseph Campbell, and he talked about finding joy in the struggle of being human and how this was when one is truly alive.

I saw these kids and this transformation was exactly that: finding joy in the struggle.

See the full post here.

Kristina's Corner: PB's Of A Different Kind

Here’s another entry from Canadian speed skating ace Kristina Groves, winner of five medals at last year’s world single distance championships. For those of you who think Olympics athletes are a bunch of granola eaters – not that there’s anything wrong with that – Groves is here to tell us that they can venture over to the dark side on occasion. If you don’t want your illusions shattered, you might not want to read this missive she sent along last month.

Groves, who has been kind enough to share her journal posts here, is a supporter of Right To Play and Clean Air Champions.

PB’s Of A Different Kind ….

For those who don’t know me, it is a well-known fact among those who do, that I am, in all likelihood, the slowest eater on Planet Earth. I have been awarded this distinction in part due to copious amounts of undisputed evidence, witnessed by anyone who has ever shared a meal with me, and I am powerless and incapable of denying it.

I come by this unfortunate habit, or healthy one depending on how you look at it, for a number of different reasons, none of which I will go into in any great detail, but suffice it to say that I am a slow eater because: a) I chew slowly, b) occasionally forget that I am chewing by reason of distraction, like reading a magazine, c) get caught up in conversation at the table and d) generally have to eat well beyond the point of satiation in order to consume adequate calories to sustain my training regime and maintain hard earned muscle mass. In combination, these factors make for some agonizingly long and lonesome mealtimes, as I find myself abandoned and alone to finish my meal, mostly as a result of me shooing people away so as to prevent them from wasting time out of courtesy for my prolonged ingestion. I am often apologetic for my masticating deficiencies, but have come to accept it, and even feel a hint of satisfaction when people tell me that it’s better for digestion to eat slowly. Another positive side effect tends to be getting out of doing the dishes.

Road to Vancouver: Speed Queens Still Seeking Extra Gear

At the start of every week, we'll try to take a look at trends, who's hot and who's not and some things to watch out for on the Road to Vancouver:

Canada’s “Speed Queens” are still struggling to get on track after what looked like a breakthrough campaign last season.

Emily Brydon of Fernie, B.C., crashed into a gate and cut her leg in a women’s World Cup super-G today in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, while Britt Janyk of Whistler was 12th and Kelly VanderBeek of Kitchener was 20th in a race in which Jessica Lindell-Vikarby won her first ever World Cup.

A team that scored podium finishes on seven of eight weekends of World Cup speed racing last season – Janyk was fourth on the eighth weekend in Whistler – the Canadians are still without a single top-three so far in this final winter campaign before the 2010 Vancouver Games. The best result to date is a fifth by Brydon last weekend in a downhill in Altenmarkt, Austria.

Janyk’s struggles are likely of the most concern to the coaching staff. She finished third last year in the World Cup downhill standings and cracked the top-8 on eight occasions, including her first career win in Aspen and a third in Lake Louise. She felt she could contend for the World Cup downhill title.

This season, Janyk only has one top-10 in six races so far, an eighth-place finish in a super-G in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in December and she’s ranked 14th in the downhill standings. VanderBeek has dropped from fifth last year to 12th so far in the downhill rankings. Brydon leads the Canadians in eighth in the downhill standings.

The good news, though, is there's lots of racing left, including the world championships next month in Val d'Isere, France, but the early returns are certainly cause for concern.

SKY IS FALLING

The dangers of freestyle aerials was readily apparent to the Canadian team this week. Warren Shouldice suffered a concussion in a nasty crash during competition yesterday in Mont Gabriel, while Deidra Dionne hurt her ribs in training in a Saturday morning fall and couldn't compete yesterday. Veronika Bauer of Toronto was sidelined by a concussion sustained in training earlier in the week.

TOUGH SLEDDING

One of the toughest sports for Canada to make a breakthrough heading to Vancouver 2010? It's luge, the only sliding sport where the country hasn't been able to make a big dent. Alex Gough of Calgary posted the lastest in a series of 10th-place finishes, a big step up, but it's still a long, long way to the podium. Veteran Jeff Christie says their training base in Calgary badly needs an update if the team is to be competitive.

EXCELLENT POINTS

Speaking of sliding, Pierre Lueders and David Bissett extended their stay in St. Moritz, Switzerland, after winning back-to-back World Cup two-man races in order to race in a lower Europa Cup to pick up more points. It paid off. They smoked the field and picked up 120 points to move from 12th to ninth and into the all important first seed. An earlier start position is important because the ice deteriorates for later racers, particularly on a track like Lake Placid, where the world championships are held this year.

Pedal to the Medal

Canada is trying to own the podium at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Here are some athletes making deposits along the way.

SNOWBOARD WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Good haul for Jennifer Heil and the Canadian freestyle team.

