Clara Hughes, Cindy Klassen and Kristina Groves (CP)

Canadians sweep speed skating world cup podium.
(CBC.CA News)

Cindy Klassen, Clara Hughes and Kristina Groves delivered medal performances in the women's 3,000 metres at a long-track speed skating competition in Kearns, Utah, on Friday.

Klassen, who captured a bronze medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, finished first at the Utah Olympic Oval to open the second stop on the World Cup circuit.

"I'm having a great start to the season but to have the three of us on the podium makes it all so sweet, it's awesome," said Klassen, who also won the 3,000 at the season-opening World Cup last week in Calgary in world record time. "You're a bit higher in altitude here so you can feel it more in your lungs but otherwise it?s a similar track to Calgary, so I felt very comfortable."

Hughes, a Winnipeg native, corrected some errors she had made at last week's World Cup. "I had been having some technical difficulties this year and tonight I felt I just went out there and skated," said Hughes. "I always love skating here and I consistently do well here. "I just thought, as long as I relax and improve my technique I could have the race that I wanted. I'm really thrilled."

Groves's effort was another in a string of strong skates to start the season. "Consistency was the key for me tonight," said Groves. "I've gotten up to a certain level now and stayed there. "I started faster which made me a bit apprehensive so I'll probably approach that differently in the next race."

On the men's side, British Columbia's Denny Morrison shattered the Canadian record in the 1,500 m for the third time this year for a fourth place finish. Three other Canadians finished among the top-20, including Steven Elm (eighth), Jason Parker (12th) and Jay Morrison (17th).

Winnipeg's Shannon Rempel came in seventh in the women's 500 m. In the 1,000 m event, Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont., and Rempel finished eighth and ninth, respectively.

On Sunday, Cindy Klassen of Winnipeg reclaimed the world record in the women’s 1,500-metres while Jeremy Wotherspoon of Red Deer, Alta., took home two bronze medals.

In the women’s 1,500, Klassen continued her super season smashing the previous world mark set by Anni Friesinger of Germany two weeks ago in Calgary. It was Klassen’s 10th career World Cup win and third already this season. “It was a solid race,” said Klassen, who also holds the 3,000 world mark set last weekend in Calgary. “I was particularly happy with my top speed which was lacking last weekend. I held on to it pretty well and didn’t die too much at the end.”

Friesinger was second and Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont., notched her first career World Cup medal placing third. “I’m absolutely thrilled with the medal, it hasn’t sunk in yet that I’ve done this well,” said Nesbitt, 20, who bettered her personal best by just under three seconds. “I was actually feeling pretty tired before the race and I was just trying to get easy speed and feel relaxed. In the end, that really helped me.”

Kristina Groves of Ottawa was eighth. In the Group B 1,500, Clara Hughes of Winnipeg was second and Kerry Simpson of Melville, Sask., 17th.

In the men’s 1,000, Shani Davis of the U.S., broke the world record with Erben Wennemars of the Netherlands second and Wotherspoon, third.

Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., was 12th, Steven Elm of Red Deer 17th, Brock Miron of Calgary 20th and Vincent Labrie of Ste-Foy, Que., 26th.

In the men’s 500, world record holder Joji Kato of Japan took the gold with Kang-Seok Lee of South Korea second and Wotherspoon third for a second straight day. Mike Ireland of Winnipeg was fourth. Miron was 19th, Labrie 31st and Mark Nielsen of Calgary 36th.

“Jeremy’s in there with the top guys and that’s where you want to be at this time of year,” said Wotherspoon’s coach Sean Ireland of Calgary. “He was solid overall and within range of his best ever times. He’s breaking in new skates and new blades right now and as he gets more and more comfortable we’ll see his performances improve.”

In the women’s 500, Shannon Rempel of Winnipeg was fifth while Simpson was 27th, Kim Weger of Regina 28th and Krisy Myers of Lloydminster, Sask., 30th.

Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards (CP)

Silver slide for Hollingsworth-Richards at skeleton World Cup.
(CBC.CA News)

Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards collected her second World Cup skeleton medal in as many weeks with a second-place finish in Lake Placid, N.Y., on Friday.

Hollingsworth-Richards, who snagged her first World Cup victory at a World Cup event in Calgary last week, slid to the silver medal while defending world champion Maya Pederson of Switzerland captured the gold medal while Katie Uhlaender of the United States took bronze for the second week in a row.

Hollingsworth-Richards' silver medal was the fifth World Cup podium finish for the 25-year-old native of Eckville, Alta. The result also means she is now eligible to be named to the Canadian Olympic squad that will compete at the 2006 Torino Winter Games.

