Sport Performance Weekly

April 3rd, 2006

City plans celebration at plaza for Calgary's Olympians.
(The Calgary Herald)

Calgary is throwing a party for its Olympians—and everyone is invited.

On April 10th, the city will host the special celebration in honour of the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic team members. It will be held from noon until 1 p.m. at Olympic Plaza, across from City Hall at 8th Avenue and Macleod Trail.

Calgarians are invited out to the public rally, which will include all of the athletes who live and/or train in Calgary. There will be an opportunity for the public to meet the Olympians and Paralympians, who will sign autographs after the event.

Calgary-based athletes brought home 10 of Canada’s 24 medals during last month’s winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. At least one Paralympian who won a medal was also born and raised in Calgary.

Charles Hamelin (CP)

Canadians parade to medal podium at short track speed skating worlds
(Canadian Sport News)

MINNEAPOLIS- Charles Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Que., won the gold medal in the men’s 3,000 metres then helped Canada to victory in the men’s 5,000-metre relay on Sunday to conclude the world championships in short track speed skating. The Canadians enjoyed their best day in a long season which got underway back on September 1, with six medal performances and two skaters in the top-three overall standings.

In the men’s 5,000 relay, the Canadians got some revenge of South Korea which beat them at the Olympics in February earning the victory in 6:49.282.  The Koreans crossed the finish line first but were disqualified for cross tracking.  The Canadian skaters were Hamelin, François-Louis Tremblay and Jonathan Guilmette, both of Montreal, and Mathieu Turcotte of Sherbrooke, Que.

‘’We tried a new strategy and it worked like a charm,’’ said Tremblay.  ‘’The strategy was for me to anchor the race well rested.  When the final laps came, the Koreans were surprised at my speed and they panicked and cross tracked all over the place.  There’s no doubt in my mind if they hadn’t cross track we would have hit the finish line first.’’ China was second and the U.S., third.

The Canadian men entered the relay on a high after Hamelin and Tremblay finished 1-2 in the men’s 3,000 respectively. Hamelin also took bronze in the 1,000 metres for three medals on the day.

In the women’s 3,000 relay, China took the title edging the Canadians in second at with Alanna Kraus of Abbotsford, B.C., Kalyna Roberge of Ste-Etienne-de-Lauzon, Que., and Amanda Overland of Kitchener, Ont.  Italy was third and South Korea fourth. Roberge added a bronze in the women’s 1,000 and was also fourth in the 3,000.  She earned bronze in the 500 on Saturday.

In the men’s overall standings, Hyun-Soo Ahn of South Korea took the crown for the fourth straight year with 68 points.  His compatriot Ho-Suk Lee was second at 60, Tremblay, the 500 winner on Saturday, fourth at 55 and Hamelin fourth at 47.
In the women’s overall standings, 17-year-old Sun-Yu Kin of South Korea placed first with 102 points, Meng Wang of China was second at 91 and Roberge third at 34. 

‘’Actually we started training for the trials on May 1 so we’ve been on-ice for 11 straight months,’’ said Tremblay.  ‘’I think I may spend the next month in bed.  But it’s a huge relief to have the pressure off.  And with the day we had today, we’re really going to enjoy our break.  We raced hard right until the end.’’

Malindi Elmore (left) (CP)

Calgary’s Malindi Elmore cracks top-20 at world cross country running championships.
(CSN)

FUKUOKA, Japan-  Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele earned an unprecedented 10th consecutive title on Sunday at the world cross country running championships while Malindi Elmore of Calgary was the top Canadian finishing 19th in the women’s four kilometre race.

In the women’s four kilometre, Gelete Burika Bati of Ethiopia took the gold with Priscah Jepleting Ngetich of Kenya second and Meselech Melkamu of Ethiopia third.  All the races Sunday were held in high winds which provided a stiff challenge to the runners.

Elmore finished in 19th place, Carmen Douma-Hussar of Cambridge, Ont., was 22nd. Courtney Babcock of Chatham, Ont., 24th, Megan Metcalfe of Edmonton 50th and Tara Quinn-Smith of Toronto 57th. 

