Canadian Olympian Muenzer retires.
CBC Sports

Lori-Ann Muenzer, the Canadian cyclist who overcame the odds to win Olympic gold in Athens at 38, is leaving competitive racing. The Edmonton cyclist, now 40, announced her retirement on Monday.

Asked how she'd like to be remembered, Muenzer said: "I think maybe as a person who has defied the odds, the odds of going in an underdog and actually doing it."

Muenzer's biggest moment on the sports stage came at the 2004 Athens Summer Games, when she won the gold medal in cycling's 500-metre sprint, blowing away much younger rivals.   She won the race on a borrowed bike and without her coach, Steen Madsen, who couldn't afford to travel to the Games.
But adversity is nothing new to Muenzer.

She overcame a mountain of injuries during her 10-year career, including a broken collarbone, tendinitis in her knees, a lung infection, broken hip and ruptured appendix.

She plans to concentrate on her company Pure Momentum Inc., which promotes Canadian female motivational speakers. "I am ready to tackle new opportunities and apply the many lessons learned in cycling to other aspects of my life," said Muenzer.

Muenzer took the past year off cycling, saying she couldn't afford to compete. She said the layoff was fruitful. She released a book, One Gear, No Breaks, and worked on a documentary about her life."Taking a break has been awesome," said Muenzer. "It gives you a chance to look at things clear. After the 2005 season, it was, 'What am I doing, where am I going and how am I doing things?"

Canadian O’Neill takes silver at gymnastics World Cup.
The Canadian Press

Edmonton’s Brandon O’Neill won the silver medal in the floor routine Saturday at a World Cup gymnastics competition in Stuttgart, Germany.

Germany’s Fabian Hambuchen took the gold while O’Neill followed for his fifth medal this season on the World Cup circuit. “For the most part it was pretty good, except when I stepped out of bounds on one of my passes,” said O’Neill, first after Friday’s qualifying. “I did an easier routine than at [the] worlds because it’s been a long trip and I hadn’t done too much training since then.”

O’Neill, a member of Canada’s sixth place team at the worlds in Denmark earlier this month, goes for a second medal on Sunday in the vault final. He was fifth in qualifying.“There [is] a pretty good vault field here,” O’Neill said. “My vaults are pretty consistent so I hope to put some pressure on the other competitors.”

O’Neill finished seventh on men’s vault on Sunday. ‘’He made a mistake on the second vault and I think he was really feeling the effects of the long trip,’’ said O’Neill’s coach Liang Cheng.  ‘’It’s been five weeks since he’s been home and it is also very hard to recover and very hard to motivate again after a world championships.  All his teammates went home and he had to continue training.  But overall I was really pleased with how he performed at this competition by making two finals.’’

O’Neill’s European adventure isn’t over yet.  He is scheduled to compete this Wednesday and Saturday at international meets in Switzerland.

Canada golden at short track World Cup.
CBC.CA News

Canadian speed skaters continued their medal haul Sunday, winning two gold medals and a silver at the short track World Cup event in Jeonju, South Korea.

Montreal’s François-Louis Tremblay fought off the flu bug to earn gold in the men’s 500-metre event, then led Canada to a win in the 5,000-metre relay. Marc-André Monette of Pointe-aux-Trembles, Que., concluded Canada’s success on ice with a silver in the men’s 1,000.

“I didn’t feel as strong as usual,” said Tremblay, a double Olympic medallist at the Torino Winter Olympics. “So I started the race a bit slower. My goal was to keep myself in contention for the gold and battle it out at the end. “The Koreans came after me with three laps to go but I stood my ground. This is the best start to a season in my career.”

In the 5,000 relay, Tremblay, Jean, Charles Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Que., and Montreal’s Steve Robillard raced to gold. “It’s great for our confidence after placing second last weekend,” said Tremblay. “We would have liked to battle the Koreans until the finish. We felt really confident about our race.”

In the men’s 1,000, Monette faced three South Korean skaters but still managed to win a silver to earn his first career individual medal at a World Cup event. “It’s a special day for me,” said Monette, a rookie on the circuit. “Especially to get a medal against such a tough field. It was a tactical game with a lot of speed shifting going on. The key for me over these first two World Cups was to never get frustrated. I just tried to keep learning. I gained a lot of experience.”

On the women’s side, Montreal’s Anouk Leblanc-Boucher finished third in the 500 B final and seventh overall, but teammate Kalyna Roberge of Ste-Étienne-de-Lauzon, Que., was disqualified in the semifinal. In the 1,000, Amanda Overland of Kitchener, Ont., was fourth in the B final for eighth overall. Nita Avrith of Montreal and Raphaele Lemieux of Rivière-du-Loup, Que., were eliminated in the quarter-finals.

The Canadians head home winning five medals the past two days to go along with the seven they earned last weekend at the World Cup opener in China.

