Of Aqua Velva men, amazing comebacks and the big picture

Something About An Aqua Velva Men: These guys look like they were pulled out of an old Aqua Velva ad, but it’s national rowing team members Will Crothers (left) and Rob Gibson doing that Movember thing as it’s about to mercifully come to a close. Thanks (I think) to their teammate Kevin Light for the retro photo.

Amazing Athlete: Canadian wheelchair racing legend Chantal Petitclerc is very familiar with Dutch athlete Monique van der Vorst, who has come back from paralysis to sign a contract last week to race bikes professionally for Rabobank.

“I know Monique and actually have raced with her in the Handbike!” said Petitclerc in an email from Las Vegas. “She is an amazing athlete, trains like crazy. and her recovery was just amazing. I dont know the detail, like, she was paraplegic but not ‘complete’ break of her spinal cord. so, amazing but not miraculous!!!! What the most amazing is the hard work she does and the training!!!”

There was news out of Athletics Canada on Monday about Petitclerc -- she’s joining UK Athletics as a coach under her former coach Peter Eriksson. It's a shame we didn't have a similar post for her here. Also signing with the Brits earlier in this Olympic cycle were coaches Derek Evely and Kevin Tyler, a significant brain drain for Canada.

Jan the Man: Big props to Canadian downhiller Jan Hudec for his fourth-place finish in the Super-G on Sunday at Lake Louise.

It almost seems as if Hudec’s knees are being held together by paper clips at this point, given the amount of surgeries he’s had.

But the guy’s a cagey and gutsy competitor, a true racer, and he’s able to accomplish results like that despite having to sit out some training runs in order to nurse those battered knees along.

It definitely looks like he’s got some left in the tank.

Sitting This One Out: Sometimes you have to look at the big picture.

World downhill champion Erik Guay is doing that this year in re-tooling his body for the long haul with trainer Scott Livingston in Montreal – they did things in the off-season that focused on fixing his back woes rather than winning races (though he was 6th Sunday).

Now comes news from the Canadian skeleton team that Olympic champion Jon Montgomery will sit out this season in order to focus on equipment and sled design. It’s a critical part of their sport and Montgomery is a sharp enough guy to know he’s going nowhere fast without having the best equipment.

His goal is to match Catriona Le May Doan’s feat of being a repeat Olympic champion and this is a smart move. People will remember how he fares at the 2014 Sochi Games, not the World Cups this season.

 

Coach fears unrealistic summer expectations post-Vancouver

Veteran coach Barrie Shepley worries about the upcoming 2012 London Olympics.

His are understandable fears.

Shepley is a longtime triathlon coach, the head coach for the team when the sport had its debut at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and Simon Whitfield had his magical win for Canada.

He’s fanatical about sport, all Olympic sport, does commentary at all the international triathlon races and will be an analyst for CTV at the 2012 London Games.

What worries Shepley is that people – particularly the media – won’t be prepared to put Canada’s performance in London into any kind of proper perspective after the gold rush at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

“I was like everyone else,” said Shepley. “I was loving skeleton and bobsled and snowboard and aerials. I was in the States at a training camp and I had my slingbox on 24-7 and was lovin’ it.

“The problem is we’re no longer at home. It’s now summertime, multiply by five or six the difficulty of trying to get a medal at the Summer Olympics. The world thinks of us as a winter country, not a summer country. So we’ve got to try to get some swagger in summer sport that hasn’t necessarily been our forte.”

Shepley elaborates, not a problem for a guy with a great gift of the gab.

“We don’t do it in any team sports,” he said. “We just don’t have the infrastructure to do it. It ain’t gonna happen. The Kenyans clean up every medal in middle and long distance running.

“If (Canada’s) Reid Coolsaet is within five minutes of the Olympic medalists in the marathon, I’m going to run naked down London. He’ll have done an incredible job to be five minutes behind. It’s not easy to do.”

Canada won an incredible 14 gold medals at the Vancouver Games. They’ve won three at each of the last four Summer Olympics. In Beijing, there was a great hue and cry at the start of the Games as Canada struggled to get a medal – but anyone who did their homework knew the best chances were coming in the second half.

Shepley said it’s going to be incumbent on the Olympic consortium broadcasting the Games and other media to do their homework.

“I’m just concerned that we could have our most competitive Olympics ever -– and the general media and the public at home will be thinking we’ve been an absolute failure,” said Shepley. “I’m not sure these TV dudes are going to fully understand that was just a world class performance but it was 14th.

“I’m just not sure how they’re going to manage that because it’s always easy to manage a birthday party (like the Vancouver Games) when everybody’s happy and winning. I’m just a bit nervous about the whole picture.”

