Jenn Heil (CP)

Jenn Heil wins solid gold in Olympic Moguls.
(TORONTO STAR)

TURIN, ITALY—Starburst fireworks exploded over the sky, a Maple Leaf flag was hoisted up the pole, strains of “O Canada” bounced around the baroque facades of palaces and Jennifer Heil cracked up with the giggles.

There’s only so much high operatic melodrama a girl from Edmonton can take, even on the medals stage of an ancient ducal piazza, with a gold doughnut hanging around her neck and thousands of well-wishing strangers cheering lustily because this is their Olympics and they’re kind of sweet on Canadians anyway. “That’s so Jen,” said Heather Heil of her champion daughter’s effervescent display. “She did her crying yesterday.”

Tears of joy and relief, they’d been, for living up to expectations — those the 22-year-old put on herself and those imposed by a medal-yearning nation. Heil had brought her country its first medal of these XX Winter Games on Saturday night, up on the hills of Sauze d’Oulx, and a gold no less, putting on airs in the moguls with 360-degree rotational tricks, back flips, whipping speed and piston-pumping knees.
Then she took a call from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “He told me how proud I’d made the nation,” she said last night after the formal medal presentation ceremony at gorgeously celebratory Piazza Castello.

After that chat, Heil went back to the athletes’ village but couldn’t come down from the high of her Alpine triumph. “I did not sleep at all last night,” said Heil. “I crossed that finish line a hundred times in my mind. Then, all day, I just couldn’t wait to get here for this. On the stage, I was shaking like a leaf.”

These are moments she will undoubtedly replay mentally, and emotionally, for years, all that hard work and intense training paying off with her elevation to gold Olympian status, which really does feel intensely different from a world championship and winning six of seven World Cup races this season and a world No.1 ranking.

She’s rather good at this. There were poignant thoughts as well in the previous 24 hours, for her grandmother Dorothy McSporran, who passed away Jan. 19, just shy of her 89th birthday. “I wasn’t able to be in Edmonton with her when it happened. But she was with me tonight,” said Heil. With her as well, in spirit and in email, were scores of Canadians who banged off their congratulations, so many messages zooming across the Internet ether that Heil’s server gave up the ghost. “I was able to download about 70 messages from home (yesterday) morning. A lot of people said they were crying back home.

“I started crying when I saw my name up on the scoreboard” after Saturday’s race, added Heil. “When I actually looked and saw it, my emotions just ran wild.”

And, just to stay with the salty droplets theme, there was, further, that tender moment between Heil and long-time rival but slope-friend Kari Traa, the defending Olympic champion from Norway. After the competition, Traa announced that this was her last season; she’s retiring from the sport after copping silver to complete her set of Winter Olympic medals.“When I saw her, I started crying,” said Heil, describing the gentle awkwardness she felt at eclipsing a genuine star who brought world-class legitimacy to freestyle skiing as an Olympic discipline. Traa is the only woman to have won three freestyle skiing medals at the Games.

Looking on proudly last night were Heil’s parents and older sister Amie, the latter hoarse from screaming. “It was pretty emotional, the flag going up, the anthem in the background,” said dad Randy, who introduced his daughter to the slopes when she was 2.

Mom shared a few memories of her own, remembering how a young Jennifer had vowed years ago that she would become an Olympian. They’d just pulled into a gasoline station and Jennifer had bought a copy of Sports Illustrated, the post-Olympics edition featuring stars from the Games. “I clearly remember her pointing and saying, ‘Some day that’s going to be me.’

Cindy Klassen (CP)

Klassen skates to bronze in 3,000.
CBC Sports

Favoured to win Sunday’s 3,000 metres, Canadian speed skater Cindy Klassen tired down the stretch and settled for the bronze medal in her first of five events at the Torino Olympic Winter Games.

Klassen, the world-record holder in the distance, started swiftly but faded badly over the final two laps. The Winnipeg native finished in a time of four minutes, 4.37 seconds - well off her world mark of 3:55.75 set at Calgary last Nov. 13. “The ice was tough,” Klassen told CBC Sports at the Oval Lingotto. “I started off at a pace that I thought I could hold. But I died at the end.”