All the Canadians except Metcalfe competed at the Commonwealth Games which concluded last Sunday in Melbourne. ‘’I was wondering whether I would be ready to race four kilometres here after preparing for the 1,500 on the track at the Commonwealth Games most of the year,’’ said Elmore.  ‘’I’ve done a lot of work over the last six months, I’m very fit and that carried through today.  This was a harder race than my last participation two years ago especially with the strong winds.  I had to stay relaxed and not fight myself.’’

In the team standings, the Canadian women were seventh out of 14. ‘’Our goal as a team was to win back the bronze medal from two years ago,’’ said Douma-Hussar.  ‘’We knew we could all run strong together and be in position for it.  That didn’t work out today but we’re still very pleased with our results.’’

Cindy Klassen (CP)

Klassen, Despatie honoured at Canadian Sport Awards.
(CBC.CA News)

Speed skater Cindy Klassen and diver Alexandre Despatie were named the female and male athletes of the year at the 33rd Annual Canadian Sport Awards on Friday.
The 26-year-old Klassen, from Winnipeg, became Canada’s most decorated Olympian after winning five medals at February’s Winter Games in Turin, Italy. She is the first Canadian athlete to win five medals in a single Olympics and the first with six overall.

Despatie, of Laval, Que., won gold medals in the men’s one-metre and three-metre springboard events last year at the world aquatic championships in Montreal. Despatie also became the first diver ever to win and crack the 800-point barrier, scoring 813.60 points in the three-metre competition.

The Canadian men’s curling rink led by Alberta skip Randy Ferbey, winners of the gold medal at the 2005 world championship in Victoria, was named the male team of the year. The female award went to the women’s water polo team that won the bronze medal at last year’s world aquatic championships.

Also honoured Friday were speed skaters Denny Morrison and Kalyna Roberge (the junior male and female athlete of the year). “I would like to congratulate these athletes and sport leaders, on behalf of the True Sport Foundation, for their achievements and contribution to Canadian amateur sport,” Victor Lachance, chair of the board of the charitable True Sport Foundation that oversees the awards, said in a statement.

“They are a shining example for everyone, especially Canada’s youth, that dreams can be achieved through hard work and perseverance.”

The winners were chosen by an independent jury from among finalists in several categories.

Dustin Wilson (CP)

Diamonds in the rough polished: Edmonton-born Dustin Wilson hero to Chinese, transforms aerials team into Olympic medallists.
(The Edmonton Journal)

EDMONTON - Dustin Wilson is living proof that size does not matter. The 33-year-old Edmonton native stands only about five-foot-five but he’s a giant hero to millions of Chinese after coaching their freestyle aerials ski team to Olympic gold and silver medals.

Chinese people have already compared him to Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor revered in China for his devotion as a medical missionary during their War of Resistance against Japan from 1937 to 1945. “It’s huge, a great honour,” Wilson said of the comparison during a stop in Edmonton this week to visit his grandmother, 95-year-old Daisy Wilson, and make a visit to the Edmonton Ski Club where both he and women’s Olympic moguls gold medalist Jennifer Heil of Spruce Grove got their start.

“What’s really special to me is they allowed me to be their head coach, to represent their country,” he said. “They were willing to take that risk, and for a country that before would never step over that line and hire a foreigner ... well there was a lot of pressure and tension.”

After serving as an assistant coach for Australia’s World Cup team for two years, it didn’t take Wilson long to discover he faced a much more difficult task when he signed on with China’s aerials team in 2004.

He got to China to discover all the skiers’ boots were two sizes too big, the team was split into small clusters under a number of coaches, the conditioning program (a recent addition introduced by another Canadian, Cindy Thomson of Whistler) was in Beijing and the training jumps a 20-hour train ride away in inner Mongolia, and there was an overall distrust of foreigners.

Two seasons later, Wilson is being hailed as a hero for turning around the program. He took it from one that suffered through dozens of injuries the year before he joined, to one that now has the men’s Olympic gold medallist, Han Xiaopeng, and the best female aerialist in the world in Nina Li, Olympic silver medallist and reigning world champion and women’s overall World Cup champion. “When I was coaching for Australia I watched (the Chinese), saw their mistakes, what they were doing wrong and I knew if I could get in there and change a lot of little things ... they were very much diamonds in the rough.