Parallel Giant Slalom
Jasey-Jay Anderson - GOLD
Matthew Morison - SILVER

Half Pipe
Jeff Batchelor - SILVER
Justin Lamoureux - 5th

Snowboardcross
Tom Velisek - 4th
Maelle Ricker - 4th

BIATHLON WORLD CUP

Pursuit
Jean-Philippe LeGuellec - 7th

ALPINE SKIING

Slalom
Trevor White - 8th

Combined
John Kucera - 6th

FREESTYLE WORLD CUP

Women's Moguls
Jennifer Heil - SILVER

Men's Moguls
Vincent Marquis - GOLD
Alexandre Bilodeau - SILVER
Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau - BRONZE

Men's Aerials
Steve Omischl - GOLD
Kyle Nissen - 4th
Olivier Rochon - 5th

SPEED SKATING WORLD CUP

1000m Men
Day 1 - Denny Morrison - GOLD
Day 2 - Denny Morrison - GOLD

1000m Ladies
Day 1 - Christine Nesbitt - BRONZE
Day 2 - Christine Nesbitt - BRONZE

500m Men
Jamie Gregg - 6th Place

SKI CROSS WORLD CUP

Julia Murray – 4th

Tales From The Stark Side: Kitzbuehel Lives Up To Hype

My blog guru here at the Star, Spencer, has suggested I write here and there about my experiences over the years. So please consider this the first installment of Tales From The Stark Side …

Spent four years spent covering Canada’s Olympic athletes overseas in the ‘80s and there was never really another event that matched the Hahnenkamm Downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria. That was on and off the Streif course.

There are the awful crashes through the years that have helped build Kitzbuehel’s reputation. This year, it was Swiss skier Daniel Albrecht, who is in a medically induced coma after suffering head and lung injuries from a crash in training for tomorrow's race. (See it live on cbc.ca/sports at 5:15 a.m.)

My wife, also a journalist, and I travelled on the World Cup circuit together. We were there when Todd Brooker had his horrific head-over-heels crash that ended his career in 1987. She was standing at the bottom of the hill next to Brooker’s wife, Lisa, who was convinced she’d just become a widow.

But Brooker, now an analyst for CBC (and a very fine one at that), survived that crash – and with his sense of humor intact.

When he saw Lisa, he said through bloodied and swollen lips:

“Is my nose as big as your father’s?”

Just as infamous as the race is the party that follows at the Londoner Pub, where skiers take over behind the bar and let loose as only those who’ve confronted some of their greatest fears and survived can. The owners provide a huge cache of free champagne – a tradition started when the Crazy Canucks began winning the Hahnenkamm – and most of it is sprayed all over the place. Ditto for the beer, actually.

One year an American skier blew out his knee jumping off the bar.

Indeed, a dangerous place on and off the course. I've been warned off telling my own personal experience of that with the Londoner.

Don’t Fall for VANOC Spin on Right To Play’s Ouster

TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

From left, speed skater Arne Dankers, Olympic moguls champion Jennifer Heil, Hayley Wickenheiser, and speed skater Kristina Groves.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Games (VANOC) would like us to believe they were on the sidelines while the humanitarian group Right To Play was getting booted out of the athletes village.

But the fact remains this was a VANOC initiative from the get-go. They said as much when the story first broke in October. VANOC official Andrea Shaw said it was their own decision to keep Right To Play out because of conflicting sponsors.

Shaw made a point - the same day she made that statement - of trying to get back in touch with the Star again later to add something to what she’d said earlier – that the International Olympic Committee was considering kicking Right to Play out of the entire Olympic movement.

Interesting that Shaw was in touch enough with the IOC to have that information – which turned out to be true – but VANOC officials, including top gun John Furlong, wanted us to believe yesterday they weren’t aware that the IOC had followed through on what VANOC said they were threatening to do in October.

We should all remember the stance that VANOC and General Motors Canada took when the original news broke and they took a beating in the media. There was a lot of talk about how they would work hard to resolve the issue. Furlong was one of those saying that.

GM Canada wrote a letter to the Star, saying they really cared about the charity and were offering transportation during the Games and access to events for some of Right To Play’s kids at the Vancouver Olympics (They obviously did not understand the charity's work. These are kids living in the most desolate places in the world; they need sports programs, not bobsleigh tickets.)

VANOC never got back in touch with Right To Play after making that public show of concern. The Star called VANOC yesterday to ask about that, but they couldn’t produce a live person and instead sent canned quotes which stated they were on the sidelines while the IOC made the decision. (Let's face it, the IOC makes a large and convenient target. All those who cover them know that.)

VANOC also pointed out in the email they sent yesterday that they did an internal fundraiser for Right To Play during Christmas. They didn’t say how much it raised.

From Dave Cobb, VANOC Executive vice president, Revenue, marketing, communications:

“Their participation in the Village is only one way that they were involved in the Games and we’ve been monitoring discussions carefully. We felt it was important for us to at least stay on the sidelines until Right To Play and the IOC resolved what their long term arrangement would be. We’re only here for another year.

"The work they do is much needed and fantastic work and the IOC believes that too – but for whatever reasons, they’ve concluded that they won’t be part of the Village.

