CBC Coverage of the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games.

CBC kicks off coverage of TORINO 2006 – THE PARALYMPIC WINTER GAMES on March 11, as 700 athletes from 41 countries compete for 58 medals in five disciplines including alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, ice sledge hockey and wheelchair curling. This year, CBC’s coverage of the Games will be available in more ways than ever before.

From March 11 to 19, CBC will keep Canadians up to date on all of the action in Turin with reports airing weekdays at 4:55 p.m. (local, Quebec-West), as well as later in the evening, following CBC News: The National. During the weekend, the daily TORINO 2006 – THE PARALYMPIC WINTER GAMES packages will air within CBC Sports Saturday. 

The daily five-minute packages, co-hosted by CBC’s Karin Larsen and Tara Teigan, will feature a “story of the day” and a report on each day’s results. Former Paralympians Rob Snoek and Stacy Kohut, and CBC News’ Min Dhariwal will also file reports throughout TORINO 2006 – THE PARALYMPIC WINTER GAMES. 

CBC’s coverage will also be broadcast each day on CBC Newsworld, while CBC News will air daily reports and regional-specific stories for the 6 p.m. (local) news programs across the country.  Additionally, reporter Christopher Grosskurth will provide daily reports on CBC Radio during TORINO 2006 – THE PARALYMPIC WINTER GAMES.

Viewers can visit cbc.ca/paralympics daily during TORINO 2006 – THE PARALYMPIC WINTER GAMES for news stories about the Games, analysis and information about Team Canada and the country’s top medal contenders, Paralympic event schedules, CBC broadcast schedules, medal counts and more.

Human Performance Lab

Lab gives Olympians step up: Human Performance centre’s research world-class
The Calgary Herald

On the main floor, scientists wearing golf shirts and hiking boots scrutinize subjects on bikes, in altitude chambers and at golf simulators. Some of the academics work on improving top secret, spiderweb-like technology that will outfit future Olympians, while others help amateur athletes optimize muscle output.

One floor up, a scientist in a white lab coat and safety glasses uses an oversized metal machine to crush a piece of spine and two vertebrae taken from a cadaver. The goal is to better understand repairing broken bones and the proper amount of cement needed for healing traumatic injuries.

And on the top floor, a sedated, obese white rat lies spread eagle strapped to a lab tray, while young researchers zap its sciatic nerve. They are testing how much strength a fat rodent can muster, versus a slimmer one, to learn how people can maintain muscle function as they age.

The campus lab holds a seemingly mismatched collection of testing tools: athletic shoes, hockey sticks, golf clubs, microscopes and macroscopes, Astroturf, rodents, basketballs and cameras. On every floor there are refrigerators with yellow biohazard stickers and full-coloured laminated posters explaining human anatomy, biochemistry, biology, biomechanics, motor control, physiology or psychology. They can even measure elephants here.

Welcome to the University of Calgary’s Human Performance Lab—home of the internationally known David Beckham soccer shoe, the Adidas Predator-Pulse. “We’re Calgary’s best kept secret,” said Benno Nigg, director of the lab, tucked down a long hallway in the U of C’s kinesiology building. “But we are known all over the world.”

The lab’s international notoriety stems from its many athletic company partnerships. Adidas for 30 years, Nike, Reebok, Mizuno, TaylorMade and Head, are but a few. Scientists have even designed shoes for runners Ben Johnson and Florence Griffith-Joyner. TaylorMade uses U of C systems to design golf clubs and putters. “We’re tapping into world-class expertise here,” said Ian Wright, of the golf company. “They provide us with a deeper understanding of biomechanics and club fitting.”

And then there’s the Olympic factor.

On a wall inside one of the labs—punctuated by bikes, treadmills and a machine that simulates mountain trekking—is a collection of newspaper articles and photos. They feature amateur athletes who’ve tested and trained and been poked and prodded by the Human Performance Lab folks in the years leading up to last month’s Winter Olympics in Italy.

