Sport Performance Weekly

September 11th , 2006

Alberta Athletes Dominate Cycling National Championships.

September 10, 2006 (Dieppe, NB) – The Keirin and Madison races brought the event to a close Sunday. It was an Alberta sweep in the Keirin race, both in the men’s and women’s fields, with Auna Brit Ericksenhave and Cam McKinnon winning the titles. The Symmetrics pair of Christian Meier (BC) of Sussex, NB and Cameron Evans (BC) has won national track cycling title in the Madison race.

After three consecutive days of sunny weather and great track conditions, the event organizers had to overcome rain delays in the morning, but the show was worth waiting, as numerous spectators came to enjoy the spectacular Keirin and Madison competitions. Unfortunately, in the last couple of minutes before the end of the Madison race, the team constituted of Martin Gilbert (QC) and Zach Bell (YK), which tied for second place, was involved in a bad crash – everyone being safe though.

Keirin
Women
1. Auna Brit Ericksenhave (AB) - 2006 Elite National Champion
2. Laura Brown (AB)
3. Laura Yoisten (AB)

Men
1. Cam McKinnon (AB) - 2006 Elite National Champion
2. Travis Smith (AB)
3. Joel Regimbald (AB)

The word goes to Alberta’s coach, Jayson Gillespie: “Overall it was a fantastic event for Alberta. We had riders on the podium at almost every event, in both men’s and women’s fields. Auna Brit was able to win all three power events (sprint, kilo and keirin) and reach the goal she had set for herself. Stephanie Roorda is bringing home a bronze in the sprint. Travis Smith earned the national title in sprint as well, with Cam McKinnon at second place. Felix Haspel, a road athlete, took a silver medal in kilo and two 5th positions (keirin and sprint), for his first year in the provincial team. Laura Brown made podiums in the individual pursuit and keirin, etc. All in all, it’s been a terrific event for Alberta, now we hope that Zach Bell recovers soon.”

Men’s Madison (50 km)
1. Symmetrics team - 2006 Elite National Champion
Christian Meier (BC) born in Sussex, NB and Cameron Evans (BC)
2. Team Alberta – Jamie Sparling and Ryan McKenzie
3. Team Ontario – Adam Thuss and Eric Robertson

New-Brunswick’s Christian Meier from Sussex, who now spends most of his time in Langley, BC, commented: “Our strategy was to take a lap on Martin (Gilbert) and Zach (Bell), and hold it to win. It was the only way to go as we’re good at endurance but we can’t sprint against them.”

Team Kodak Gallery Sierra Nevada members Martin Gilbert (QC) and Zach Bell (YK, racing for Alberta) were in a very good leading position during the whole competition and indeed very strong at sprinting. But they did not finish due to a crash where Zach’s wheel hit Martin’s one during a relay, at nine laps to go. Zach was transferred to the hospital for precaution, but according to the medical staff who was on site, he should be fine.

Olympic runner killed in car accident.
The Toronto Star

EMILIE MONDOR: 1981-2006
Emilie Mondor was never more at home than when she was alone on a run, a ferocious athlete who thrived on the lonely life of a long- distance runner. The Olympic athlete from Mascouche, Que., was killed on the weekend in a car accident, cutting short a promising career. She was 25 years old.

Members of Canada’s track and field community were stunned and saddened by the news of her death and fondly recalled an athlete whose love of the sport was unparalleled. “That kind of passion is tough to describe, I haven’t seen that very much in my whole career,” said Martin Goulet, chief high performance officer for Athletics Canada, and a longtime distance coach. “She had that very passionate way about her, it was so deep in her we could feel that fire just being around her. Running was very special to her, to the point where it was almost a spiritual approach.”

Mondor was the first Canadian woman to dip under the 15-minute mark in the 5,000 metres, accomplishing the feat at the 2003 world championships in Paris where she finished 12th. She led the Canadian women’s team to a bronze medal at the world cross-country championships in 2004, and ran for Canada at the Athens Olympics later that year, finishing 17th in the 5,000. “She really, really loved to run, purely for running. There’s not a lot of athletes out there that absolutely love just the motion of running,” said three-time Olympic middle-distance runner Leah Pells.

Provincial police say Mondor was travelling alone on Highway 417 on Saturday when her vehicle overturned near Hawkesbury, Ont., about an hour east of Ottawa. Constable Pierre Dubois said Mondor was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the car. She was taken by air ambulance to Ottawa Civic Hospital where she died on Saturday evening of massive chest trauma.

Mondor’s career had been plagued by injuries the past couple of seasons, a bone condition similar to osteoporosis sidelining her with numerous stress fractures. But the 5-foot-6 runner recently decided to return to competition as a marathon runner, a perfect fit it would seem for an athlete who loved to log countless kilometres on the roads.

