Sport Performance Weekly

July 17th, 2006

Second silver medal for Edmonton’s Brandon O’Neill at gymnastics World Cup.

(Canadian Sport News) SHANGHAI- World championship medallist Brandon O’Neill of Edmonton earned his second silver medal Brandon O’Neill of Edmonton earned his
eighth career medal in World Cup gymnastics on Sunday with a second place finish on men’s vault.

O’Neill recently completed an intensive training camp in China with the Canadian men’s gymnastics team.  The Canadians trained alongside the Chinese team, which
included at least a half a dozen former world and Olympic champions.
 
O’Neill and Jared Walls, also of Edmonton, stayed in China for the World Cup while their teammates returned home.  Walls didn’t qualify for any finals in Friday’s preliminaries.

Canada beats Brazil for first time in 7 years in Water Polo World League.

On the second night of World League action Canada played their first game against Brazil. Brazil took the early lead and Team Canada responded just before the end of the first quarter to tie the game 1-1 on a goal by Aaron Feltham (Lindsay, ONT) his first of four for the night. From that point on Canada outplayed the Brazilians for the next three quarters.

Head Coach Dragan Jovanovic was pleased with the team’s victory the first over Brazil in seven years. « the team is young and we still have a way to go and a win in World League competition is always good to boost a team’s confidence and provide valuable lessons for future games. »

Other goal scorers for Team Canada were Kevin Graham, Regina, Sask with 1 goal on 2 shots and Noah Miller, Regina, Sask with 1 goal on 3 shots. Nic Youngblud from Hamilton, Ontario tended goal for Team Canada.

The Canadian Women's Water Polo Team  finished with four wins and one loss when they also beat Brazil today by a score of 14 to 4 at the Women's World League Semi Finals in Los Alamitos, California.  "I'm happy with the progression the team has made throughout the week" said Head Coach Patrick Oaten of Pointe-Claire, QC, " we now have the opportunity to continue this progression during the finals in Italy."

The team finished second at the event behind the Americans and will carry their accumulated points to the World League Super Final in Italy at the end of July. Australia was the third team to qualify for the finals. In other games today, The USA beat Australia and New Zealand  beat China.

Team Canada men and women triumph at World Wheelchair Basketball Championships.

AMSTERDAM July 14, 2006 - It was a dream match up - reigning 2004 Paralympic gold medalists USA against reigning 2002 Gold Cup gold medalists Canada, and the game lived up to its billing as the two powerhouses met for the fourth time in world championship final game history. In 1994, 1998 and 2002 it was Canada prevailing, and 2006 proved to be no exception as the Canadian women's wheelchair basketball team exacted revenge for their stunning Athens semi final loss with a convincing 58-50 victory.

Chantal Benoit led all scorers with 21 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists, while Danielle Peers was close behind with 20 points, 19 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals. Lori Radke had 9 points and 8 assists, while Sabrina Pettinicchi had 8 points to go with 9 rebounds. Overall, a solid effort for Canada who will now take that crown into Beijing in 2008 in a bid to recapture the Paralympic title.

After the game, assistant coach Trish Nicholson remarked on the feeling she had going into the final game, saying "There was a special feel about today that you just can't measure or quantify, but you know it's there."

Assistant coaches Bruce Enns and Bill Johnson were both excited with the win but for different reasons. Said Johnson, "It's amazing how a team can learn so much so quickly as we changed our strategy from zone and combination defenses to straight up player to player". Added Enns, "These players are a remarkable group of basketball players, and the combination of tactics, hard work, dedication and togetherness really paid off".

Team Canada Men defeated the USA 59 - 41. Patrick Anderson (Fergus, Ontario) led Canada with 25 points. Richard Peter (Vancouver, British Columbia) scored 16 and Joey Johnson (Winnipeg, Manitoba) added 11. Head Coach Paul Bowes stated, "Winning the gold here today is history in the making. This is the first time ever that the Canadian Men's Team has won gold at the World Championships."

Canada on 'Road to Excellence': Jackson pushes for ambitious results in Beijing.
The Calgary Herald

On a gorgeous summer morning spent high over Calgary in the Bell Canada Lightship, Roger Jackson was kept busy pointing out the city's 1988 Winter Olympic landmarks.

