Chickens (and award) come home to Roos

Canadian Olympic Committee officials in attendance at the Canadian Sport Awards in Ottawa this week must have coughed up a fur ball when Jane Roos was announced as winner of the leadership award.

To say that Roos has been a thorn in the COC’s backside is probably understating things. More like a dagger. One they tried unsuccessfully to extricate.

Yet the Canadian athletes adore Roos. She runs the Canadian Athletes Now Fund, or CAN Fund as it’s known. She’s put cash in the hands of hundreds of athletes to help with their Olympic preparations without anything expected from them in return.

Canadian rower Ben Rutledge sang her praises in a CBC interview (below) with the men’s gold-medal winning eight crew in Beijing after Ron MacLean mentioned her.

The COC called the CBC up after that interview and told that them MacLean shouldn’t be asking athletes any questions regarding Roos.  Don't know what the CBC response was, but one can imagine.  Only one guy tells Ron MacLean what to say -- and his loud suits wouldn't fit it in at the COC (Or would they?)

The COC tried to put Roos out of business. She’d run several successful fundraising campaigns using the “See You In” moniker such as See You In Sydney, See You In Salt Lake … But then the COC claimed that such a trademark belonged to them. A silly legal battle ensued, lasting 2-1/2 years before Roos prevailed and the COC had to pay her legal costs of around $60,000.

What does the COC have against Roos? Well, they've never quite gotten over an ad campaign she ran where athletes were portrayed as paupers -- they felt it belittled the job they were doing.

The COC says they’re just protecting the interests of their sponsors from ambush marketing. But there’s very little evidence this has actually happened. It’s comparable to the flimsy argument the Vancouver Organizing Committee has used to punt the athletes-backed charity Right To Play out of the village for the 2010 Winter Games.

Maybe, the COC is embarrassed Roos seems to do a better job promoting the athletes’ causes with far fewer resources.

The COC can get a bad rap because the things they do for the athletes often aren’t as obvious as the $6,000 in direct funding supplied by Roos, but then the COC is also its own worst enemy with ridiculous policies like the one in Beijing that kept many of this country’s past Olympic heroes out of Canada House.

Sure, Roos can be annoying. She’ll get in your face. If you owed money, believe me, you wouldn’t want Roos as your debt collector.

But her passion is genuine and many of the best athletes in this country consider her an ally. Hence, this week’s well deserved award.

Most don’t quite view the COC in the same way. That's probably what bugs them most of all. Get out of the way. Here comes another fur ball!

Blast from the Past: Nancy Greene and Mars bars

They just don't make athlete endorsement commercials like this anymore. Okay, it's cheesy but there's also an earthiness about it, supplied by Canadian Olympic skiing hero Nancy Greene. (Note what they used for safety nets back then)

It was a highly successful campaign, highlighted by the slogan: "A Mars bar a day, at work, rest and play."  Hmmm, on second thought, maybe we should be blaming the childhood obesity problem on Senator Greene.

Really, these ads did set the bar, so to speak, for athlete endorsement ads -- and it's been lowered ever since. Check out the inimitable Nancy Greene in one of a series of ads she made over the years for Mars bars.

Tales from the Stark Side: New Meaning to Bob-ble Head

Okay, so there was a Chris Bosh bobblehead doll giveaway last night at the Raptors game. But anyone who’s had a chance go down a bobsleigh run – and your correspondent got that chance after the 1986 world championships in Konigssee, Germany – knows what it’s like to be a real live bobblehead, or maybe that should be bobblesledhead.

Maybe it was because no one told me you’re supposed to bury your head back into your neck – bracing yourself sort of like a turtle – to prepare for the g-forces. Or maybe they told me and I didn’t hear them (a theory my wife and daughter would buy for sure).

Anyway, my head rattled off the inside of the sled all the way down the track (which might explain my great interest in the issue of concussions). The picture that came to mind was one of those bobblehead dolls in the back of somebody’s car window as they barrel down a bumpy country backroad. Luckily, they only started the sled from a third of the way down the Konigssee track.

We’d spent a lot of time that year covering the Canadian bobsleigh team – this was during the Chris Lori/Greg Haydenluck era for those who might remember (Okay, it’s a precious few). The coach at the time, a friendly enough guy named Werner Delle Karth who used to race for the Austrians, thought it would be good for us to get a first-hand perspective.

Bobsledders can be some of the most ornery, testosterone-filled athletes you’ll ever come across, but back then there was still a freshness, almost an innocence to the Canadian guys as they tried to climb their way up the ladder.