Coach Downs jumping with Canuck pride
The Ottawa Sun

Darcy Downs ponders the thought and can’t help thinking back to the good old days. Those giddy times when the Manotick native had a hand in helping build Canada’s proud tradition in freestyle skiing. “It feels like I’m back on the team,” Downs said from Zermatt, Switzerland, where he’s helping the next generation of Canuck freestylers on the road toward the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

After six years spent south of the border working with the U.S. freestyle team as an aerials coach, Downs gleefully answered the call to come home earlier this year. And even during a phone chat with the Sun from the other side of the pond, his enthusiasm for it all is palpable. “I can’t ever tell you how nice it is to be back working for the home team,” said Downs, the 1997 world champion and World Cup overall champ in the combined discipline. “With the buildup to Vancouver and 2010, it’s a really exciting time to be in Canada and especially Vancouver.

“When you’re coaching, it’s all about your athletes. But I’m a patriotic guy and I’m proud to be Canadian. It’ll be nice to be part of the Canadian team at a Canadian Olympics.”

The job also fits in well with his family life. Downs and his high school sweetheart wife, Jane, who’ve called Vancouver home since ‘97, welcomed their first child during the summer. Their son, Jesse, was born on Aug. 26, the same day Downs celebrated his 38th birthday.

For six years, Downs had customs officers at the border doing double takes as he headed to Utah to work with the U.S. team. He was hired in 2000 as the Americans were building toward their own home Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, and stayed with the team through Turin 2006. “Coaching really is an international job,” said Downs. “I remember standing on a hill in China, and there were coaches (with athletes) from Australia, China, the U.S. and Japan. And every one of them was Canadian.”

But when Canadian Freestyle Ski Association CEO Peter Judge presented Downs with an opportunity to work with the Canadian moguls team, he couldn’t pass on the chance to work closer to home. Specifically, he’s the mogul skiers’ ‘air’ coach, tasked with helping them improve their jumps between the bumps.“Jumps in moguls are getting technically more difficult,” said Downs. “Now we’re taking a bit of an aerials training approach to it.”

Chris Wong, a national teamer and Olympian from B.C., has already noticed the difference.“All of a sudden, we’re just flipping and spinning, that’s all it is now, and Darcy has been amazing,” Wong told the Prince George Citizen. “I’ve learned so much from him.”

Already, Downs likes the way the picture is shaping up for Canada in 2010. “At the moment, I like our chances,” he said. “I can’t wait (for 2010). It’s going to be super, super exciting.”

WOMEN MAY GET TO JUMP.
JAMES CHRISTIE
With a report from Canadian Press

Canada’s pioneer women ski jumpers will know in November if they’ll have the chance to fly to gold at Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics.

Ski jumping for women is one of several proposed events being studied by the International Olympic Committee’s program committee for possible inclusion in the Winter Games program. Currently, ski jumping is the only single-gender sport at the Games.

Also being studied are mixed doubles curling; skier-cross; team events in alpine skiing, bobsled and luge; and a biathlon mixed relay. The IOC will report back next month. At last winter’s Olympics in Turin, snowboard-cross and team speed skating were new medal events.

The additions could be an important element in Canada reaching its goal of being the No. 1 winter sport nation in the Vancouver medal standings. The country has a history of podium finishes in new Olympics events, such as freestyle skiing, snowboarding, women’s biathlon, curling and women’s hockey. If additions for 2010 are approved at the IOC level, then it’s up to the Vancouver Games’ organizing committee, known as VANOC, to judge whether they can or will be staged.

VANOC will weigh any additional costs of including the sports against whether Canadians would win medals, said Cathy Priestner Allinger, VANOC’s executive vice-president for sport.

Canadian swimmers look to rowing team for Beijing advice.
JAMES CHRISTIE
Globe and Mail Update

With the Olympic swim schedule turned upside down for Beijing in 2008, Canada’s best athletes in the water will seek advice from athletes who compete on top of the water.

The swimmers, whose careers have been based on morning qualifying and night finals, will be learning new traing regimens from the rowers, who have always raced at dawn in the hopes of having flat water.“We have approached specialists from other sports that compete in morning finals such as our national rowing program and have gained great insight on how they train,” said Swimming Canada’s chief executive officer Pierre Lafontaine.

The change in the traditional schedule has brought complaints from some Australian coaches, but most swim officials recognized months ago that their sport would be rescheduled to fit into TV prime time in the Eastern United States market. Broadcaster NBC paid $3.5-billion to broadcast the five Olympics from 2000 in Sydney through Beijing. After struggling for ratings at the Turin Winter Games this year, NBC fought to get for morning times for swimming, gymnastics, track and field and basketball for its prime time market. The IOC agreed on swimming and gymnastics. The rights fees account for about half the Olympic Games revenue.