That's only fitting, considering the major role he played in Calgary hosting those Winter Games, and the continuing role he plays in Canada's winter sports resurgence, as CEO of the Own the Podium 2010 program.

But while the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are the primary focus for amateur sports in Canada these days, Jackson has a message to Canadian athletes training for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and 2012 in London: you haven't been forgotten.

In fact, a push is on to inject the same kind of resources into summer programs as Own the Podium has spearheaded for the winter sports, resulting in a magnificent 24-medal performance at the Turin Olympics in Italy.

The Road to Excellence Business Plan, authored by Jackson and released to the public in June, seeks to pump nearly $60 million annually into summer sports, with ambitions of a top 16 placing in the medal standings in Beijing and top 12 in London; at the Paralympics, the goal is top-five placings in both 2008 and 2012.

"We have to set clear goals," said Jackson, moments after Thursday's flight. "If 10th in the world is where we want to be in London, then let's work to be 10th, and we know we can do it. The winter sports had the courage to say, 'We want to be No. 1 in the world (in 2010).' Ahead of Russia, ahead of the States, ahead of Austria, ahead of Norway, ahead of all these winter sports powers. And we're going to do that."

The challenge is to find the resources. The Own the Podium program (of which Bell is a major corporate backer) called for a $110 million budget over five years, split equally between government and corporate funding.

The Road to Excellence program, meanwhile, would need up to three times that amount over the same period, because of the broader range of summer sports disciplines -- a group of sports that the Road to Excellence plan already whittled down to about 20 of the 36 or so summer medal sports.

"The Beijing project is just beginning," said Jackson, a gold-medallist in rowing in 1964, and a member of the London 2012 bid committee. "The Excellence money is for the same purpose (as Own the Podium) -- to win medals. If we had a dozen medals in Athens, we're wanting to see some significant improvement two years from now. The difficulty with the summer program, though, is that it has to get going."

The business plan is currently being reviewed, said Jackson, and the sooner it's approved and the money starts flowing, the better our chances in Beijing and beyond. "To be in the top 10 or 12 in the world in London, we're going to need 25 to 28 medals, at least," he said.

"There's a big difference between 12 (in Athens) and getting up to 30 medals, particularly in the summer sports, which have much deeper fields. But it's totally possible -- if we have the resources. That's the only thing holding the summer program back, is this commitment. "Then we can do with this much larger group of people what we're currently doing and seeing success with the winter athletes."

The Torino 2006 olympic experience comes to a close
www.olympic.org
©VANOC

The official debriefing of the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games – The Torino 2006 Olympic Experience - came to a close on Friday in Vancouver, Canada. The five-day event hosted by the IOC, which ran from 10 to 14 July, brought together representatives of the current Olympic Games Organising Committees (OCOGs) of Vancouver 2010, Beijing 2008 and London 2012, as well as the three Candidate Cities for 2014 (Sochi, Salzburg and PyeongChang) and many other members of the Olympic family to hear from the Torino 2006 Organising Committee about its experience of hosting the XX Olympic Winter Games earlier this year. The event also saw the participation of all of the Chairmen of the IOC’s current Coordination Commissions.
 
Five Key Elements
The five-day programme was split into three parts: examining the Turin Olympic “product”, the managerial challenges experienced during the Torino 2006 journey and the experience of the different stakeholders, such as athletes, spectators, partners and the media, during the Games. Five key messages came out of the week-long discussions: “Vision must be at the centre of everything you do”, “people are at the heart of the Games”, “leadership and unity are primordial”, “you can never test enough” and “without a positive legacy, good operations don’t mean much”.
 
Important Legacy
Speaking about the quality of the Turin debrief and the success of Torino 2006, Jean-Claude Killy said, “In Turin this February, we saw magnificent Olympic Winter Games, full of passion and the Olympic spirit, that have left an important legacy to the city of Turin and to the Piedmont region in general. These magnificent Games have now widened that legacy to the world, through the quality of the presentations and information exchange that we have seen this week in Vancouver. Cities across the globe from Beijing to Vancouver and London will now be able to learn form Turin’s example and move more surely towards hosting their own top quality Olympic Games.”