Best party we ever went to in four years spent covering Canadian Olympic athletes overseas in the mid ‘80s was a bobsleigh bash in Cervinia, Italy, kind of the Kitzbuehel of the sport. The course there is the most treacherous in bobsled. It almost killed Lori, who will be the expert commentator for CTV during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

So it’s a place the sledders are really ready to let loose after surviving on the track. This party featured skits from all the different teams – the British guys did this hilarious routine to music where they came out naked with their private bits were only covered by balloons that they kept moving to the beat of the tune. (Guess you had to be there, but the dudes were really in sync.)

The highlight was one of the Russian athletes, strumming on his guitar and singing Latvian folk songs. This was the Cold War era so there tended not to be a lot of fraternization with the East Bloc countries. Plus, the Latvian athletes at that time were still forced to compete for Russia so it was a special thing for this proud Latvian to be able to express himself in front of his peers. That expression was helped by the fact he was totally bombed.

The next day, the bobsledders had training for the four-man event and news came back that our Latvian friend threw up in his sled. Knowing the head rattling that can take place at those speeds, one can only imagine that hangover.

Wanna see what it feels like inside a sled? Check this out:

How it can all go wrong:

Couple more bobsled vids to check out (Click on title)

How it can all go terribly wrong

My kind of bobsleigh

Cool Runnings Revisited

New WADA “whereabouts” testing system – WADA joke!

PHOTO COURTESY OF SIMON WHITFIELD

Simon Whitfield walking with his daughter: "Hey, is there someone following us....?"

Canadian triathlon ace Simon Whitfield made a desperate plea on his blog nearly two months ago after trying to fill out the new forms that the World Anti-Doping Agency created for out-of competition testing, also known as the “whereabouts” rule.

“I Simon Whitfield volunteer to pay for and wear a GPS tracking unit so that CCES, WADA and any other acronym totting organization can track me down at any minute of the day and make me pee in a bottle while taking blood from my arm. Seriously I do. I'll start tomorrow if only to not have to fill out this insane form. I have nothing what so ever to hide. You can track my whereabouts via GPS to your hearts content.”

Whitfield wasn’t kidding. In hindsight, he was the canary in the coal mine on this "whereabouts" issue which is causing consternation to athletes around the world, from the likes of tennis stars Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams to ski star Lindsey Vonn and American hurdler Lolo Jones.

WADA is under fire – and rightly so – for an ill conceived system that now forces athletes to provide three months’ notice of their location an an hour each day for seven days a week between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. for testing.

Even beyond the unwieldiness of such a program and its restrictions on right to privacy, Canadian athletes like Whitfield and Olympic speed skating champion Clara Hughes have found the computer system set up to monitor the program ridiculously hard to navigate. It has cost them hours in time trying to register – with “trying” being the operative word, as they wind up having to give up in frustration.

Wrote Hughes on her blog: “It has become an absolute nightmare. It’s been revamped and I strongly believe the individual who created the new format should be fired. It’s virtually impossible to fill out accurately, and after over six hours of trying this past time I gave it the ‘as good as it’s gonna get’ seal and gave up.”

You know the crazy thing? Athletes like A-Rod, who make gazillions of dollars, don’t have to go through anything like this. (A-Rod would probably get his cousin to fill out his form). They can test positive, we don’t hear about if for years – if at all – and their livelihood isn’t affected at all.

Olympic athletes like Whitfield and Hughes have to fill out forms notifying pee collectors of their every move three months in advance using forms so complex that their livelihoods are put at risk if they get it wrong.

What a farce. WADA joke.

Jenn Heil Goes A Little Glam But Knows What Matters

PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNIFER HEIL

Olympic moguls champion Jenn Heil has unveiled a flashy new website on the road to Vancouver 2010.

It’s a site worthy of an athlete of her calibre, whose off the slope endeavours are even more impressive than her incredible achievements as a skier.

One prominent area on the site is titled “What Matters” and notes her involvement in such projects as B2ten, which she and boyfriend/coach Dominick Gauthier helped found to support other Canadian athletes shooting for the podium who haven’t previously enjoyed the same support she has.

As well, Heil works with the David Suzuki Foundation, Plan Canada, and the Edmonton charity Kids Kottage, which helps out families in times of distress and provides support to get them on a good path. As Heil notes, “While I am working hard at my training it is nothing compared to what Edmontonians do to make Kids Kottage an important and enduring place.”

If you want to see a bit of the glamour side as we approach the Olympics, check out this video of Heil getting ready for a photo shoot with one of her sponsors, the Montreal-based Marcelle Cosmetics. Nice to see a Canadian company backing one of our own. They say they're proud to sponsor her -- and it shows.

Everybody Loves Patrick

For all its beauty and grace, figure skating can be one nasty world (Exhibit A: Harding/Kerrigan; Exhibit B: The Salt Lake scandal … we could keep going here, but you get the idea).