She’s modest about her personal contribution, but exercise physiology technician Nancy Scholz concedes the university’s work with the Canadian Sport Centre Calgary team contributes a great deal to athletic performance. “With more testing and development, we can really enhance the quality of our athletes,” Scholz said. “It will be neat to see what happens in 2010.”

But Nigg, a biomechanics expert, said there are challenges ahead regarding sport apparel technology and Canadian athletes. While he cherishes the international partnerships and funding, he’s frustrated that technology developed in Calgary is often helping rival countries in the race to the podium.

In Turin, for instance, a German Nordic combined skier won a gold medal wearing a so-called “second skin” designed in the lab for Adidas. Naturally, he said, more advanced apparel will roll out for the summer games and again for Vancouver in 2010, but will not necessarily be available exclusively for Canadians. Sponsors hold the key. “What we need is someone who’s willing to co-operate with us.” said Nigg, who in 1998 was inducted into the Olympic Order for his ground-breaking research in the science of sports injuries.“Our goal is to help Canadian athletes in any way we can, but it’s going to take a change in the way we think—someone who says ‘we are willing to work with you for four years,’ “ said Nigg.

Cindy Klassen (CP)

Klassen collects another bronze: Wotherspoon second in World Cup 500 metres.
The Edmonton Journal

HEERENVEEN, Netherlands - Olympic star Cindy Klassen capped her World Cup season with a bronze medal Sunday. The long-track speedskater from Winnipeg finished third in the women’s 1,500-metre event at the final Cup event of the season while Jeremy Wotherspoon of Red Deer captured a silver in the men’s 500.

Ireen Wust of the Netherlands took the gold in the women’s 1,500 with Anni Friesinger of Germany finishing second. Klassen, the Olympic champion in the event, was third.. Kristina Groves of Ottawa, the Olympic silver medallist, was sixth.
Klassen, who collected five medals at the Turin Olympics last month, was paired with Friesinger and raced despite a bad cold. “I had a decent race but I just didn’t feel very comfortable,” said Klassen, who won the 3,000 on Saturday. “It was an exciting race and it went right down to the line for second place. So from that aspect it’s looking good for me heading into the world championships.”

Friesinger takes the World Cup 1,500 title with Klassen, last year’s champion, second and Groves fourth.

In the men’s 500, Kang-Seok Lee of South Korea won the gold medalwith Wotherspoon second and Pekka Koskela of Finland third. Mike Ireland of Winnipeg tied for seventh. With the victory, Lee leapfrogged into first place overall in the 500 World Cup standings to take the season title with 746 points. Wotherspoon, the 500 champion the last four years, placed fourth overall with six medal performances in eight races this season.

In the men’s 1,500, Chad Hedrick led the U.S., to a 1-2 finish with archrival Shani Davis second and Enrico Fabris of Italy third5. Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., was fourth. Steven Elm of Red Deer was eighth and Jay Morrison of Fort St. John 14th. Hedrick takes the World Cup title with 20-year-old Denny Morrison completing a breakthrough season on the circuit at second overall.

The Canadian speedskaters return to their training base in Calgary on Monday. Several of them including Klassen, Morrison, Groves and Olympic champion Clara Hughes of Winnipeg will prepare for the all around world championships March 18-19 in Calgary. “I’m hopeful to get one day off to relax in Calgary before preparing for the worlds,” said Klassen. “But it’s all up to my coach. I’m really excited about coming home and seeing everyone and being back in the comforts of home.”

Klassen will have precious memories of her month-long European journey. Canada’s long-trackers won a total of eight medals in Turin. “It’s been incredible,” she said. “We achieved our goals at the Games and coming home I think I’m going to look back and reflect on all the good times we had as a team. It was so much fun.”

Jenn Heil (CP)

HEIL-LAND FLING; SPRUCE GROVE JENN DANCES TO TUNE OF ANOTHER WORLD TITLE
The Edmonton Sun

“It was 12 C, which made the course very soft and the snow conditions helped slow the skiers down, which made it a bit easier to ski aggressively. I have been really focusing on trying to get more points in the bottom section. “I have given up some of my speed in order to gain in my turn points. I made a few mistakes in the middle section but overall I was happy with my run.”