“The athletes were very talented, but didn’t have the expertise to polish them up and get them ready. That’s what we brought. Cindy was responsible for getting them strong, then I was responsible for keeping them safe and getting them to do the jumps and get the confidence to perform.”

An alternate on the Canadian aerials team in the 1998 Olympics, Wilson did what he had to do, immersing himself in the Chinese culture, learning some of their language and figuring out their politics and traditions, so he could do the job he was hired for. It was a difficult task, he admits, not only when it came to changing their coaching philosophies and training methods but even for simple things like access to physiotherapy treatments. “Sometimes it felt like you’re standing at the Great Wall of China, banging on the wall and somebody looks down and says, ‘not today.’

But the athletes bought into the program and the other coaches and officials eventually went along with his ideas. Now, China is looking for ways to convince Wilson to return after he helped produce the country’s first ever Olympic snow gold medal and turned the women’s program into the strongest in the world. His two-year contract is up—“I’m a free agent”—and Wilson expects he will receive other coaching offers in the near future.

After two years of working 14 to 16 hour days and not seeing his wife Athena, a lawyer in Australia, for four months, Wilson is open to an offer that will provide family stability. But leaving China behind, if he does, will be difficult, “because you become like family. You’re dad, you’re the boss, you’re big brother. Those are the relationships that are hard to give up. I’m sure I’ll always have a relationship with those athletes and a friendship with China.”

Beckie Scott (CP)

Beckie Scott’s long, hard road to Olympic triumph.
The Record (Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo)

Beckie Scott and her teammates were hopeless. They couldn’t win a race. They weren’t even close. The women on Canada’s cross-country team went to the 1998 Olympics and finished in 45th, 54th, even 74th place.“We used to joke that the only way we’d see a top-three finish was if you turned the result sheet upside-down and started counting from the bottom,” Scott said.

Yesterday, the Olympic medallist was in Kitchener to talk to employees at Crawford Adjusters Inc., one of Scott’s key sponsors during her 10 years on Canada’s national team. They’ve been 10 years marked by some incredible highs.

Scott, an Alberta native, has won two Olympic medals and numerous World Cup golds, including four this past season alone. She’s made history as the first North American woman to win a cross-country skiing medal at the Olympics. “But it didn’t come easily,” Scott said, laughing as she talked about some of the team’s disastrous finishes. “There were lots of hard times.”

Scott, 31, and the other women on the Canadian cross-country ski team were devastated after the 1998 Olympics in Nagano. Some quit the team, figuring there was no way the Canadians could ever compete with the Europeans, who have traditionally dominated the sport. The skiers who remained talked at length about every mistake they made, everything that went wrong. “We decided to take every failure, every pitfall, every time we came up short and learn from it,” Scott said.

For Scott, just 23 at the time, giving up was not an option. She had wanted to be a skier ever since she was five and her parents taught her to ski on the trails near their home in Vermilion, a small town east of Edmonton. Her desire to ski was only heightened when she got tickets to the 1988 Olympics in Calgary and watched a cross-country race live. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do,” she says. “It’s hard to explain why, but I’ve just always loved skiing.”

After 1998, Scott kept pushing and working with her teammates to address every problem and failure at Nagano. They train 11 months a year, working on dry land in summer and chasing the snow around the globe the rest of the year, starting with a training camp in October in Alaska.

Scott figures she skis 800 to 900 hours a year. When she’s not training or racing, she’s strategizing. She’s thinking about what she should eat for breakfast, whether she should nap, how early she should go to bed, which is usually at 9 p.m. “We call it being a 24-hour athlete,” says Scott, who relies on sponsorship because she has no time to work.

Crawford Adjusters, a Kitchener-based company with offices across Canada, started sponsoring Scott about eight years ago when it bought a Calgary company that had been helping her out. Crawford gives Scott about $20,000 a year. The money covers Scott’s living costs, so she can focus on her sport. “You’re always thinking and planning and preparing,” she says.