Klassen skated smoothly to that point, looking loose and relaxed, but tightened up and nearly stumbled as she moved inside on the final turn. “I think I started out a little fast,” Klassen reiterated. “Third is good enough.”

Dutch teenager Ireen Wust won the gold medal in a stunning upset, covering 7 ½ laps in 4:02.43 seconds to edge out teammate Renate Groenewold, who repeated as Olympic silver medallist. “I cannot believe it,” Wust said. “I don’t know what to say.” “You always see someone coming up big like the two Dutch girls did today,” said Neal Marshall, Klassen’s coach. “We haven’t really seen them all year on the podium or even sometimes in the top five. They just put down a really incredible race today.”

Klassen has enjoyed spectacular success this season in the middle distances, setting new world records in the 3,000 and 1,500 on consecutive weeks and finishing second behind German rival Anni Friesinger in the 3,000 in World Cup competition at Turin. She also plans to compete in the 1,000, the 1,500, the 5,000 and the team pursuit. “It’s great to win a bronze medal,” Klassen said. “But I just want to focus on the next races coming up.”

Friesinger, who, with Klassen, was considered the class of the 3,000 field heading into the Olympics, was fourth (4:04.59). Defending Olympic champion Claudia Pechstein of Germany placed a distant fifth (4:05.54), despite setting a Games record four years ago. Ottawa’s Kristina Groves placed eighth in 4:09.03 followed by Clara Hughes of Winnipeg in ninth (4:09.17).

Forsyth crashes, out of Olympics.
CBC Sports

Canadian skier Allison Forsyth suffered a torn knee ligament in a crash during Monday's Olympic downhill training runs at San Sicario, Italy. Forsyth, from Nanaimo, B.C., lost control of her left ski and grabbed her left knee as she skidded across the course into the protective fencing.

Canadian officials told CBC Sports that she tore an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a potentially career-threatening injury that takes upward of eight months to fully recover from. Forsyth, 27, was taken down the hill on a toboggan and airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Turin, where an MRI confirmed the injury. She is expected to return to Canada for surgery. "It's the Olympics," Canadian skier Emily Brydon said. "People are trying to take more chances."

Defending champion Carole Montillet-Carles of France and American contender Lindsey Kildow sustained injuries in crashes too. A fourth skier, Austrian Elisabeth Goergl, also wiped out but was unhurt. "There's just a lot of rolls, anything can happen," American skier Julia Mancuso said of the Fraiteve course, which officials re-designed because skiers complained it wasn't challenging enough. "You can come off a jump, catch an edge and be a little unlucky."

Forsyth, a veteran of the Canadian alpine team, is a slalom specialist, but chose to compete in the Olympic downhill as well. She won a bronze medal in the giant slalom at the 2003 world championships.

Montillet-Carles, 32, crashed following a jump. She smashed into the fencing, landed on her back and slammed head-first into the snow. Details of her condition were not immediately available, but she appeared conscious when transported to the clinic located at the athletes' village in Sestriere.

Kildow, 21, was the eighth skier to follow Montillet-Carles and lost control as she turned around a gate on a flat stretch. When Kildow's left ski slid out, her right knee buckled and she went airborne for 15 feet before landing hard on her back and slamming her head.

Writhing in pain as medical personnel rushed to her aid, she later was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Turin, where U.S. Alpine physician revealed she suffered a severely bruised left hip. "She has no other significant injuries and has not ruled out competing in these Games," he said. I've known her for 10 years, and she's a very tough young lady."

Martina Schild of Switzerland was fastest on Monday, clocking one minute, 55.52 seconds, followed by Austrian veterans Renate Goetschl (1:56.28) and Alexandra Meissnitzer (1:56.42). The women's Olympic downhill goes Wednesday.