Heil credited the same team of trainers and coaches who helped her win the Olympic gold with getting her to the top of the World Cup chart again. “I am so fortunate to have the type of support and to be given the opportunities that I have with access to some of the best sport professionals in our country,” she said.
“It has also taken a lot of hard work. There is no substitute for hard work.”

Heil will take a rest in Hawaii on her way home from Asia and then complete the World Cup season with the final event running April 16-19 at Apex in Penticton, B.C.

Hayley with son Noah (CP)

Wickenheiser Canadian idol.
The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)

Emily Humbert was excited when she found out that the subject of her school project was coming to the city for an autograph session. The 11-year-old had to pick any topic related to Canada and she chose her hero, hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser.

Humbert e-mailed a media rep for Team Canada and asked if Wickenheiser would be able to attend her school’s heritage fair Friday where her project would be displayed. “We watched the entire Olympics and I play hockey and I want to be like her when I grow up,” Humbert said.

Wickenheiser was unavailable Friday. She was in Edmonton as the Canadian team was honoured prior to an Oilers game for its gold-medal performance in Turin. Standing at centre ice in Edmonton, where her idols Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier once entertained, thrilled Wickenheiser. “When I was a kid, I dreamed of playing in the NHL for the Oilers and the Canadiens,” Wickenheiser said. “As I got older I realized that’s not such a realistic thing. Now young girls can say ‘Hey, I can go for this.’ “

The two-time Olympic gold medallist was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd Saturday in Saskatoon at Merlin Ford Lincoln. In her right hand, bandaged with a brace, she held a black marker. At one time, a car dealership autograph session was reserved for NHL players. No longer. Wickenheiser is proud at how far women’s hockey has come. “To be called ‘You play like a girl,’ it’s not a slap in the face anymore,” she said.

The public appearance Saturday was also to launch the Hayley Wickenheiser Ford Escape. “I was really surprised,” Wickenheiser said. “I thought that was only reserved for people like Wayne Gretzky.”

Jay Fitzgerald, 14, was sporting a Team Canada jersey as he made his way to Wickenheiser’s table decorated with Olympic gold from Turin and the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. “It’s pretty incredible,” said Fitzgerald. “She’s a really great hockey player and person.” He doesn’t play hockey, but has been a fan since watching the gold-medal game four years ago.

Cathy Lacey, Fitzergald’s mother, said Wickenheiser is not only a role model for girls, but boys, too. She brought him to the autograph event because she wanted him to “see what true greatness is, and that’s Hayley.” There were almost as many boys with sticks in hand, waiting for autographs, as there were girls. “I’m in Saskatoon today and I’m sure that the rest of my teammates are in various places all over the country doing the same thing,” Wickenheiser said.

She plans to take a few months off before preparations begin for the next Olympics, in Vancouver. With the popularity of women’s hockey and the opportunity players now have, she sees a pro league forming after 2010. Emily Humbert’s face lit up as she showed Wickenheiser a poster that was part of her school project. Wickenheiser signed it. “Thanks for cheering,” she wrote. “Dream big.”

Steve Omischl (CP)

Omischl wins World Cup aerials event.
CBC Sports

Steve Omischl of North Bay, Ont., earned his first victory of the season in a freestyle World Cup aerials competition at Davos, Switzerland on Friday. Omischl had a disappointing peformance at the Torino Games, failing to qualify for the final.

At Davos, Omischl earned 251.25 points for the gold to beat Alexei Grishin of Belarus and Ales Valenta of the Czech Republic. Fellow Canadian Kyle Nissen’s eighth-place finish was enough to move him to top of the World Cup standings with 517 points. The Calgary native is 32 points ahead of Belarusian Dmitri Dashinski with just one event remaining at Apex Mountain, just outside Penticton, B.C., later this month.

Australia’s Jacqui Cooper claimed the women’s title Friday. Cooper received 196.50 points to finish ahead of Alla Tsuper of Belarus and Evelyne Leu of Switzerland. Third place was enough to move Leu into first place in the World Cup standings with 474 points, 36 better than Swiss teammate Manuela Mueller.