The preparation paid off. Scott won an Olympic gold medal in the pursuit race in Salt Lake City in 2002. The medal started off as a bronze, but then it came to light that the Russian gold and silver medallists were using banned substances. In June 2004, after many appeals and battles to the International Olympic Committee, Scott was finally awarded gold. “Winning that first medal still remains a highlight for me. There’s no feeling or sensation close to it. It’s hard to put into words but it was so overwhelming,” Scott says.

“Even when I thought it was a bronze, I was as happy as could be. Winning a medal hadn’t been a sure thing, so it was as good as gold to me.”

Scott entered this year’s Games in Turin with the pressure of being one of Canada’s key hopes for a medal. She finished a disappointing sixth in her first event, the 15-kilometre race. “But that’s sport,” Scott says. “It doesn’t always go the way you want or expect. But that’s why we like it. It’s what makes it exciting.”

Scott turned her disappointment around, winning a silver in the relay with her teammate Sara Renner, who has raced with Scott since Nagano. “I looked at her and said, ‘We’ve come a long way, baby,’ “ Scott says. “It was very special to be on the podium together and think of where we had come from.”

With the Olympics wrapped up, and the last World Cup race of the season over, Scott is trying to figure out if she’ll compete next season or retire. In the meantime, she’s spending time with her husband, her friends, her family and her dog. She’s also continuing her work with charities and sports committees, including the International Olympic Committee. In between, she travels across the country to talk to schools, organizations and sponsors. “I just try to tell people that anything is possible,” says Scott, who now lives in British Columbia and Oregon. “I’m not anybody special and I was able to do it. A little hard work and a dream makes anything possible.”

Jenn Heil (CP)

Heil’s dream is inspirational: Mentoring helps skier to reach for Olympic gold.
(The Edmonton Journal)

What does it take to be an Olympic champion?

Passion, hard work and support, according to 22-year-old Jennifer Heil, honoured recently in Spruce Grove as a hometown hero after capturing Canada’s first gold medal at the Torino Games in January. But support has meant much more than family and friends. Heil was a guinea pig in an experiment that worked. And her success could have implications for future generations of elite Canadian athletes.

It has been Heil’s dream to get to the Olympics. The defining moment came at a young age while flipping through the pages of a Sports Illustrated, and was drawn to a feature on Olympic athletes. The intense focus and determination on their faces in Olympic competition inspired her. Says Heil: “I really felt that I wanted to go after that, to try and be my best at one particular moment. I knew how hard it would be, but what I didn’t know was what a great journey it would end up being.”

The five-foot, three-inch bubbly and articulate athlete started skiing at age two and was attracting attention on the slopes in her early teens, in the fast lane of mogul freestyle. By the time she was 15, Heil had won her first gold medal at the Canada Winter Games. But when she entered the World Cup stage, there were many moments when she wondered whether her lofty goals were achievable. She had good results and some very poor results as well.

“I was scared to give it 100 per cent because I was scared to lose. I was always trying not to make mistakes, rather than trying to get out there and attack it, to focus on the moment and control the things that were within my power. So I really had to overcome the fear of failure.”

Still focused on her Olympic dream, Heil hired a coach. It was a great financial sacrifice because she was paying for his travel expenses to World Cups in Asia, Europe and North America. The same year, Freestyle Canada lost funding and Heil had to pay her own expenses as well. That’s when her incredible support network took shape.

“A group of about 10 individuals here in Edmonton, private citizens, got together and said, ‘We believe in you, Jenn. We believe in your dream and we want to help you.’ And they donated money for me to pay for my coach to travel with me. It was just such a huge relief and gave me the freedom to focus on why I was there.”
Heil’s next good fortune came when the head coach of the Canadian Ski Team brought her to the attention of Montreal businessman, J.D. Miller, who felt Jenn would benefit from some mentoring. A group of about 20 provide her with additional resources, such as a strength and conditioning coach, an osteopath, a nutritionist and a full-time sports psychologist.

For Miller and his colleagues, supporting Heil became a four-year plan to prove a point. “It’s all about allowing our best and brightest athletes an opportunity to have the tools they need to perform. So this has been a bit of an experiment to see if you do provide the tools, you can provide the results.”