Highest Quality
The Chairman of the IOC’s Coordination Commission for Vancouver 2010, René Fasel, commented on the meetings, “The information that Vancouver 2010 has been able to take away from this event has not only been important in terms of quantity but it has also been of the highest quality.” He continued, “This type of event, organised by the IOC, fits perfectly into the wider scope of the IOC’s Olympic Games Knowledge Management (OGKM) programme. Vancouver 2010 has been using this to its full advantage and I’m sure that we will see the fruits of this detailed knowledge transfer in 2010 when Vancouver hosts its Olympic Winter Games.”

Important Element
Talking about the IOC’s role in the transfer of knowledge between OCOGs, Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s Executive Director for the Olympic Games, said, “The IOC has been delighted to facilitate this transfer of knowledge and experience from Torino 2006 to the future Olympic Games organisers. This debrief is an important element of the IOC’s Olympic Games Knowledge Management (OGKM) programme, which aims to provide future host cities with the information that they need to succeed.”

Program aims to help athletes avoid banned supplements. Product scrutiny should stem positive tests.
JAMES CHRISTIE
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Canadian athletes can now start to look at the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport as a support group and not just as drug cops armed with specimen jars.

The centre and a U.S.-based standards company, NSF International, have joined forces on a certification program that will help Canadian athletes find nutritional supplements that are free of banned substances. The NSF's Certified for Sport logo could stem the number of "inadvertent" positive tests, such as befell Canadian triathlete Kelly Guest of Victoria.

Guest was shattered by his expulsion from the Commonwealth Games in 2002. An adjudicator ruled Guest didn't knowingly take the steroid nandrolone, but he still served a two-year banishment.

"It will give us, as athletes, peace of mind," two-time world hurdles champion Perdita Felicien of Pickering, Ont., said. Most top-level athletes put their bodies through such severe training that they depend on supplements to rebuild their resources, she said. "We break down our bodies on a daily basis," said Felicien, who trains most of the time in Champaign, Ill., under coach Gary Winckler. "I feel crappy after a hard day."

Because there is no consistency in the manufacturing and labelling of nutritional supplements, it can be a minefield to locate a product that's safe, clean and effective. "I've stayed away from hardcore body building products and usually just stick with a multivitamin and fish oils, and I buy Canadian," she said. "I'm putting my name out there because I believe in this."

"We've wanted a role for the CCES to support and assist the athlete like this," said Mike Smith, the president of Athletes Can, the association of national team athletes.

The certification process will concentrate on the categories of stimulants, anabolic steroids, beta-2 agonists and masking agents. "Reliable information is imperative," said Joseph de Pencier, the director of ethics and anti-doping services for the CCES.

Companies making nutritional supplements can apply to the NSF for certification, but it's a stringent process, NSF general manager Kathleen Jordan said.

It involves analysis of the formulation, labelling and ingredients of a supplement, a toxicological review, an inspection of all manufacturing sites, observation of in-house laboratories to make sure they're not set up to make designer drugs on the side. NSF also checks to make sure there's no opportunity of cross-contamination of different supplements being made in the same facility.

If an athlete calls up the CCES hotline to ask about a particular supplement, he or she can check whether it is on the Safe for Sport list on the NSF website. The CCES will not promote any particular brand, de Pencier said.

Major League Baseball actually sells players NSF-approved supplements. The NSF also worked with the National Football League and its players association to administer the first-of-its-kind program for professional football.

Olympians hoist Clarkson Cup.
The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)

TORONTO (CP) -- Female hockey players will soon be hoisting the Clarkson Cup over their heads as the men do the Stanley Cup.

Canada's former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson presented a trophy in her name to the first recipients of it -- the Canadian women's Olympic team -- at a news conference Monday in Toronto. "We will give it to the best in women's hockey this year because I wanted to do it at soon as the Cup was done and what is better than what you have done as a team?" Clarkson told the players.

"I'm hoping very much that in the future we'll be able have this as a challenge Cup so it will be played for across the country in an annual way."

The trophy is a silver cup, featuring Inuit designs, with handles on both sides. "It's out of the north that ice comes, get it?" Clarkson said.

During the NHL lockout of the 2004-05 season, Clarkson floated the idea that women should be able to play for the Stanley Cup, since the men were not. She then decided to create her own version of the NHL's Stanley Cup, donated to the league by Lord Stanley, governor-general of Canada from 1888-93.