"That's huge," she said. "I wasn't even thinking about it today, but I was just confident that I was going to slide well and get on the podium again. I'm no longer here just to squeak by - I'm here to compete, and get on the podium each and every race."

Hollingsworth-Richards, who admitted she went through a soul-searching period after being disappointed with her 10th-place finish at last year's world championships, said she's made it her goal to be more aggressive. "I've been playing it safe for too long," she said. "Now I'm taking risks and going for it and it's definitely paying off."

She also attributes her highly successful start this season to a number of factors, including improved start times, new coaches and sponsors, and a new sled that was formerly used by teammate Lindsay Alcock of Calgary. "I've been working with Lindsay a lot on and off the track with the goal of going to Torino, and I credit a lot of my success to my teammates," said Hollingsworth-Richards, who last summer married Cochrane, Alta.-based saddle bronc rider Billy Richards.

In other Canadian results, Carla Pavan of Lethbridge, Alta., had her best-ever World Cup performance, finishing just out of the medals in fourth. She needed to finish in the top-eight in order to continue sliding with the Canadian team on the 2005-06 World Cup circuit. "This is a great boost," said Pavan, 30. "This was huge for my development and experience and I can't wait to get over to Europe to compete on some of the other tracks around the world."

Alcock, the defending World Cup titleholder, placed eighth, while Michelle Kelly of Fort St. John, B.C., struggled and finished 26th out of 29 sleds.

Friday's podium finish by Hollingsworth-Richards was the second in as many days for the Canadian skeleton team at the Lake Placid World Cup. On Thursday, Paul Boehm of Calgary slid to a second-place finish in the men's race.

The team will now travel to Turin, Italy, for a training camp on the Olympic track before heading to Igls, Austria, for the third World Cup event of the season, Dec. 5-11.

Alanna Kraus (CP)

Canadian women win relay gold at short track speed skating World Cup.

THE HAGUE, the Netherlands- Canada’s biggest medal producing team at the last Olympics is now set for this February’s Games as the World Cup season in short track speed skating concluded Sunday with a golden performance for the Canadian women’s relay.

Canada with Alanna Kraus of Abbotsford, B.C., Anouk Leblanc-Boucher of Montreal, Kalyna Roberge of Ste-Etienne-de-Lauzon, Que., and Amanda Overland of Kitchener, Ont., won the gold medal in the women’s 3,000-metre relay. The Canadians also place second in the final relay World Cup standings.

“The win gives us a lot of confidence,” said Overland, a member of last year’s world champion relay squad. “We’ve been having some consistent success over the past couple of seasons which puts us in the hunt for a medal at the Olympics.”

The men’s 5,000 relay final was cancelled due to poor ice conditions. “I’ve never seen that happen in my career but the paint was literally coming off the ice,” said Eric Bedard of Ste-Thecle, Que. “We’re disappointed not too race it since we haven’t won a relay this season and we are going in as the Games’ two-time defending champion. Our goal is to keep Canada at the top in the relay at the Olympics.”

Canada is now qualified for the Games in both men’s and women’s relays. Canada’s racers at the Olympics were decided in the 1,000 metres on Sunday. Overland and Vicent took the women’s spots. Both were eliminated in the semifinals for fifth and seventh respectively.

Bedard and Francois-Louis Tremblay of Boucherville, Que., took the men’s 1,000-metre spots. Bedard was eliminated in the semis for sixth and Tremblay in the quarterfinals for 19th. Bedard also places fourth in the 1,000 World Cup season standings.

Canada’s qualifiers in the other Olympic events this weekend were for the women: Overland and Leblanc- Boucher in the 1,500 and Leblanc-Boucher, Kraus and Roberge in the 500; and for the men Charles Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Que., and Mathieu Turcotte of Sherbrooke, Que., in the men’s 1,500 and Bedard and Tremblay in the 500. Veteran Jonathan Guilmette of Montreal is also on the Olympic team.

Pierre Lueders and team (CP)

CANADA'S PIERRE LUEDERS SLIDES TO NINTH PLACE IN WORLD CUP FOUR-MAN COMPETITION.
(CODA Release)

Lake Placid, NY-Canada's Pierre Lueders continued to struggle driving his Canada I men's four-man sled during the Lake Placid World Cup on Sunday.