It’s a plan that has proven its weight in gold. When Heil competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, she missed the podium by one one- hundredth of a point. Plagued by chronic injuries, her supporters encouraged her to take a year off. She enrolled in the business program at McGill University and started rebuilding her body. It was the right move.

Heil returned to competition healthier and stronger. And the hard worker became a consistent winner. After capturing the gold medal in moguls freestyle at the Olympics, she won her fourth national freestyle moguls title and took home her third straight Crystal Globe as the women’s overall World Cup moguls champ. Heil has also won three national dual-moguls titles. She’s having fun on the hill again.

One of her biggest challenges now is the travel for competitions and the jet lag that goes with it. “I’ve been to Europe, I think five times this year, Australia once, Asia twice and all over North America. It’s extremely demanding.”

She’s thinking about taking another year off before the 2010 Olympics, but says, “not next year because it’s world championships.” And she looks forward to completing her four-year bachelor of commerce degree at McGill.

So far, Heil is the only athlete supported by her Montreal backers. But she hopes her experience will lead to more support for other elite athletes. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this. I know how fortunate I am and what a difference it’s made for me. There are so many athletes right here in Edmonton and across Canada who have the talent and desire to go on to the Olympics and I think it’s really important that we have the tools to help them get there.”

Heil’s vision is multi-layered. She always dreamed of going to the Olympics and winning a gold medal. Visualization has been key to realizing that lofty goal. At the starting gate of a competition, she visualizes her run, sees herself go off the jumps and land them perfectly, then cross the finish line with a giant smile on her face knowing she’s done it successfully. Her vision is also about sharing her journey with others, to inspire them to reach for their own dreams.

“Some of my biggest challenges have been my mind-set and my attitude, and trying to stay positive and optimistic. That’s why I think dreams are so important. It’s not really about the end result. It’s about what you learn along the way.”

Funding athletes means more than just medals.
Investment in sport benefits everyone.
(David Legg and Dale Henwood, For The Calgary Herald)

Calgarians, Albertans and Canadians have been justifiably proud and excited about the recent performances at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, in which the Canadian team received the most podium finishes ever. That success was followed by the accomplishments of local athletes at the Winter Paralympic Games in Torino and the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

But, while we celebrate, it is also necessary to challenge our assumptions about how and why these results were achieved, and whether they can be replicated, particularly if we want to be No. 1 in 2010 and beyond.

It is misleading, for example, to think that of the 196 Canadian athletes attending the Games, 28 per cent were from Alberta. The number includes athletes who have relocated to the Calgary/Bow corridor to access the facilities created from the 1988 Olympic Legacy. In reality, approximately 14 per cent of the team are products of the Alberta sport system—a 25-per-cent decrease from 1988.

This is an unacceptable downward trend and regrettably may be a direct reflection of a careless disregard for the importance of sport and physical activity. Provincial support for sport programming is less than it was 18 years ago. More specifically, some Olympic sports (i.e., skeleton—three medals in Turin) receive no support from the Alberta government.

The individual Albertans who are performing well may be doing so in spite of the embarrassingly poor support. Their performances are the result of personal commitment, and support from parents, the corporate community, the federal government and non-government agencies.

There is a limited opportunity to further improve the Calgary environment—one that will require a public commitment to the values and benefits of sport and physical activity, a commitment to excellence (understanding it is long term and expensive), one that requires a receptive academic environment, and one where the province with all its resources makes an investment.

The road to Vancouver is through Calgary, but our city and province may soon be bypassed if attention is not paid to facility infrastructure and the sport development system.Pronouncements following the 2006 Winter Olympic Games such as those from Premier Ralph Klein that more funding may be allocated to Canada Olympic Park is a promising first step, but we need to see action.

In a Feb. 28 editorial, the Herald asks what it is worth to Canadians to see their athletes win. It was reported that $150 million is required to address Calgary’s facility needs and thus ensure the 24 medals won in 2006. When placed within the context of all Canadians, it works out to be 20 cents per person. Another way to look at this is asking how much it would cost if we did not make the financial investment.