"We officially have our Stanley Cup," Canadian team captain Cassie Campbell said. "This is as official as it gets."

The intention is for the trophy to be given to the team that wins the national women's championship. The top two women's leagues in the country, the National Women's Hockey League and the Western Women's Hockey League, are currently in discussions to make that happen, said Julie Healy, Hockey Canada's director of female hockey.

"These two leagues working together is really the humble beginnings of probably the best women's league that will exist in the world," Healy said. "I believe that's what Madame Clarkson has wanted that Cup to be for."

The Calgary Oval X-Treme and Edmonton Chimos broke away from the NWHL in 2004 to form the WWHL and were joined by teams from Minnesota, B.C. and Saskatchewan. The NWHL currently has seven teams in Ontario and Quebec.

"I know they are talking and working together," Healy said. "That is the elite club level of hockey in Canada, those two leagues, and all of our national team players that aren't away at school play in those leagues. That's the right fit."

National team veteran Danielle Goyette, who also plays for the X-Treme, didn't lift the Clarkson Cup over her head -- she'd rather do that on the ice -- but had her picture taken with both the former governor-general and the trophy.

"To see a Cup like that coming to women's hockey is a dream come true, to be able to see that in the future girls are going to be able to play for that trophy," Goyette said. "Maybe in the future, the goal is going to be to play for that trophy more than the Olympics."

The Bay gives athletes a sporting chance: Runs raise much-needed cash for Olympic hopefuls
The Gazette (Montreal)

Ryan Cuthbert has picked out a new $3,000 singles kayak, a craft he will use for the intensive training he hopes will land him and his teammates on the podium at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Cuthbert is one of 201 athletes across the country, including 42 in Quebec, who are receiving cheques for $5,000. Many are considered to be podium contenders.

The windfall comes from the Hudson's Bay Co., which started fun runs three years ago - the first was in Ottawa - to raise money for Canada's cash-strapped athletes. The runs have since spread to 10 cities, including Montreal. On Canada Day, nearly 800 runners took part at the Old Port.

All paid entry fees for the two runs and a walk, and many had gone door-to-door through neighbourhoods collecting more funds. The Bay has pledged to raise $20 million during the next seven years leading up to the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 winter Games and beyond, and seems to have found a good strategy by tapping into Canada's enormous running community.

Running is a solitary endeavour for many, so runners don't need much of an excuse to get together for a cause, such as supporting the athletes who give up 10 years or so of their lives for very little money. Elite athletes receive $1,500 a month from the federal government and another $10,000 annually from Quebec. Most of that money goes for living expenses.

In return, athletes like Cuthbert, 26, and his teammates in the kayak fours (K4), who have just come off podium finishes, including a victory, in two World Cups in Europe, train several hours a day year-round.

They are full-time athletes, with barely the time to pursue studies at college or university. Summer-sport athletes spend huge amounts of time training in warm climates during the winter and travelling extensively to events to get the best competition. There is little or no time left to get a real job.

Cuthbert was at the Old Port on Canada Day with other Quebec athletes - many of them virtually unknown to the public - presenting the runners with medals and thanking them for their contributions.

Achraf Tadili, Canada's second-ranked 800-metre runner, will use his money to participate in more meets at the Grand Prix level in Europe as he prepares for Beijing. At 26, he's been training full-time since 2000, and spends much of his time in the more moderate climate of Victoria, far from his Laval home.

A full-time student at John Abbott College, Marina Radu, 22, has no time to raise extra money to support her role with the national women's water polo team. Expectations are high for the team, which placed third at the World Aquatics Championships in Montreal last summer.

The squad has trips planned to Los Angeles, China and Europe during the next two months. Water Polo Canada will pick up transportation, accommodation and food costs, but the athletes are responsible for their own pocket money.

Radu will tap into her bursary money to cover that. She credits her mother and family for helping her get this far. "It's absolutely impossible for these athletes to work," said Radu's coach, Pat Oaten. "The government has really stepped up to the plate and helped. I think corporate Canada can and should do more."

In Radu's sport, the standard has been set in Europe, where players can earn up to $200,000 a year thanks to company sponsorship of local teams.

The Bay deserves some kind of medal for taking a step in the right direction in Canada.