 

John Carlos expansive on every topic but Tommie Smith

They were linked forever by their historic moment of protest on the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, but the bond between U.S. sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith has long since been broken.

The two went back to Mexico City with a documentary crew in recent years and were seen together accepting an award at the ESPYs three years ago, but their feud has been well documented.

Carlos was expansive during a nearly two-hour long interview with the Star this week to promote his autobiography The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed The World with Dave Zirin, except when it came to the topic of Smith.

“I have no comment,” said Carlos curtly. “None.”

Carlos was asked whether there was a significance to the fact he wore a black glove on his left fist while Smith wore his on the right.

“It was one pair of gloves. Both of us couldn’t use the right hand. It was Tommie’s gloves so he took the right and I took the left.”

Smith had actually brought the gloves in case he had to shake hands with despised IOC leader Avery Brundage.

Carlos said people were suspicious of him for wearing the glove on his left hand. They thought he was a Communist.

“I didn’t even know what a Communist was,” he said.

Carlos and Smith returned to the site of their powerful protest for the documentary Return to Mexico City three years ago. It was an incredible experience for him to be in that stadium again.

“It was a living organism,” said Carlos. “When I went inside, man, I could see the people in the stands, I could feel the energy of the people in the stands. Walking on the track, I could see the people doing the races.

“To walk around the track with Tommie and get to the precise spot where they started that race, the rain that happened that day came back at the precise moment. To walk out and get on the victory stand and let your mind just run, you could hear the instant cheers, then you can hear the silence and then you can hear the roar of boos.”

Carlos said he’d had a vision when he was seven or eight years old that foretold that day some 15 years later in Mexico City,. In it, he was standing on a box and people were applauding and suddenly it turned from sunshine to stormy weather.

“It shook me up because I didn’t know what I’d done to those people,” said Carlos. “My Dad asked me ‘Johnny, what’s the matter?’ I told him ‘Daddy, I was in a movie and then everybody got mad at me and started throwing things at me and call me names and spitting at me.’ It’s exactly what happened in Mexico.”

Carlos was sporting a brand new Aloutettes baseball cap while in town – a present someone gave him here to honour his brief stint in the CFL in the ‘70s when he was recruited by the legendary J.I. Albrecht. He loved the city and developed a passion for poutine, as he mentions in his book.

“It wasn’t safe for me in the United States based on my experience at the Olympics,” he said. “It was like a godsend when he called me.”

The book is definitely worth reading. It’s a compact 184 pages

. “We didn’t want to do overkill,” said Carlos. “We wanted to go to the meat. We wanted people to feel like when they opened that book, they walked into a time tunnel, that they’re living it right now.”

Mission accomplished.

 

Montgomery and Hollingsworth pack impressive 1-2 punch

No one’s a big fan of salespeople coming to your door, but it’s a different matter when they’re Jon Montgomery and Mellisa Hollingsworth.

Turns out they have something worth selling, too.

Dreams.

That’s really what they’ve got on offer in knocking on the doors of corporate Canada in Toronto this week looking for a new title sponsor for Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, after they lost longtime supporter VISA. They’ve got flashy billboards like the one above up in Toronto, but the athletes are definitely their most marketable commodity.

What Canadian wasn’t motivated when they saw Montgomery win his gold medal at the Whistler Olympics. He’d like you to envisage a sponsorship that sees him going to schools on behalf of your company.

“I’m a product of a guy coming to my school – Theoren Fleury – teaching us that big things can happen to small guys from small towns,” said Montgomery on a stop at the Star on Thursday. “That spoke volumes to me. I embodied that and took it forward in my education and every day life. That’s what Canadians can really benefit from by supporting athletes in Canada. It has a ripple effect that is incredibly profound.”

As Hollingsworth said: “It’s more than just the logo on our race suit or our sled. It ‘s really a partnership and about the journey going forward and being able to interact with us. That’s something we’ve kind of been getting a lot of feedback from some media, who think this is such a new initiative, a new way of doing things, the athletes coming to town instead of the marketing director.”

It also speaks to the desperation involved. It’s not an optimum time for the athletes to be doing this – they leave for competition in Europe in a week – but the association knows the athletes are their best ambassadors.

“Most of us have done something else prior to becoming bobsleigh and skeleton athletes,” said Montgomery. “The messages we can bring and deliver to corporate clients and companies are invaluable and something that speaks to every day folks, because in all honesty I’m an every day folk, Mel’s an every day folk.”

Montgomery and Hollingsworth could probably weather the storm without a new sponsors through the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics because of private sponsors, but would reach those Games on fumes and their results would likely be compromised. It’s vital they find sponsors to replace the $500,000 hole in their budget.