She announced the decision on her website, saying it had always been her goal to one day run a marathon. “I always had that idea in my head. I live my dream now,” she wrote. She moved to Ottawa to train for theathon and was to make her debut at the New York City Marathon on Nov. 5.

Mondor took up track when she was 14 and quickly made a name for herself on the national scene, winning gold at the Canadian junior cross-country championships in 1997. “I don’t know if the racing was the pleasure of her life, I think most it was just the running part of it she enjoyed,” said Mike Lonergan, who coached Mondor for four years when she lived in B.C.

She wore her love of her sport in the numerous tattoos that decorated her wiry body. Mondor is survived by two younger sisters and her parents, Nicole and Francois.

Deidra dreams of Vancouver: determined to bounce back in time for the 2010 Olympics.
The Edmonton Journal

At just 24 years of age, Deidra Dionne is feeling old physically. Mentally, she’s as nervous as a young kid heading to school for the first time.

It’s been a bit of an unsettling few weeks for the freestyle aerial skier from Red Deer. First she made the decision to take a year off from competing on the World Cup circuit to properly rebuild her back and neck that were seriously injured last year. Next she decided to go back to school full time, taking courses at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus in Kelowna, B.C.

Then she went to Australia to “make peace with the country” where she suffered the injury that nearly ended her career last September at the season-opening event. She missed the landing on a triple twisting double back flip and slammed her head back into the ground, resulting in a wedge fracture of the C4 vertebrae, a partial dislocation of the C5 vertebrae and a ruptured disk between the two. She underwent major surgery in Australia, but made an amazing recovery in time to compete in the Olympics in Turin in February.

“I never wanted that to be my lasting impression because I love it down there and I have great friends there,” she said upon her return from Australia. “I wanted to go down to make peace with the country .... but I also think it was really important for me to go and tell my doctor and my nurses that they did a great job and that I had made it. It’s probably tough for them, where they see someone at their worst for 10 days and then say good luck in the rest of your life.” So she visited the hospital, thanked the medical staff and let them see that she had indeed recovered from the crash, thanks to their efforts.

That trip, however, meant she missed her first day back on campus where she’ll continue to work on her Bachelor of Arts degree with an eye on a law career in the future. “I’ll be back at school 100 per cent and I haven’t done that since I was in Grade 9.”

She’s been taking courses to continue her education while competing on the World Cup circuit the last several years, but knows her life is about to take a dramatic turn after seven years of basically living in a bubble, travelling, competing and living with the same group of athletes almost year-round. “I haven’t had to meet new people in so long that it’s going to be pretty interesting. That’s what makes it nerve-wracking. I’m really nervous.”

Before there’s any nerves, however, every morning there’s the pain, the daily reminder that everything isn’t right yet. “You get out of bed and it’s, ‘Oh, my back’s sore this morning.’ It’s not pain, it’s constant soreness. I feel old.”

There’s little pain in the neck, however, which is an excellent sign. The lower back pain comes from her missing a lot of the strength rebuilding phase she should have gone through last spring when she elected instead to compete in the Olympics—a decision she says she doesn’t regret for a moment, even though it was a difficult, disappointing experience. “I had a hard time in Turin emotionally. Some little things happened that I didn’t prepare myself for. Like our semifinal being cancelled the first day and I had been really, really prepared to compete that day.”

Instead she had to sit and watch the Canadian men’s aerialists suffer through a disappointing performance—events, she said, she “wasn’t in a position to deal with because I was so fragile at the time.”

Turns out the back was also quite fragile. After nearly missing her landing in Turin and again hitting her head on the snow, even a summer away from the pounding of training and competing wasn’t enough for the back to heal sufficiently. “The back hasn’t had the time to deal with the changes,” she said. “I’ll be doing a lot of yoga, probably a lot of pilates and stuff to get my back a little more flexible and able to take impact.”

Her decision to take the year off was prompted by the injury, but it will also be a time, as it was for Olympic gold medal mogul skier Jennifer Heil, for her entire body to heal and recover from years of pounding. A time when she can actually do all the exercises and things her trainer and physiotherapists tell her to do, but which she simply didn’t have because of training and competing. “Now I’m going to have time to do those things. I’m going to do everything right, from step A all the way to step Z.”

Kelowna was selected because that’s where her strength trainer is located as well as one of the best trampoline coaches in Canada, Angelo Despotas, who has also worked with world champion and Olympic silver medallist Karen Cockburn. “It gives me an opportunity to be with my strength trainer every single day and improve my acrobatic skills on the trampoline, which has been my weakness in the past. So I’ll basically spend a year doing the things I neglected to do ... the technical training.”