Jeremy Wotherspoon (CP)

Wotherspoon 9th in men's 500 m.
CBC Sports

Canadian speed skater Jeremy Wotherspoon didn't slip so much as he slipped up, finishing a distant ninth in the 500 metres at the Torino Olympic Winter Games.

Wotherspoon, from Red Deer, Alta., clocked a combined time of 71.05 seconds in Monday's two sprints on Turin's Oval Lingotto. Wotherspoon had hoped to redeem himself for wiping out five strides into his first sprint at the Salt Lake City Olympics four years ago, but was clearly outskated by Joey Cheek of the United States.

Cheek was the lone skater to break 35 seconds - which he did in both races - and won the gold medal with a cumulative time of 69.76.

Wotherspoon vowed to put the Salt Lake City slip behind him, and improve on the silver medal he won at the 1998 Nagano Games, but looked tense in Monday's opening sprint before losing handily to current World Cup leader Dmitry Dorofeyev in the second. Wotherspoon stood fifth following the first session, in which Cheek turned in the swiftest sprint of the competition (34.82).

Dorofeyev (70.41) rallied with a strong second skate to win the silver medal and Lee Kang-Seok (35.34) captured South Korea's first bronze. Winnipeg's Mike Ireland was paired with world-record holder Joji Kato of Japan in both sessions and counted a combined 70.99, good for seventh overall.

Kato, who captured gold and bronze medals in World Cup competition at Turin last December, sizzled in the second skate, going 35.19 to finish sixth. Defending champion Casey FitzRandolph of the U.S, who set an Olympic record of 34.42 at Salt Lake City, stumbled in his first foray to fall out of contention.

The two remaining Canadian competitors, Vincent Labrie, from Sainte-Foy, Que. (72.43), and Brock Miron, from Brockville, Ont. (72.54), ranked 29th and 30th out of 37 skaters, respectively.

with files from CP Online

Beckie Scott (CP)

Scott unable to defend her gold.
Canadian Press (THE GLOBE AND MAIL)

Pragelato, Italy — For several long minutes Beckie Scott stood wrapped in husband Justin Wadsworth’s arms, her face buried in his chest. The couple didn’t exchange words. They didn’t have to. The tear stains on Wadsworth’s jacket said everything.
Scott started strong and led for part of the 15-kilometre pursuit race Sunday at the Winter Olympic Games, but faded near the end to finish sixth.

”I did come into this race as a favourite and had big expectations for a medal,” said Scott, her voice choking with emotion. “It was a tough day. I did what I could do. I gave everything of myself out there today, but it wasn’t good enough.”

Estonia’s Kristina Smigun made a strong push through the stadium at the end to overtake Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic to win the gold medal. Smigun won in 42 minutes 48.7 seconds — 1.9 seconds ahead of Neumannova. The two broke away from the pack in the final kilometres on the first day of Olympic cross-country competition. Russia’s Evgenia Medvedeva-Abruzova was third in 43:03.8.

Scott, a gold medalist at the Salt Lake City Olympics, was timed in 43:20.6. ”There was points in the race I thought I had it,” said the 31-year-old from Vermilion, Alta. “You never know how other people come into these races and what shape they are in. ”We had to do this really big uphill three times. I just didn’t have the legs for it.”

Sarah Renner of Canmore, Alta., was 16th in 44:30.9, Milaine Theriault of St. Quentin, Que., 54th in 48:38.9 and Chandra Crawford of Canmore 60th in 50:35.4.

Wadsworth, who doubles as Scott’s personal coach, also battled back tears after the race. ”I think even if she got second today it would have been hard,” said Wadsworth, a three-time Olympian with the U.S. cross-country team. “She still has three more events to come but that one, really, we thought that was a medal. ”It wasn’t a guarantee because nothing is guaranteed. I know she’s going to have a hard time with it. But she’s strong. She’ll bounce back.”

Scott contemplated retirement after the 2002 Games and even took five months off. She returned with the goal of a medal at the Turin Olympics. She came to Turin confident after winning three World Cup races this year — including a 15-kilometre pursuit in Germany prior to the Games — and with five podium finishes. ”The preparation for these Games, I felt like I did the best I can do,” said Scott.