That’s what makes the aura around Canada’s Patrick Chan so refreshing and remarkable.

Everybody loves this kid. From his peers to the judges to the journalists, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who’s got a bad word to say about Chan.

To get an idea of just how charming the Toronto native is, witness that he’s even won over my colleague Rosie DiManno, who has a reputation of … well … er … not exactly loving everybody.

One of the most appealing things about Chan (seen above with some fans in Vancouver after the Four Continents Championships) is his guilessness. He is a tough competitor, someone who wants to win every time out, yet there’s also this innocence about him.

Take his approach to competition, for instance.

“I think a lot of people tend to get really gloomy and they get really serious and not really friendly,” said Chan. “I don’t believe in that. I believe that you can still be focused but still be nice, I think. I think to have that kind of mindset really helps going into a competition.

“When we’re on the ice then, yeah, you can say we’re like enemies. But right away when we got off the ice, then we’re just like friends basically. That’s what I really like to think about is that we’re friends. When I leave, I always miss all the guys. I’m not like ‘Yes, I beat them and I won’t see them for another couple of weeks.’ It’s more like ‘Sure I beat them but they’ll be back next time and I’ll still have them as good friends.’”

Proof that nice guys don’t finish last. Let’s enjoy him while we can. An excellent student with designs on university, Chan gives the impression he’s not one of those skaters who’s going to stick around forever.

Taye Gibson: Watch Skeleton Team's Secret Weapon In Action

Okay maybe he's only two years old but Taye Gibson is an athlete to watch for the future.  Ditto for his older brother Geidion.  You read it here first.

The favourite part of a swing out west at the start of this pre-Olympic winter campaign was getting a chance to drop in on 2006 Olympic skeleton champion Duff Gibson, his wife Jen and their sons, Geidion (right) and Taye.

Duff and Jen adopted Geidion and Taye last spring, travelling to Ethiopia to bring the brothers home to Calgary. The boys are an absolute delight, real charmers with smiles that could melt the steeliest heart.

Been meaning to post this video of Taye making like Dad on the skeleton run for a while now.

Both Geidion and Taye are game to try anything, do want to try skeleton some day and are working on their skating at the moment. They’re sports minded, a good thing considering Duff tried something like 47 sports before the Scarborough native made his mark in skeleton.

“We think Taye is going to be a linebacker and Geddy will be an endurance athlete,” joked Jen.

These guys don’t mind a bit of roughhousing, though Duff got more than he bargained for while wrestling around with Geidion one day.

“While you were toughing me, I tooted,” Geidion told him with a big grin. Serves him right, eh.

Deidra Dionne: Facing Your Fears ... With A New Haircut

The neat thing about Olympic athletes as opposed to most of their pro bretheren is that they’re not afraid to express their true emotions. They generally don’t give you canned responses or shed Alex Rodriguez-like crocodile tears. Canadian Olympians are the real deal. A good example of that is the latest journal entry by Deidra Dionne, a 2002 Olympic freestyle aerials bronze medalist, which she’s allowed us to reprint here. Dionne came back from a broken neck to compete at the 2006 Winter Games. She has struggled this year, admitting that at every competition she has “felt like a shell of myself.” Read on.

Hi Everyone!

Russia this past week was quite the experience. Just like last year, our competition was on an aerial site made entirely of scafolding, built right in front of the University of Moscow. It is the most visually intimidating site on tour. A small peak over the edge at the top of the inrun can make even the most crazy adrenaline junkie a little nauseous! I was much more prepared for the height of the structure this year and felt nicely comfortable jumping in the dirty snow and windy conditions. The toughest part for me mentally became the makeshift elevator they added at the back of the scafolding that loaded 12 athletes into a box attached to a big cable and brought us to the top (about 30 meters up), all was good until the elevator would halt to a stop, bringing to mind the sketchy fair rides from the Red Deer Westerner when I was a kid. In the elevator I kept having mental flashes of the newspaper headline that would describe the death of twelve aerial athletes. Lucky for me, my fears were without warrant and the competition although extremely windy and snowy, went off without a hitch.

I’m struggling this year. I am very aware that every competition I have felt like a shell of myself. Once again this week I had really good training leading into my event, I jumped two days and had no problem landing nice jumps and getting up to my toughest trick. I felt confident with the site, the weather and my ability but once again somewhere during the competition day, my mind let me down. The women¹s semi-finals were plagued by bad weather and shortened training time which caused an extremely stressful and bitter training environment. Coaches were yelling at one another to try and get their girls enough training jumps before time expired. I had a hard time with some of the distraction and couldn¹t park my feelings.