In 2005/06, Alberta ranked 12th when compared with other provinces and territories in investment per capita, with a total investment of $12.8 million. Organizations such as Hockey Alberta received $180,000 in government funding, which is approximately $3 per athlete. Ice time costs $3 per minute.

The challenge seems to be in making it clear that an investment in sport is an investment that benefits everyone. Numerous studies have shown a positive link between sport participation and the economy, health, academic achievement, workplace productivity, youth crime, community development and national and cultural identity.

If we can’t afford our health-care system now, what makes us think we will in 20 years? Increased funding in sport is an investment in much more than just medals. The pursuit of excellence is both long term and expensive and, therefore, we cannot subordinate long-term development with short-term competitive results.We need to understand the process, not just the outcome. In a society that seeks immediate gratification and expects instant returns, there is a need to be patient. We need to create a sport system that offers value for future generations.

We believe two changes are needed.

First is acceptance by the provincial legislature of the Sport Plan for Alberta originally presented in 2000. Calgary approved a Civic Sport Policy in 2005 and the federal government also has a new (2001) sport-related policy. What is missing is the provincial link.

The second need is an Alberta Sport Fund not unlike the Alberta Arts Stabilization Fund. This would require a significant, one-time investment to ensure long-term programming dollars versus one-time infrastructure support that, while important, is not the only priority.

We cannot continue to focus on quick fixes and immediate gratification items while neglecting the burden we are placing on future generations. Alberta once had a system that produced many great athletes and many great Canadians. It is time that we became that city and that province once again.

Dale Henwood is President of the Canadian Sport Centre Calgary, and David Legg is co-ordinator of the Bachelor of Applied Business and Entrepreneurship - Sport and
Recreation program at Mount Royal College. Both are active volunteers with Sport Alberta.

Mark Lowry

Mark Lowry Honoured With The Leadership In Sport Award At The 33rd Annual Canadian Sport Awards.

TORONTO, March 31, 2006 – The Canadian Olympic Committee’s (COC) former Executive Director of Sport, the late Mark Lowry, was honoured this evening with the Leadership in Sport Award at the 33rd Annual Canadian Sport Awards ceremony held at Yonge – Dundas Square in Toronto.

“On behalf of the Lowry family, I would like to thank the Canadian Olympic Committee for nominating Mark for this prestigious award – the highest honour that a Canadian sport leader can achieve,” said Mark’s wife, Jennifer.  “I know being honoured by this community, one that he cared about so much, would have touched Mark deeply.   For Mark, winning this award is a testament to his dedication and passion and I hope that his success will inspire future sport leaders.”
Lowry was a finalist for the award alongside Esteem Team Association Board of Directors member Chris Wilson and Speed Skating Canada.

The Leadership in Sport Award is a lifetime achievement honour presented annually to an individual or organization which exemplifies Spirit of Sport values as well as demonstrates groundbreaking organizational leadership, innovative practices, influential communications, cutting edge sport marketing or positioning of the sport sector.

The winner of the award was selected by a seven member jury consisting of Canadian athletes, sport leaders and members of the media.  Nominations for the Leadership in Sport Award were submitted by sports associations and individuals across Canada. “Mark Lowry passionately believed that sport in Canada is going through the most exciting period in its history,” said COC Chief Executive Officer Chris Rudge.  “Mark was a driving force in bringing about the changes and the focus that frame our current environment.  The recent successes of Canada’s athletes and National Sport Federations at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games stand as a testament to his vision, his leadership and his inspiration.  We are all honoured to share in his well-deserved achievement this evening.”

Lowry joined the COC in June of 1997 as the Executive Director of Sport with overall responsibility for facilitating and directing Canada’s participation at the Olympic and Pan American Games, athlete and coach programming and support to National Sport Federations.

A tireless and a passionate advocate for athletes and sport in Canada, Lowry dedicated his career to creating a better sport system to help Canadian athletes reach the podium at the Olympic Games.  Through his development of key high-performance initiatives such as the Own The Podium – 2010 program, Lowry was a key contributor to Canada’s record breaking success at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin.

Lowry passed away on October 21, 2005 at the age of 51 following a valiant, two-year battle with pancreatic cancer.