She doubts she will ski at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. ”This is almost certainly the last Olympics,” Scott said. Wadsworth said Scott might turn her disappointment into a medal yet. ”I think she expected more today and I think she still has something more in her,” he said. “Maybe she learned something today.” A loud, noisy, flag-waving crowd filled the grandstands on a beautiful sunny day for the race.

Brad Gushue and Shannon Kleibrink (CP)

Kleibrink falls to Norberg
CBC Sports

Anette Norberg of Sweden defeated Canada's Shannon Kleibrink 7-5 Monday afternoon in the first draw of the women's curling tournament at the Torino Olympics.

Norberg, the reigning world champion, broke a 4-4 tie in the eighth end by drawing for two with the hammer. Kleibrink got one back in the ninth, nailing a hit-and-stick with the final rock to cut Norberg's lead to 6-5. But Kleibrink surrendered the hammer and couldn't set up a steal in the tenth.

With her final shot of the match, Kleibrink came up short on an attempt to freeze her stone against Norberg's near the bottom of the house. That gave Norberg another point and made the Swede's last rock unnecessary.

Kleibrink and third Amy Nixon curled 72 and 76 per cent, respectively, for the match. Norberg and Swedish third Eva Lund curled 90 and 89 per cent. Lund played the shot of the game in fifth end, squeezing her rock between two Canadian guards to take out Canada's shot stone on the four-foot and score two for Sweden.

In other first-draw action Monday afternoon, Norway's Dordi Nordby defeated Cassie Johnson of the United States 11-6, while defending Olympic champion Rhona Martin of Great Britain edged Denmark's Dorthe Holm 3-2. Mirjam Ott of Switzerland trounced Diana Gaspari of Italy 11-4 in eight ends.

Women's play resumes with two draws on Tuesday. Canada will take on the U.S. in the morning and Russia in the evening. The second draw of the men's tournament goes Monday evening, with Canada's Brad Gushue playing his first game of the tournament, taking on Germany's Andy Kapp.

Arne Dankers (CP)

Hedrick wins 5,000m, Arne Dankers of Canada 5th.
(CBC Sports)

American speed skater Chad Hedrick boldly predicted victory at Turin’s Oval Lingotto and backed up his boast by winning gold in the men’s 5,000 metres.

Hedrick, the current World Cup leader, covered the gruelling 12 ½ laps in 6:14.68, two-tenths shy of the Olympic record set by Jochem Uytdehaage at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. ”I raced close to a perfect race,” Hedrick said. “First race at the first Olympics, it doesn’t get much better than that.”

Hedrick is bidding to match the five Olympic gold medals won by Eric Heiden in 1980. ”I’ve got one under my belt,” he said, dedicating Saturday’s win to his late grandmother Geraldine Hedrick, who died of brain cancer 13 years ago to the day. ”Someone was looking down on me today, so we made it really special. I’m really proud.”

Paired with Bob de Jong from the Netherlands, Hedrick churned out front by the 1,000-metre mark and consistently clocked laps of less than 30 seconds. ”After three or four laps, I knew it was my race,” he said. “I was consistent. ”All the pieces of the puzzle fell in place and the fact that the ice was slow today worked in my favour. I kept my tempo and never slowed down.”

World-record holder Sven Kramer of the Netherlands took the silver medal. Enrico Fabris, a 1,500m specialist from Italy, electrified the crowd with a strong finishing burst to win the bronze medal. ”This is the Olympic Games and this is Italy,” he said. “I took all my strength in my body and I did it.”

Calgary’s Arne Dankers impressed in the penultimate pairing, placing fifth overall (6:21.26). ”Definitely the hardest race of my life and the best performance that I’ve ever had,” he said. Steven Elm, from Red Deer, Alta., clocked 6:41.53 in the fourth pairing to rank 22nd out of 28 skaters. The third pairing featured Justin Warsylewicz of Regina (6:43.74) and Italy’s Stefano Donagrandi, who won by more than 10 seconds. Warsylewicz wound up 24th.