I was the first competitor and although I tried to talk myself up, I felt myself shying away from the jump. I did a less than spectacular full-full and was once again disappointed with myself in competition.

Moscow was the last World Cup of the season and finally I was able to cry. I didn¹t stay and watch the competition, I went back to the hotel and let myself feel the pain of disappointment I¹ve been feeling all year. It felt good to finally cry, although it was less like crying and more like laying in a ball and sobbing. I think it¹s good to finally let some of it out.

I flew out of Moscow yesterday and decided to get away from my team and stop in Sweden to see my brother Curtis till Wednesday. I need some time by myself to try and figure out how to salvage my season in time for World Championships in two weeks. I know I can do it, I just need to figure out how to regain some of my swagger. Since change is needed, I decided why not start today with something small like my hair! I walked around Gothenburg, found a salon with an opening and a hairstylist who didn¹t speak any English and had her chop away. Gone are 6 inches of my old self and in its place is an athlete willing to do anything to get back on track.

Thanks so much everyone for so many kinds words this winter, I can't wait to write with good news after World's...

Deidra

Grandi Is Doubting Thomas Re Next Year, But Not About Renner

STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR

Thomas Grandi and Sara Renner show their true colours in this 2006 file photo.

Okay, maybe veteran alpine ski racer Thomas Grandi is a bit biased in this regard, but he’s predicting a medal for his wife, cross-country skier Sara Renner, at the World Nordic Ski Championships which get underway tomorrow in Liberec, the Czech Republic.

Grandi watched her last race on TV while at the alpine world championships and was impressed with her fifth-place showing in a World Cup in Italy on Valentine’s Day.

“This last race was a stacked field,” said Grandi. “The way I saw her race, she was really composed and relaxed and strong – she made it look easy and she was right in there. She’s starting to peak and she has always been a big event performer. I feel it’s her time again to stand on the podium.”

Unfortunately, Grandi can’t make the same statement for himself right now. His comeback this season after a retirement that lasted only a year has not been a great success. He has only two World Cup results, a 17th and a 25th in slaloms. He qualified for the second run in the slalom at the worlds, but went off course.

A two-time winner on the World Cup in giant slalom, the 36-year-old from Banff isn’t convinced yet he should continue towards the 2010 Winter Olympics. He and Renner have a young daughter and they’ve had to do a lot of juggling to make his comeback happen.

“We still have to evaluate where we’re at,” Grandi said after Sunday’s slalom, where teammate Michael Janyk won bronze at the worlds. “Today there was nothing on paper, but I skied solidly under tough conditions. I was heading to a top-10 finish.

“It was another sign I’m heading in the right direction, but it’s important to have more clear signs that I can do what I set out to do – which is to be competitive next February. It’s important for me to keep rising and improving.

“It’s not a given (he’ll keep going). I still have to prove to myself I’ve got a chance. I still believe I can get some results and I’m determined and motivated, but to continue making the sacrifices and to be away from my family, getting those results in the next month is critical.”

Grinchy Cypress Mountain Puts Out “Unwelcome” Mat

The cancellation of Sunday’s World Cup snowboarding parallel giant slalom because of poor conditions was a real shame, but the one good thing for many is it meant they didn’t have to drag their butts up Cypress Mountain again.

The pre-Olympic test events of the last two weeks at Cypress Mountain were a painful exercise. The officials who run the mountain made it clear over and over again – especially to the athletes and coaches – that they didn’t want them around because they were interfering with normal business operations.

The kicker was the “No Access for Athletes” signs posted on the main lodge during the freestyle events (Dogs maybe, but definitely no athletes). They even asked Olympic champion Jenn Heil to leave while she was trying to stretch inside the lodge one day.

We keep hearing over and over again about how important home field advantage can be for Canada one year from now during the Games. But when the Canadian moguls team came to Cypress last month for a training camp, coach Dominick Gauthier said they got indifference instead of support.

To get some more background on why Cypress officials are being so difficult, you can check out this article by Vancouver Province reporter Terry Bell, who is doing yeoman’s work on the 2010 beat.

Whatever the reason for the Grinchy actions of Cypress officials – “the most likely reason of all may have been that their hearts were two sizes too small” – it could end up backfiring on them. While having the World Cup on the mountain might have hurt their regular business, what about all the bad publicity they generated for themselves?

They’re going to appear in this week’s Sports Illustrated as part of an article on the snowboard events – and so, too, will scathing comments by Canadian snowboard coach Jesse Fulton.

“It’s a crappy venue and the people aren’t nice," said Fulton, of Orangeville, Ont. "It feels like we’re a burden to them.”

The good news is Cypress officials must yield control of the facility during the Olympics.