Clara Hughes and Cindy Klassen (CP)

THE WARMTH OF OLYMPIC AFTERGLOW.
The London Free Press

As Canada prepares to welcome the world to Vancouver/ Whistler in 2010 after a record-breaking Winter Olympics performance in Turin, the country is galvanized around the power of sport.

Every two years, the world takes a break from the usual stories of war and pestilence to celebrate the human capacity for excellence. The three little words of the Olympic motto—higher, faster, stronger—signify the desire to go where none have gone before, to experience the power of the podium and to beat personal bests.

Yes, there were some bitter collective disappointments, as in our men’s hockey team’s failure to even make it to the medal rounds. But all in all, the Olympic experience is where Canadians come together, minus the usual recriminations and regional tensions that characterize our body politic.

Albertans celebrated with equal enthusiasm Newfoundlander Brad Gushue’s team effort to bring home Canada’s first-ever gold in men’s curling. We all marvelled at the incredible drive of Winnipegger Clara Hughes—the first Canadian and only the fourth person in the world to win medals in Winter and Summer Games.

Cindy Klassen’s beaming pride at bearing our flag, along with five medals of her own, can only inspire all of us. Because of her daring, young girls can start their own Olympic dreams. They may have that combination of talent and desire to achieve Olympic gold, or they may just become better-rounded people because of their sports experiences.

My years as an amateur athlete (and I stress the word amateur) taught me many skills that helped me later in the blood sport of politics. I learned how to be a part of a team, how to win, how to lose, learn and win again. So many of the skills that contribute to winning teach all of us the importance of staying in the game.

When I was running for the Liberal party leadership, many people asked me why I stayed in the race since I had absolutely no chance of winning. The best answer I could give them, I learned from sport. Why do you think every marathoner crosses the finish line? It is not always about beating the other guy. It is more often about besting yourself.

With all those life skills to be learned from sport, it is a wonder that governments do little to build national sports in between Olympic Games. While we spend literally billions for sickness care in Canada, we pay little attention to the one preventive effort that could keep people out of hospital.

One little-known item contained in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s campaign platform was a promise to invest one per cent of total health- care funding to fitness and sport-related prevention programs. That promise was coupled with a sport tax credit, both of which were originally proposed in a report tabled by former Liberal MP Dennis Mills several years ago.

One of the largest inconsistencies in government is the political view that sport generally is less important that other areas of investment. All politicians (present company included) want to get their pictures taken in the afterglow of Olympian and Paralympian victory.

But few see the link between sports funding and ballooning health-care costs. According to the Coalition for Active Living, we are raising the first generation of kids with a lifespan expected to be shorter than ours. A fit nation, a sporting nation, builds national pride and healthy minds and bodies. Kids on the soccer field aren’t doing drugs. Sports teams replace gangs.

The Vancouver-Whistler 2010 challenge gives us a chance to build on a fantastic Olympic showing. Let us seize that challenge and take Canada farther, faster, stronger.

Team Canada at the XVIII Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia.

Ottawa, ON- March 1, 2006- Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC) announced today the 253 athletes (141 men and 112 women) selected for the Canadian Team to compete at the XVIII Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia from March 15 to 26.

« We are delighted to be able to send such a great team down to Melbourne. Canada is always a great competitor at the Games because our athletes have made sacrifices and dedicated years to their sport.  We are looking forward to great performances! » stated Claude Bennett, President of CGC.

The athletes will be supported by a support staff totaling 146, comprising team management, coaches, medical and sports science support, including doctors and physiotherapists.  “We have an amazing team formed with young and older athletes which all have the goals to achieve great results, personal bests but more importantly, getting an extraordinary experience! Our mission staff have been planning for over a year  now and we can feel the excitement” commented Chef de Mission Ross Outerbridge.

“On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to congratulate all the outstanding athletes who have been selected to represent Canada at the upcoming Commonwealth Games,” said Minister Chong. “Our athletes have always performed well at the Commonwealth Games, and I wish them and their coaches the very best at the upcoming competitions. They are important role models for all Canadians to become involved in sport and to enjoy the many benefits of an active lifestyle.”
Today, Hbc is hosting a Team Rally Event in Toronto at 12:00 pm, on the concourse level of First Canadian Place, 100 King Street West. For more information about the event and Team Canada, please visit our website at www.commonwealthgames.ca

Boy in Ghana participating in Right to Play soccer game.