“The program’s longevity? It would be over after 2014,” said Montgomery. “There would be nobody coming up through the ranks that would be able to foot those kinds of bills, pay those kinds of dollars to be able to play this game.

“We’re looking to get more people on board so that we can compete with the likes of the Germans, who have massive, massive, multi-million dollar R & D budgets just for their equipment development.”

Montgomery and Hollingsworth really don’t want to contemplate not being successful in this venture.The program has won more than 200 World Cup medals over the past 10 years.

“I think Canadians see the value in an investment in athletes and in a great sport organization like Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton,” said Montgomery. “I have great confidence in us as a group and in what we’ve done and what we’ve proven and what we’re capable of doing. I believe it will all come together.

“I’d be a little more worried if we didn’t have as great a group of athletes as the ones we’ve got. If we were resting on our laurels and relying on people who aren’t capable of stringing a couple of sentences together in an eloquent fashion to deliver a key message, I’d be a lot more worried. But I’m not. We’ve got great athletes and we’ve got success behind us.”

 

Canadian Bobsleigh and Skeleton teams on thin ice

The image of exultant skeleton racer Jon Montgomery winning Olympic gold in Whistler is one seared in the minds of Canadians.

Less than two years later, the Canadian bobsleigh and skeleton team hasn’t been able to scare up a title sponsor.

As a result, Montgomery and World Cup champion Mellisa Hollingsworth will be in Toronto to bang on corporate doors on Thursday and Friday. As Wednesday’s press release states: “Olympic Skeleton Medallists Scream For National Attention In Toronto.”

It appears that desperate.

The thing is a splashy announcement will be made in Montreal announcing new funding for Own The Podium at the same time as a memorandum of understanding is signed with the Canadian Olympic Committee, but corporate funding remains a huge part of the equation. Without it, you can expect Canada to plummet in the rankings.

VISA was the association’s title sponsor since 1992 and is helping with a transition period, but the big fear is that the talent and depth built up over the last few years with the help of unprecedented corporate support will now fall by the wayside.

The Canadian bobsleigh/skeleton team was a huge success at the 2010 Vancouver Games, as Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse won gold and Helen Upperton and Shelly-Ann Brown took silver in the women’s two-man bobsleigh and Lyndon Rush drove Canada to bronze in the men’s four-man bobsleigh. Canada has won eight medals total in the events at the last two Winter Olympics.

Canada is competing against the likes of Germany, which has huge government and corporate support and build their own sleds. The Canadians have been experimenting with some skeleton sled building of their own, research that will go for naught without the proper backing.

Simon Says Launch: Simon Ibell, formerly athlete relations and communications manager at Right To Play, recently launched his new website www.ibellieve.com to raise awareness in his fight against the rare disease Hunter syndrome, or mucopolysaccharidosis II (MPS II).

Ibell counts many of Canada’s top athletes among his good friends including Steve Nash and cross country star Beckie Scott and was able to enlist them to wear “Be Fair to Rare” scarves to generate interest on Interantional Rare Disease Day.

Ibell is a charismatic guy with an incredible story (You can read the feature the Star’s Megan Ogilvie wrote about him here.) He certainly bears watching as he continues this important work. Word is he might even be speaking before the United Nations in the near future.

 

Cockburn bounces back in time for key world championships

The last time three-time Olympic trampoline medallist Karen Cockburn was seen in action … well, she went missing in action.

She became violently ill the night between the preliminaries and the finals last month at the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara.

“It was really weird, it just kind of came out of nowhere,” said Cockburn. “I was feeling great, the preliminary went really well and I was looking forward to the finals. I woke up at 2 a.m. feeling really sick and I was vomiting for the next 10 hours. … I don’t know if it was food or a virus. I felt awful for the week after that.”

The good news is she’s back at peak health in time for this week’s world championships in Birmingham, England, where she and teammate Rosie MacLennan are hoping to finish in the top eight to secure two berths for the 2012 London Olympics.

MacLennan, a University of Toronto student, stepped up to win the gold at the Pan Ams.

“The fact we have two really strong girls who can do it takes the pressure off of each other in terms of earning an Olympic spot for Canada,” said Cockburn. “We’re great friends and great teammates. We compete against each other, but we’re friends first. I’ve known her since she was eight years old and it helps that we’re not against each other.” They’re expecting huge crowds in Birmingham, where trampoline is a big draw.

Competing in front of a full stadium can take Cockburn out of her out of comfort zone at times.