After placing 4th in the two-man race on Saturday, the Edmonton native finished ninth during the second four-man World Cup of the season. Lueders and his crew of Ken Kotyk of Rama, Sask., Morgan Alexander of Saskatoon, and Lascelles Brown of Calgary, finished 1.32 seconds off the pace after completing the technically challenging Lake Placid track.

The Russian crew piloted by Alexander Zoubkov regained their comfortable position on top of the podium while Lange and the German contingent slid to a silver medal. The Italy I sled, piloted by Simone Bertazzo, rounded out the podium finishers in third.

The only other Canadian sled to hit the start line on Sunday was driven by Serge Despres of Cocagne, N.B. Despres' four-man crew consisting of Nathan Cunningham and Chris Le Bihan of Calgary, and Bret Bresciani of Saskatoon, settled for 19th spot.

The Canadian Bobsleigh Team will return home on Monday for a week before heading to Europe for the duration of the World Cup season.

Sara Renner (CP)

Life never better for Canadian cross country skiing athletes.
(Sara Renner for The Calgary Herald)

I don't want to bah-humbug the winter woes of other countries, but there has never been a better time to be a Canadian athlete.

It's been snowing constantly, and it feels like we're living inside a ping-pong ball here at Silver Star Mountain Resort, near Vernon, B.C.

Since we arrived on this British Columbian mountaintop, it's been coming down non-stop and everything is plastered in white. The snow sticks to everything -- the trees, buildings and cars. The snowplows are the only things working harder than we are.

While the rest of the world is scraping snow together in the bowels of northern Scandinavia for cross-country skiing's World Cup season opener this weekend, the Canadian team has elected to stay at home to prepare for the December World Cups in Sovereign Lakes, near Vernon, on Dec. 10 and 11, and at the new amped-up Canmore Nordic Centre from Dec. 15 to 18.

I'm not gloating. I just know we have it good.

To say this is a big season would be an understatement. For the first time in more than 10 years, the buff brigade of the nordic skiing world will be coming to Canada for five World Cup competitions.

This hits close to home for me, because I was raised in the embryonic town of Canmore, which hosted the nordic events at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

I was 12 years old at the time, and had barely recovered from failing to make the cut for dancing snowflakes in the opening ceremonies when I decided it would be nice to win an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing instead.

So the racing in Canada means much more to me than hometown advantage and great preparation for the upcoming Olympics in Torino.

I see the importance of exposing people to the sport -- because standing on the side of a ski trail, watching the world's best, is where I caught the skiing bug.

This is a chance for people who wake up in the middle of the night to check the live Eurosport feed on the Internet for split times to actually hear how hard we breathe coming into the stadium.

It is a chance for kids to watch the very best in action. It is like being a Flames fan and getting front-row tickets to an NHL playoff game after TV hockey coverage had been blacked out for a decade -- except for tape-delayed highlights of the final, which were interrupted due to the latest figure-skating controversy.

While things might be just dandy for Canadian athletes, it will be just as merry for anyone interested in an exciting spectacle of nordic action.

Our job over the next month will be to arrive at the start line and be ready to rumble.

If you think this might be your bag, then your job will be to find some noisemakers and cow bells, and harness your inner yee-haw.

For further info on World Cup action check out www.canmore2005.com and www.sovereignlake2005.ca.

Sara Renner's column appears every second week in the Calgary Herald. She is a member of the Canadian national cross-country ski team

Mike Ireland (CP)

Speed skating on thin ice; Mike Ireland's comeback has astounded everyone.
(The Toronto Star)

Mike Ireland feels the ground shift beneath his feet. He fights to maintain balance as the floor dips and then rises. He describes it as "like trying to walk in an elevator that's moving up and down."

"That's sort of the dizziness I get," said the Canadian speed skater, still suffering the after-effects of a serious bike crash more than a year ago. "It's not like a room spinning or anything like that."

But this is what the former world sprint champion endures as he chases his Olympic dream.

Ireland races this weekend in Salt Lake City in his first World Cup since a training accident in California in September, 2004. He's not sure what to expect but he knows one thing - he's likely to get dizzy when the gun goes off and he lifts abruptly out of the starting crouch.

The theory on concussions is that an athlete should not resume competition until completely free of symptoms - prominent neurosurgeon Dr. Karen Johnston told Ireland just that - but he got tired of waiting. "At this point, I don't really care," said Ireland of the conventional wisdom on head injuries. "I'm going to do it, anyway."

Ireland began training again in late August, knowing that he could afford no further delay if he wants to compete for Canada in the 2006 Turin Olympics.