"We believe very strongly in what they (RTP) do and support them through a number of initiatives. We have people on our staff who are members of their Board, in fact we participated in a fundraising campaign internally over Christmas – but as a result of discussions with the IOC, they won’t be part of the Village.”

This from staunch Right To Play supporter and ace speed skater Clara Hughes on yesterday’s news:

“It is a disappointment to me because I believe RTP (Right To Play) has had a huge impact on athletes since 2000 in terms of bringing many of us back to the simplicity of sport and play -- and bridging the gap between this simplicity and what we are doing as athletes at the Olympic level.

“However, in saying this, in some ways this is a positive thing for RTP in that they will be able to focus many of their resources during the Olympics outside of the village and engage enormous amounts of people into the movement of sport for development.

“Will my commitment change to RTP because of this? Absolutely not. The programs, the leaders, and the children will continue to motivate and inspire me, and I in turn will continue to raise awareness and help connect people to this powerful movement that is changing the lives of so many children.”

Here is the IOC’s official position:

"The IOC is committed to using sport to help disadvantaged people, especially young people, and contribute to the development of healthy communities. As part of these efforts the IOC works with a wide range of partners including UN and government agencies, NGOs and sports bodies around the world.

"The IOC has extensive peace promotion, humanitarian assistance and environmental programmes and is also active in refugee camps. The IOC has decided to focus its resources on these programmes.

"As a result, the IOC has reviewed its relationships with a number of partners, including Right to Play, and decided not to renew the Memorandum of Understanding between the IOC and Right to Play which expired last year. Right to Play will remain a recognized organization within the Olympic Movement and thus enjoy the full respect of the IOC for its activities."

It's Official: Right To Play is barred from 2010 Vancouver Olympic village

It’s official now: Right To Play, the charity of choice for this country’s Olympians, will be barred from the athletes village at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.

For the first time since its inception in 1992, Right To Play, which began as Olympic Aid under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee, will not be able to spread the word about their programs to educate and uplift youth in some of the most desolate places in the world through sport.

The Star first reported the news that the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) had denied Right To Play access to the village because the humanitarian organization had sponsors that directly conflicted with their own.

These include Mitsubishi, which had recently given Right To Play a $480,000 donation. General Motors Canada has a $67 million deal with VANOC and their communications director, Stu Low, complained there was “guerilla marketing going on.”

A public backlash when the news about the ban broke prompted VANOC and GM Canada to say the issue was being revisited and both expressed confidence the issues could be resolved.

But Johann Olav Koss, the ceo of Right To Play, said he had received a letter from the International Olympic Committee saying that they would not be accepted into the village and that they were not renewing the memorandum of understanding the two groups shared. That means they will have no village access and won’t be officially part of of the Olympics in any way.

Koss said he never heard back from VANOC after they went public saying they would work to resolve the issues.

“We sent suggestions of how we could partner without infringing on their Olympic rights and, of course, their sponsors, which we are in full support of,” Koss said. “And we have never had any issues with our normal Olympic partners and have never of course given them any access to the village. I sent them suggestions for partnership. I never heard back from them, with the exception of this letter I received from the IOC.”

The letter from the IOC came at the end of December.

“I got it the day before Christmas Eve, so it was a nice Christmas present,” said Koss.

Kristina's Corner: A Little Ray of Sunshine

AP PHOTO

Kristina Groves tells us how to pick out a Norwegian in a crowd.

Kristina Groves is definitely one of Canada’s athletes to watch on the Road to 2010.

She won five medals last year at the world single distance championships and has been tough to beat again this season.

She also’s a skilled writer, as you’ll see here, and is kind enough to share her journal entries with us now and then.

Here’s one titled “A Little Ray of Sunshine” from last week. We'll run another neat one that features a Big Mac attack (well, cheeseburgers, anyway) in Moscow next week.

These entries should really give readers some insight, in a good humoured way, into the life of an Olympic athlete. Groves is involved with the humanitarian organization Right To Play and the environmental group Clean Air Champions.

A Little Ray of Sunshine ...

I think of things to write about all the time. They’re usually about skating, or training, or racing or travel, etcetera. Sometimes, when I think the idea is really good and the inspiration is strong enough, I actually do write about it. But then sometimes, even when I think the idea is good, the inspiration fades away and I end up letting it go. This is more often than not because I am lazy and just never end up getting around to it. But what also happens is that what I might initially think is a good idea occasionally turns out to be not so interesting or my opinion about it changes, or I just don’t feel that way anymore.

For instance, over Christmas I was going to write about how lousy it is that we always have National Team trials right after Christmas, and how we are robbed of spending Christmas with our families year after year, never getting to go home; never getting to do Christmas things. I was going to call it ‘The Sport Who Stole Christmas.’ I was going to whine about how I didn’t have the chance to bake any Christmas cookies or trim a tree or make snow angels and about how I felt so guilty for not doing more for the special people in my life.