From Turin’s Olympians ... with love
(TORONTO STAR)

KAMPALA - At the end of a “broken telephone,” the message is completely garbled.
”One, two, three, four, five?” comes the confused guess as to the original meaning.
”No,” laughs Emma Lukoya. “I said, ‘Look after yourself, look after one another!’” The assembled boys, all between 10 and 12 years, burst into peals of laughter, rolling on the green grass with mirth at the scrambled message.

The saying is the motto of Right to Play, the Toronto-based non-governmental organization that leapt into the headlines when athletes at the Winter Olympics — most famously Canadian speed skater Clara Hughes — opened their cheque books for the sports-related international charity. Upon winning her gold medal in the 5,000-metre race, Hughes gave $10,000 from her personal bank account, sparking a flood of Canadian donations that have so far reached more than $185,000.

The money helps give vulnerable children in developing countries the chance at childhood in places like Nuguru, an impoverished suburb of Kampala where dozens of boys gather each night on the soccer pitch and girls and younger children meet for impromptu play.

Under a cloudy sky yesterday afternoon, boys and girls in the under-13 program burst into belly laughs as they played games like cat and mouse. One game involves a chant about a police officer and a lot of waggling of hips; another features a modified Ugandan song and much falling over and giggling. ”We don’t want them sitting worrying about where their next meal is coming from,” says project co-ordinator Carys Maxwell, a physical education teacher from Wales. ”This helps distract them from the issues and the stresses that a child shouldn’t be worrying about.”

Behind the carefree laughter are subtle messages about teamwork, co-operation and concentration. Right to Play trains local coaches in 17 countries to use games to teach kids about HIV, malaria and other dangers. Blob tag, for example, sees tagged children join together to become a giant tagging force that shows kids how viruses spread by multiplying.

HIV dodgeball teaches children just how easy it is to be “touched” by the disease. ”It’s a different way of getting the information to them,” says Maxwell. ”If you’re just talking and talking at them, maybe it’s not getting through. This is a way for them to have fun, but they’re learning at the same time.”

In regimented African classrooms, “fun” and “learning” are two concepts that rarely go together. Few children actually make it to a classroom in a country where books and required uniforms are prohibitively expensive, so the soccer pitch is sometimes the only way to reach them.

Since 1993, Right to Play has offered two types of programs. One is called SportHealth and focuses on teaching things like HIV prevention. The other, SportWork, operates mostly in crowded and cramped refugee or “internally displaced persons” camps where poverty-stricken children make do with soccer balls fashioned out of wadded-up plastic bags. ”Kids out there don’t know how to play,” says Right to Play’s country manager, Tanya Wybenga, a native of Bath, Ont. ”There’s nothing for them to do, so they’re just sitting around.”

Right to Play is a sort of ramped-up version of Olympic Aid and the brainchild of Norwegian speed skater Johann Koss, who won three gold medals at the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer and was once married to Belinda Stronach. The idea is to provide a few modest materials —like goal posts and soccer balls — train local people in the joy of coaching children’s sports and mix in a bit of learning along the way.

Nuguru coach Shamilla Mudemuki, a nurse turned professional boxer, says she remains impressed with the group’s willingness to teach children about HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and dispel myths about things like vaccinations, which are widely feared in Africa. Two years ago, she gathered up 10 children and taught them how to play games including netball, a British invention that looks like basketball without the dribbling.

Now, there are more than 80 children who turn up for games and activities. ”These children learn so many things about health,” she says, pointing to two boys whose parents are dying of AIDS. The group’s activities have taught the boys how to help care for their mother and father, she says, an awesome responsibility for a child.

Lukoya, a Right to Play coach who is just himself finishing high school, has already noticed a difference in his community, where boys — some street kids, others just bored — were becoming addicted to drugs at ages as young as 12. ”This is a way to collect them and avoid that,” he says.