Caroline Oullette (CP)

Canada clobbers Italy 16-0 in women’s hockey.
CBC Sports

Caroline Ouellette and Hayley Wickenheiser posted hat tricks to lead Canada to a tournament-opening 16-0 rout of the host Italians in women’s hockey at the Torino Olympics on Saturday.

Ouellette made history with three goals in the first seven minutes of play as the defending champion Canadians counted five goals in the first period, four more in the second and seven over the final 20 minutes. Before Saturday, no Canadian player had scored more than one goal in a period at the Olympics.

It was the biggest rout in Olympic women’s hockey history, besting Canada’s 13-0 dismantling of host Japan in 1998, when women’s hockey made its debut at the Games. ”We expected Italy to be weak but we’re not going to apologize for winning,” Wickenheiser said. Ouellette and Wickenheiser also joined Goyette as the only Canadian players to net hat tricks in the Olympics.

Ten of Canada’s 18 position players found the net on Saturday, including Gillian Apps and Cheryl Pounder with a pair each. Singles went to Danielle Goyette, Jayna Hefford, Jennifer Botterill, Carla McLeod, Sarah Vaillancourt and Katie Weatherston.
Cherie Piper led the assist parade with six, followed by Apps and Botterill with three apiece. Cassie Campbell and Wickenheiser set up two goals each.

Canadian goaltender Kim St. Pierre barely broke a sweat as her teammates outshot Italy 19-0 in the third period and 66-5 overall before a crowd of 8,399. The loyal Italian fans chanted “I-tal-ia! I-tal-ia!” early in the game and waved the flag in the final minute as they sang the national anthem.

Canada, which is expected to face the United States in the gold-medal game, will face a tougher Russian outfit on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. EST.

Manuel Osborne-Paradis (AP)

Men's Downhill brings many surprises, Canada's Osborne-Paradis 16th.
(Alpine Canada)

France’s Antoine Deneriaz came out of nowhere to stun the field and win the gold medal in the men’s downhill Sunday at the Torino Olympics. Reigning World Cup downhill titlist Michael Walchhofer of Austria settled for the silver, Bruno Kernen of Switzerland took the bronze. “I was so sure I could do it that I had already ordered the champagne yesterday,” Deneriaz told reporters. “I was really convinced I could do it today.” American Daron Rahlves, considered the pre-race favourite by many, was a disappointing 10th.

Manuel Osborne-Paradis of Invermere, B.C., who was second in the final qualifying run, finished 13th. Francois Bourque of New Richmond, Que., was 16th while John Kucera of Calgary was 27th. Erik Guay of Mont-Tremblant, Que., Canada’s top downhiller, pulled out of the race earlier in the week due to a leg injury. It is not yet known whether Guay will compete in the Feb. 18 super-G, where he is also Canada’s best medal prospect.

The 30th skier to start the race, the 29-year-old Deneriaz pulled off a stunning upset with a magnificent run down the bottom of the hill to take the gold medal that Walchhofer seemed poised to capture. The 10th skier out of the gate, Walchhofer’s time looked like it would stand up for gold until the unheralded Deneriaz pulled off his brilliant run.

“This means that the Olympic law holds true: the law that the guy who wins the Olympics is always someone unexpected,” said defending Olympic champion Fritz Strobl of Austria, who finished eighth skiing with a broken left hand. It was Deneriaz’s first victory in more than two years and the first major title of his career. Deneriaz’s best result in a World Cup race this season was a sixth-place finish in a super-G event. He has won three World Cup races but had never done better than eighth in a world championships or Olympic Games.

Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt, who was shooting for a record eighth Olympic medal, finished in fourth place. Reigning World Cup overall champion Bode Miller of the United States was fifth.“It would have taken a hurricane wind to get me into first,” Miller said. “The way Deneriaz skied today, he was pretty much untouchable.”