“I hadn’t been in front of a crowd like that since Beijing, which is the main reason I went to Pan Ams,” she said. “I got that experience in the prelims because it was nervewracking with a full stadium. It’s such a different feeling. That’s the one positive I can take out of Pan Ams.”

(The photo of Cockburn competing in Beijing was taken by Reuters)

Schliep Speaks: Priscilla Lopes-Schliep is getting up to speed both off the track and on it. She was the keynote speaker Saturday at the 16th for the JMSM Sports Business Conference in Montreal, where she addressed more than 200 students on how to overcome life’s hurdles and chase your dreams.

 

A Movember -- or Row-vember -- veritable Murderers' Row

My 15-year-old daughter cracks me up on a regular basis. She had this observation the other morning on Movember:

"It's great they're raising money and everything. But couldn't they find a way that doesn't make people look so creepy."

I must admit after going out to see the Canadian rowers on Thursday at the RBC National Rowing Championships in Welland, Ont., that the kid has got a point.

Canada's rowers are great sports as evidenced by the fun had recently with that top 20 list of the world's hottest rowers. Check out the members of their Row-vember unit:

In the leadoff spot we've got Rob Gibson of Kingston looking like he's concentrating on growing that thing a bit thicker ...

Won't find a nicer guy than Olympic gold medallist Kevin Light -- his wife Zoe is counting down the days to Dec. 1. And she wants that tea cozy back ...

Not sure what Olympic gold medallist Malcolm Howard is looking so pleased about ...

Conlin McCabe. Turns out the team's man child can grow a stache ... He was No. 19 on the top 20 hottest male rowers list -- and he's dropping like a rock.

Derek O'Farrell ... don't know him well enough to make fun. Obviously a courageous guy, though. (And apologies for calling you Colin in the original posting)

Van Koeverden and Hughes join forces to help Malian youth

Adam van Koeverden does his thing by water. Clara Hughes prefers wheels and blades. By any measure, they are a potent combination.

Now, the Canadian Olympic greats are combining their talents and drive for a new initiative off the field of play but all about the Right To Play.

Van Koeverden and Hughes are working on launching the Malian Youth Initiative in Mali, which they see as the next step for Right To Play, whose programming in the most disadvantaged communities in the world includes conflict resolution and HIV-AIDS education and many other aspects mixed in with the fun and games.

The youth initiative would be aimed at teenagers and van Koeverden and Hughes are teaming up to help raise the $200,000 or so that will be needed for the project. They just came back from a trip to Mali with Right To Play.

“There's got to be a next step,” said van Koeverden. “We've got to make sure these kids go to school or get a job. There's like an 80 per cent illiteracy rate in Mali so it's a great place to start this youth initiative that basically provides opportunities for education and caters to specific communities and what their problems are.

“It's like what Right To Play has always done, but this is the next step, so just beyond the red ball games, the circle stuff. It's another kind of curriculum based mostly on literacy, but also on some skills that will help give these young people a chance in modern society economically and otherwise.”

Van Koeverden said he and Hughes got to see many sides of life in Mali on their trip.

“We visited some of the most impoverished communities, very small and very rurual villages where they're pretty much self sufficient,” said the Olympic kayaking champion “They're farmers, hunters, gatherers and they raise their own animals. We also sat down with the Malian Youth Parliament, a group of children from upper class families and they've got an initiative to deal with youth issues and childs rights issues on the minds of Malians so they're being discussed and raised with the Malian government. This group of young people was very eloquent, educated, multilingual, what they're doing is very remarkable for the country."

Van Koeverden came away impressed and noticed that in one way in particular they’re ahead of North American society.

“Stuff isn't what makes them happy. We're such a consumer society in the West. We base our happiness of what we have and what we're getting next. They don't there. It's a different source of joy. They really value education in Mali. There's a great saying that I kept hearing over and over there: Power through Knowledge. They know that learning and education and the youth have to be a priority.”

Van Koeverden said the Right To Play trips motivate and inspire him to contribute back to the world of sport in a very different way.

“It helps me recognize I take a lot for granted in my sport life and that I've received a LOT from being an athlete and I'm very fortunate to be a Canadians and tohave had access to world class coaching, world class facilities, and competitive opportunities my entire life,” he said.

“If anything, I wouldn't say a trip to Africa inspires me to train harder or to be a better athlete. But the purpose of the trip is to be a more effective ambassador for Right To Play, which allows me to be more whole, I suppose.”

To really get a feel for the trip, you want to check out van Koeverden’s blog here and Hughes’ blog here.

(Photograph of van Koeverden running the gauntlet in Mali taken by Jacquie Labatt)

 

Laraque's right: Put an end to two solitudes of drug testing

Georges Laraque is right: Drug testing in the NHL is a sham.