The children who come running to join in the games are mostly barefoot and usually dressed in well-worn, second-hand clothes. Most of the girls are taking a break from caring for younger siblings, collecting firewood and water or helping with the cooking. There is so much missing from their little lives that play is often overlooked as a priority amid concerns about education, shelter and food.

That’s a mistake, Maxwell says, since sport can do so much for a child and the community. ”We look at it as just as important. ‘Play’ is just a word, but there’s so much meaning behind it.”

From spitting to sitting, Beijing goes all out to look good for Olympics.
(SPORTSNET)

BEIJING (AP) - The government is teaching citizens “the right way to spit.” A college teaches students the right way to sit. Two years ahead of hosting the Olympic Games, people across Beijing are on an all-out drive to mind their manners.
China’s hard, grey, briskly communist capital has a reputation for brusqueness. Visitors are often startled to see its people spit phlegm onto the crowded pavement.

Changing all that ahead of the 2008 Summer Games is “crucial in providing a cultural and historical legacy to the world” for China, said Beijing city official Zhang Huiguang. ”We will work with newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, the Internet and mobile telephone carriers to teach people the right way to spit,” said Zhang, director of Beijing’s Capital Ethical and Cultural Development Office.

Zhang said her office is running a “behavioral training” campaign that also includes lining up properly for buses and turning off cellphones during meetings. But spitting is her No. 1 nemesis, she said at a news conference Wednesday. ”You have to spit into a tissue or a bag, and then put it into a dustbin to complete the process,” she explained.

Zhang said her office has organized a small army of volunteers who are hitting Beijing’s streets to hand out small “spit bags” and wearing bright orange uniforms with the Chinese character for “mucous” emblazoned in yellow on the back. Public spitters already face fines up to 50 yuan (about $7 Cdn), but “this year ... we will require law-enforcement officials to step up the frequency” of penalties, Zhang said.

Others are taking a softer approach. Lu-chin Mischke was born near Beijing, married an American and spent 10 years in the U.S. She said her heart sank when she and her family returned to live in her homeland and she saw the rampant spitting, littering and cutting in line. It prompted her to start the Pride Institute, a private group that runs seminars aimed at gently showing people the delights of being more polite. ”I’m trying to wake up a sense of decency,” Mischke said. “I know it’s there.”

She said hundreds of people sometimes crowd the talks at community centres, schools and businesses. ”I saw our beautiful scenery covered with plastic bags,” she said. “Sometimes I think I’m the first one to see this littering and say, ‘Why do you treat our country like a garbage can?’ “ ”Many of them never really thought of it that way,” she said.The nearing of the Olympics is starting to raise awareness of the problem, she said.”Chinese feel it’s an acknowledgment by the world,” she said. “They feel like it’s not a backwater any more. It’s on the world stage.”

China has always been bristly about foreign - especially western-influenced - criticism of its ways. But Mischke said what she’s trying to teach is universal. ”It’s not like I’m inventing any problems for China,” she said. “Most people hate these things, this bad behaviour. I’m just trying to wake them up and show them they can stop.”

Still others are trying to improve things in a far more traditional way. ”All of China is looking forward to the Olympics,” said Zhang Hui, head of training at the Beijing Courtesy College, a typically institutional finishing school for young adults who want to study decorum, usually before taking their first major jobs. ”It’s really important to improve courtesy” ahead of the Games, Zhang said. She believes in doing this the old-fashioned way. ”Everyone knows how to walk, stand and sit,” she said. “But we teach them how to do it in a standard way.”

That means things like sitting, back straight, on the “front one-third” of a chair, she said, primly demonstrating. “Women sit with their knees and feet together. Men may sit with their feet slightly apart. If you cross your legs, you keep the toe of your raised foot pointing downward.” ”Every day we teach the students about Confucius and Laozi,” Zhang said, referring to the Chinese philosophers who lived some 2,500 years ago and are credited with shaping values often associated with China - discipline and not rocking the boat. ”Every country has a basis for its culture,” she said. “Confucius and Laozi are our country’s basis.”