Zina Kocker and Martine Albert (behind) (CP)

Russian takes gold in women’s biathlon.
CBC Sports

Svetlana Ishmouratova of Russia won the gold medal in the women’s 15-kilometre individual biathlon Monday morning at the Torino Games. Fellow Russian Olga Pyleva claimed the silver and Martina Glagow of Germany took the bronze.

Ishmouratova capitalized on mistakes by the pre-Olympic favorites to race to victory Monday on the San Sicario course in Cesana, Italy.

Germany’s Andrea Henkel, the reigning Olympic champion, missed two targets on her final shoot to rule her out. World Cup leader Kati Wilhelm and Uschi Disl, both from Germany, missed shots to end their medal hopes. Ishmouratova is a four-time gold medallist as part of the Russian world champion relay team. She also won a bronze medal as a member of Russia’s 2002 Olympic relay team.

Zina Kocher from Red Deer, Alta., was the top Canadian, finishing 28th. Calgary’s Sandra Keith was 43rd, Martine Albert of Rimouski, Que., was 66th, and Marie-Pierre Parent of Shannon, Que., was 78th.

Charles Hamelin (CP)

No dice for Canada’s men on short track.
(TORONTO STAR)

TURIN, Italy - Close, but not quite. Charles Hamelin of Montreal hoped to give Canada its second medal of the day and third of the Turin Winter Olympics with a podium finish today in the 1,500-metre short track speedskating race. He gave it a go, but made a wide turn late in the race and finished fourth.

That leaves the only medal of the day for Canada in the hands of long track speedskater Cindy Klassen, who won bronze in the 3,000-metre event.

The other medal for Canada thus far is the gold won by Jennifer Heil in women’s moguls on Saturday. Heil received her medal in a downtown ceremony tonight, laughing with glee and smiling from ear-to-ear.

Hamelin was ranked first overall in Canada on his first year on the national team and was named short track athlete of the year for 2005 by Speed Skating Canada. He has several World Cup victories under his belt, but this is his first Olympic Games.

Mathieu Turcotte of Montreal, a double medallist in Salt Lake four years ago, finished third in his semifinal heat and failed to advance. Medal favourite Apolo Anton Ohno of the U.S. failed to advance to the final when he slipped in his semifinal heat.

Deidra Dionne (CP)

Deidra Dionne: a really cool ceremony.

Bardonecchia, February 11- Deidra Dionne had a front-seat vantage point at last night’s opening ceremonies which kicked-off the XX Olympic Winter Games. In fact she marched right behind flag bearer Danielle Goyette.‘’It was a lot of fun. When we entered the stadium, it was incredible. It was special because I was right behind Danielle alongside athletes that won medals at the Salt Lake City Games. To be at the front was really cool.’’

Dionne had no worries about marching. ‘’I have a few days before training starts It was important for me to see the other athletes and participate in the festivities.’’
The Lac-Beauport resident marched alongside women’s hockey team members Cassie Campbell and Hayley Wickenheiser, short track speed skaters Éric Bédard and François-Louis Tremblay and curler Russ Howard.

It was the second time the 24-year-old Dionne marched in the opening ceremonies. ‘’Both were special. In 2002 it was my first Olympics so it was a whole new experience for me. I was excited and nervous. Last night it was different because I knew a lot of other Canadians. It was fun because I hadn’t seen the athletes who reside in the main village. In the U.S., there were a lot of Canadians. Here, there weren’t as many but they were really loud.’’

A national team member since 1999, Dionne has already enjoyed a memorable experience in Turin. ‘’To enter the stadium and see all the Canadian flags, that was incredible.’’

Dionne, who grew up in Red Deer, Alta., competes in aerials on February 19. She is making an incredible comeback this season. Last September she suffered a serious neck injury which required surgery to stabilize the cervical cord. Her goal is to win a second Olympic medal after earning a bronze in Salt Lake City. ‘’My goal is to cleanly execute my two most difficult jumps (the full-double-full and double full-full).’