At first, it was humbling. One of the world's top sprinters, someone who could more than hold his own with star teammate Jeremy Wotherspoon, Ireland found himself being left behind by his entire training group. "That was kind of hard to swallow," he said.

But his overall progress has been remarkable, surprising his coaches, his teammates and Ireland himself. He is already about two months ahead of schedule. He passed his first big test two weeks ago at the Canadian trials, posting a 500-metre time just six-tenths of a second off his personal best to qualify for the World Cup.

As he settled in for the start of that race, a hush came over the Olympic Oval.
"It was as if the entire Oval was holding their breath when the gun went off," recalled teammate Clara Hughes. "To see him explode off the line and lean so far into the corners was both awesome and terrifying.I think everyone was just hoping he could stay on his feet - he skates like that, it's a fine line because he gets so low and his speed is verging on out of control."

For his part, Ireland can barely recall the accident 14 months ago that has caused him so much trouble. It happened towards the end of a three-hour ride in California when he moved to the side on a descent so two teammates could pass him.

"They told me I lost control on some gravel, hit the curb," said Ireland. "I don't know if I hit my head on a tree. They said I went over the handlebars and down about 8 or 10 feet and a barb wire fence caught my fall. I was lucky, I guess, to be alive."

His last recollection is crawling back into bed at the team hotel and asking his brother, Sean Ireland, who coaches the sprint team, what had happened. "It was kind of like the worst hangover I've ever had that lasted about three weeks," he said.

Ireland first tried exercising seven weeks after his crash, but after two or three training sessions found he couldn't stand up without experiencing a "massive head rush." "I couldn't bend over to put a dish in the dishwasher," said Ireland. "I had a few setbacks like that."

It's a constant balancing act for Ireland as he tries to push himself past a threshold, only to suffer a relapse, and then push forward again. He said he's found different ways to adapt, always making sure to do a lengthy warmup before anything strenuous.

Because endurance is what he's chiefly lacking and long, intensive workouts give him headaches, Ireland decided to concentrate on the sport's pure sprint, the 500 metres, which tended to be his forte. His strength has returned as he's been able to lift about 95 per cent in the weight room of what he could manage prior to his accident.

"But that last 5 per cent is a make it or break it kind of thing," said Ireland, adding he can't afford to entirely ignore the endurance work. "Even for the 500, which is a sprint event, coming down the last 100 if you don't have it in the tank, someone's going to pass you."

Canadian Luge Doubles Team (CP)

Moffat brothers 6th in World Cup luge event.
(CBC.CA News)

After taking three years off, Calgary brothers Chris and Mike Moffat showed no signs of rust after posting a sixth-place doubles finish in World Cup luge competition on Saturday.

The Moffat brothers posted a combined time of one minute 34.28 seconds on the track in Cesana Pariol, Italy, which is the site of the luge competition at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics. "We've been gone for a while, but we knew we had it in us to come back and compete at this level," said 26-year-old Chris, who, with then doubles partner Eric Pothier, posted Canada's best ever Olympic luge result with a fifth-place finish at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. "We just made our first little step towards qualifying for the Olympics. With another top-nine result, we're in."

For 23-year-old Mike Moffat, the strong finish was vindication after the brothers fell short of qualifying for the doubles race at the first World Cup event of the 2005-06 season, held two weeks ago in Sigulda, Latvia. "We were sliding good runs all along in training before that race, but we were just not prepared for the ice conditions in Sigulda," said Mike, who posted a 12th-place finish at the 2002 Winter Olympics with then doubles partner Grant Albrecht.

"It was disappointing to not compete there, but today's result was a big step and shows everything is coming together. "When we first arrived at the track here in Italy 10 days ago, they barely had ice on it. But today it was bang-on and gave us a good taste of what to expect at the Olympics."

In other Canadian doubles results, the Moffats' former sliding partners, Albrecht and Pothier, teamed up for a 12th-place finish.

In women's singles, Canada's Regan Lauscher finished 11th overall, bettering her 15th place result from the Sigulda World Cup. "Going into this competition, it was tough to gauge exactly where everybody stood because it was the first race here ever," said Lauscher, who entered the history books last season as Canada's first-ever silver medallist at a World Cup luge event.

"I carried my speed throughout the bottom half of the track well, but a few small mistakes up at the top put me back a bit. With the girls that were ahead of me, I know I can go just as fast or maybe faster than them. With a few adjustments, I'm definitely hopeful to continue improving."

Meaghan Simister of Regina was 17th in 1:36.20, while Madison Dupuis of Calgary didn't complete the race.