The league should be testing for blood. The random testing should really be random.

It's mind blowing when you consider the two solitudes of drug testing:

Olympic athletes, most of whom go into debt to compete at the highest level, have to let drug testers know their whereabouts 24-7 and pee and give blood on command, while Laraque alleges the millionaire NHLers get tipped off about when the drug testers are coming and have no worries at all if they want to use hgh, only detectable by blood testing and known as a performance enhancer of choice.

Why shouldn't the NHL be on a par with the Olympics when it comes to drug testing? Their players are the biggest role models in our country, yet on the drug testing front they're being held to a very low standard.

As Laraque says: “Do you want to show the sports world hockey is clean? Why can't you go to people's homes? Why not spend a bit of money? Why don't we take blood? Why don't we do it the right way?' The NHL should test for everything. If somebody has a problem, then we can help him and prevent more deaths.”

Among those applauding Laraque's stance is Canada's Olympic triathlon coach from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Barrie Shepley.

"Georges Laraque has a lot of courage for acknowledging that the league that he loved and played in for so many years is flawed and needs to beef up their drug testing program" said Shepley. "While I certainly don't think that the majority of the NHL are using drugs, I think its naïve to think that millionaire hockey players, who need strength and endurance to stay in the league, are not using performance enhancing drugs in some proportion.

"IF the NHL really wants to take a leadership role in their fight against drug use at all levels in their sport, they should agree to have all the players on the big club and their development leagues be available for year round, random drug testing (blood and urine). My elite Canadian Olympic athletes have to be available 365 days a year to be drug tested at any time and they accept that drug testing helps keep drugs out of our sport (triathlon) and make a fair competition for all.”

Ain't gonna happen. The union will never let it happen. Neither will the league. They don't seem to want to know the extent of any problem, despite the three tragic deaths of three enforcers this past summer.

The thing is they're under no pressure to do it. The fans don't really care what these guys might be jacked up on. They just want entertainment.

But big Georges makes sense. The NHL needs to do the right thing.

 

Boxing buffoons consider women in skirts for Olympic debut

Women’s boxing will finally hit prime time at the 2012 London Olympics – and it looks like they might have to do it wearing skirts.

I wish I were making this up, but I’m not. It’s totally ludicrous and yet another example of how these associations are run by a bunch of out-of-touch old and feeble men.

The International Amateur Boxing Association is saying it will discuss the possibility of women’s boxers wearing skirts instead of shorts at the Games when they hold a meeting in January to decide on uniform rules for women, according to an Associated Press report from Lausanne, Switzerland.

The report said that AIBA’s technical and rules commission will offer recommendations to the ruling executive body. AIBA said it was “seeking a consensus” from the boxing world and the “wider public.”

They won’t have to wait long for it.

Canadian boxers like Mary Spencer and Mandy Bujold – who just came back from the Pan Am Games with gold medals – are elite athletes. To even suggest that you would put them in skirts really shows an appalling lack of respect. This isn’t tennis.

“It’s kind of downgrading what we’re doing,” said Bujold. “Why make it different? They’re trying to make us closer to the men’s boxing and saying there’s no differences, but ever since we got into the Olympics they’re changing everything.”

Bujold said the boxers had to wear skirts provided by a sponsor in the finals at the world championships in Barbados earlier this year – including Spencer, who won her third world title.

“They didn’t force people to wear it, but they suggested that it would be a good idea. So pretty much everyone had to wear a skirt in the final.”

Bujold said the Mexican women’s team wore skirts at the Pan Ams, but that in general they’re seldom worn by women's boxers

“You know what, they’re actually not that bad as long as they’re designed well,” said the Kitchener fighter. “Some of them are really funny – they look more like cheerleading skirts – and I don’t think I’d ever want to wear that. You can get some where it’s shorts underneath and like a flap over top that makes it look like a skirt.

“But I think it’s ridiculous if they’re going to try to make it mandatory. I don’t understand that they’re gaining out of that. I know they want to be able to differentiate between women and men. That’s why they told us when we get in the ring we have to get in without our headgear on so that people will recognize us more. Now, I think they’re trying to add this other thing to wear a skirt so our uniform looks different.”

It wouldn’t be suprising if this is being driven by the television networks, who are bothered by the fact that once women are in the ring with their headgear they look just like the men.

This is just the latest example of this kind of nonsense. Those tight shorts you see the women wearing in volleyball weren’t their idea, but was orchestrated by their federation head to make the game more appealing to a male audience.

If they could add a wet t-shirt contest to the women’s sport roster at the Olympics, they would.