Games are stamped with Turin’s style.
(TORONTO STAR)

The electrocardiogram of the Winter Games is measured at Piazza Castello. Here is where the winners are feted, the medals for all sports awarded and the non-ticket-holding public congregates for nightly celebrations of sport and community and bel mondo. (And it’s where Jennifer Heil will be graced in gold today, after bringing Canada its first gold medal of the 2006 Olympics yesterday, in moguls.)

It is party central in the baroque quadrant of Turin’s centro storica. But it’s a little bit like using the formal parlour as a mosh-pit. Vast, sweeping, cobblestoned, lined with palaces-cum-museums and studded with monuments, the square has never been a perambulator place, unlike the stroller-friendly Piazza San Carlo at the other end of Via Roma.

So it is here, in the twinkly milieu of the piazza — its name deriving from the Italian word for castle — where will be pulled together the skein of 15 winter sports contested at eight widely spaced venues — down in Turin, up in the Alps (and just wait until those direction-challenged bus drivers hired from outside the region try to negotiate the single-lane roads to Alpine events) and medals awarded in 55 podium ceremonies.

It’s critical to get the look exactly right on this heart-of-the-matter stage. The presentation of things is so very important to image-mad Italians. It does help immensely that there are no automobiles cluttering up the city core. Italians continue to have a long-standing romance with the car, second only to Americans’, parking higgledy-piggledy despite restrictions. (Illuminating factoid: One government-generated study concluded that the average Italian spends seven years in his/her car, two years of which are spent looking for a parking spot.)

Turin modernism is depicted in almost op-art fashion — reminiscent of the ‘60s and Warhol — in the Olympic pictograms, common graphic designs representing the 15 winter sports, used for wordless signage. Some of them, though, take a while to figure out as the eye adjusts: curling and luge are particularly obscure, but they are in real life, too, at least in Italy.

The business end of the Games, of course, is the medals, an investiture in triumph, what these sports contests are all about, if winning is the point — and in athletic competition it is. Medals cast for these Games are shaped like doughnuts — each with a hole in the middle — purportedly to respect the Italian town square, but we don’t quite follow the artistic logic. Officially, the hole in the disc “reveals the place in the chest where the heart beats, and hence life.” A ribbon, mostly red with a bit of gold, is looped around the hole in the centre.

Six to eight artisans are required to make each medal in a process that takes 10 hours. For these Games, 1,026 have been stockpiled, but an additional 35,000 “commemorative medals” are being churned out as mementos for sponsors and such.

Victorious athletes — well, all those who place 1-2-3 — will leave with these pendants clanging around their necks. But Russian gold medallists will receive as well, from the Union of Russian Jewellers, a gem worth $1,000 (U.S.) Just for that little added incentive.

Not that most other athletes will go begging. Various countries will give their individual gold haulers cash on the barrelhead — Italy, among the most generous, forking up the equivalent of $157,385 for top of the podium.

Canada doesn’t pay for medals.

That’s poor style.

Kyle Shewfelt (CP)

Calgary gymnasts dominate Commonwealth Games men’s team trials.

CALGARY- Grant Golding of Calgary led a strong showing by local gymnasts finishing first all around to conclude the Commonwealth Games men’s team trials in artistic gymnastics.

Four of the five spots on the team went to gymnasts based in Calgary.  The Commonwealth Games are March 15-26 in Melbourne, Australia.

Golding was first all around with a two-day total score of 177.40 points, Nathan Gafuik of Calgary was second at 176.20, Adam Wong of Calgary third at 174.70 and David Kikuchi of Halifax fourth at 173.00.  Olympic champion Kyle Shewfelt of Calgary grabbed the fifth spot on the team for his outstanding performances on floor and vault and also posting the second best score on high bar.

‘’We’re really excited about the team we’re going to bring to Melbourne,’’ said Jeff Thomson, men’s high performance director for Gymnastics Canada Gymnastique.  ‘’The guys didn’t miss anything.  There’s a lot of experience and the younger guys like Nathan and Adam showed once again they belonged to compete alongside the very best.’’