And it will give her the chance to finally deal with the emotional trauma of her injury while getting her body into the physical condition it will need to be for her to continue with her plan to compete in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. “I’m at the point ... where I want to make sure I’m ready for Vancouver and that I last until Vancouver. Mentally I needed some time away after everything I went through.”

She spoke to her coaches, trainers, physiotherapist, Freestyle Canada CEO Peter Judge and Heil, who took a year off after the 2002 Games to heal her body, take a year of university and find some balance in her life. The move for Heil was tremendously successful. She came back to win consecutive World Cup championships and the Turin gold medal.

“She really thinks balance is so important and I’m a big advocate of balance, too,” said Dionne. “Because if you’re happy, where everything isn’t reliant on how you’re doing on the ski hill, it’s going to be a lot easier. “And if there’s anything I learned it’s that it can end at any second and you don’t necessarily get to plan (for that), so you might as well make sure you’re upholding other parts of your life and you’re happy everywhere.”

Beckie Scott to help assess 2014 Olympic bids.
Globe and Mail

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - Canadian Beckie Scott has been appointed to an 18-member delegation assessing the three bids for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The former Olympic champion cross-country skier from Vermilion, Alta., is the athletes’ representative on the panel, which will be led by IOC vice-president Chiharu Igaya of Japan.

Igaya, a former Olympic skier, and the evaluation commission will visit Sochi, Russia; Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea. The announcement was made Monday by the International Olympic Committee.

The panel, which includes IOC members and Olympic experts, will issue a report analyzing the three bids a month before the vote on the host city in Guatemala City in July 2007. The candidates must submit detailed bid files to the IOC by Jan. 10.

Igaya, 75, won a silver medal in the slalom at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo. Currently one of four IOC vice-presidents, he presided over the evaluation commission for the 2006 winter games, which were held in Turin, Italy.

”He has a great knowledge of the Olympic movement and what it takes to organize the Olympic winter games,” IOC president Jacques Rogge said in a statement.

The Calgary Sport Council Presents the Fall 2006 Seminar Series.

The Calgary Sport Council is pleased once again to present a series of seminars and workshops designed to provide coaches, parents, volunteers and sport administrators with current information from experts involved in various aspects of sport. Your participation in these seminars and in creating dialogue and discussion will help elevate sport in Calgary.

To review the Seminar Series Fall 2006 details please scroll down.  The Winter and Spring Seminar Series details will be posted in the near future.

FEES: CSC Members - coaches, parents, volunteers and sport administrators of Group Members will be admitted free of charge. Non-members - $10/person for each seminar/workshop.

Concussions and their prevention
Wednesday, September 13 6:30 – 8 pm
COP - Executive Board Room
Concussions are becoming more and more prevalent in youth sport. This session will discuss preventative measures as well as the long term impacts of concussions on the participant.
Presenter: Dr. Winne Meeuwisse                                                   
Click here to register

Long term athlete development
Saturday, September 30 9:00 – 1:00 pm
Talisman Centre - Sears Nutrition Kitchen
Dr. Norris will discuss the new Canadian model of long term athlete development, a training, competition and recovery program based on developmental age, i.e. the maturation level of the individual rather than chronological age. This new framework focuses on growth, maturation and development, trainability and sport system alignment and integration.
Presenter: Dr. Stephen Norris                                                        
Click here to register

Business practices and sport
Tuesday, October 3 6:30 – 8 pm
Talisman Centre - Riverview Room
Steven Keith is the Director, Olympic Activation with Petro Canada, a VANOC 2010 sponsor. He will discuss strategies to actively manage your organization’s reputation and ensure alignment with internal and external communications.
Presenter: Steven Keith                                                                 
Click here to register

The Canadian sport system and its challenges
Wednesday, November 8 6:30 – 8 pm
Mount Royal College - Room W231
This session will involve a presentation of the Canadian sport system, the many local provincial and national partners and their role as well as some of the opportunities and challenges facing the Canadian sport system.
Presenter: Dr. David Legg                                                             
Click here to register

Sport event tourism
Thursday, November 23 6:30 – 8 pm
Talisman Centre - Riverview Room
Marco De Iaco, Manager, Sports and Major Events for Tourism Calgary, will share ideas on how the city of Calgary competes in the business of sport event tourism.
Presenter: Marco De Iaco                                                              
Click here to register

City of Calgary resources for sport
Wednesday, December 6 6:30 – 8 pm
Outdoor Resource Centre, 1111 Memorial Drive NW
All you ever wanted to know about what The City of Calgary can provide for you. This session will provide an overview of the Calgary Civic Sport Policy and what City of Calgary resources are available for your sport organization. From alternative funding opportunities, board/membership recruitment, organizational development, volunteer management and facility management, the City of Calgary has resources that can be accessed by you.
Click here to register