“The only thing that gets me cranky is that (the IOC) have made the decision for commercial reasons, not for the good of the sport,” said Australian head coach Alan Thompson.

“Swimming Canada is not necessarily enthused with the IOC’s decision to host the finals in the morning … however now that we have confirmation, we can move forward with the preparation of our athletes,” Lafontaine said. “As a team, we are taking all measures to adapt to this new environment. With 93 weeks, 651 days left before the start of the 2008 Olympic Games, we will continue to follow the plan.

“In order to ensure that our athletes are 100% ready to face the world, we will continue to bring our best coaches together as well as experts in other fields to make certain that we have the best mechanisms in place for our athletes’ preparation

“Also, this change in schedule is a great opportunity for all athletes in the country to understand that swimming fast despite of time of day, is a must in this competitive world. In the end, I believe that the best swimmers will conquer whether or not they swim finals in the morning or at night.”

Beijing’s time zone is 12 hours ahead of New York, eight hours ahead of much of Europe and two behind Australia. While putting swimming and most gymnastics finals in the morning in Beijing, the IOC decided that track and field finals, except for the marathon, will be held at night, while diving finals and the men’s basketball gold medal game will be in the afternoon.

Olympian in no hurry to race: Klassen will skip fall season to recharge.
The Calgary Herald

Still feeling the effects of a whirlwind season, Canada’s most-decorated Olympian is postponing her return to action.

Cindy Klassen has decided to skip fall World Cup long-track speed-skating races in order to get her body and mind back into top form. To that end, she has relocated to Canmore from Calgary and will try a new training regimen until the end of November.“I just felt like I needed a change of environment to get my motivation where I want it to be and get mentally ready for the next four years,” Klassen said Thursday afternoon. “I want to do the best I can in 2010 (Winter Olympics in Vancouver).“This is just part of what we’ve decided would be good for training.”

The new program includes plenty of cross-training and cross-country skiing on Canmore’s world-class trails. And the change of scenery is even more welcome.
Klassen counts the cottage-country Whiteshell area northeast of Winnipeg as one of her favourite places. Canmore and its Rocky Mountain setting offers a comparable pace.“I just came out here on Monday,” she said. “But I love it. It’s a really nice town, laid back, quiet.”

Klassen will return to Calgary at the end of November and take part in the Canadian championships in late December before hitting the World Cup circuit in January. The 27-year-old is coming off a season in which she won a Canadian-record five Olympic medals at the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy. She reached the podium in each of her events and was the face of Team Canada.

This sudden celebrity led to lucrative sponsorship deals, but it also demanded a lot of her time. Combine these factors with the pressure she felt leading up to the Games, and it makes sense why Klassen is easing back into the fray.“The whole season was huge, from the beginning to the end,” she said. “Even the beginning of this year, it seemed like it all took a lot of energy out of me. “It was exciting and good, but I need to take a little break and get ready for the season.”

Klassen spent a couple of weeks in Nova Scotia last summer on a bike trip with friends, so she has enjoyed some down time. Another highlight was a guest spot on the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas. She also spent a big chunk of time travelling around the country and doing appearances with her major sponsors, McDonalds and MTS.

But now, she’s enjoying peace and quiet in the mountains while searching for the killer instinct and determination that catapulted her to Canadian sport-legend status.“It’ll be tough hearing results from the team when they’re out in Europe,” she said.“But it will help with motivation.”

Klassen won gold at the 2006 Games in the 1,500 metres, silver in the 1,000 and team pursuit, bronze in the 3,000 and 5,000. She also earned the 3,000 bronze at the 2002 Winter Olympics and is the only Canadian to win six Olympic medals.

Canadian Olympic Committee Appoints Peter Giles as Assistant Chef de Mission for 2008 Olympic Games.

TORONTO, October 30, 2006 – The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) announced today that Peter Giles, a 1996 Olympian in kayaking and triple bronze medallist at the 1991 Pan American Games, has been appointed as Canada’s Assistant Chef de Mission for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. 

Giles, 36, was a member of the Canadian kayak team from 1988 to 1996.  During his high-performance career, Giles helped his team record a seventh-place finish in the K-4 1,000-metre discipline at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and a pair of top-10 results at the 1995 World Championship in Duisburg, Germany. 

“I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to work with Chef de Mission Sylvie Bernier as part of Team Canada at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing,” said Giles.  “It’s an honour to assume this responsibility for our world-class athletes, coaches and volunteers.”

Following his athletic career, Giles continues to remain an active member in the Canadian sport community.  Since 2003, he has had extensive involvement with the COC, currently serving as an ‘A’ member with the organization.  He previously served as a representative on both the COC’s Athletes’ Council and Awards and Recognition Committee.  He is also the Vice Chair of High Performance for the Sprint Racing Division of with CanoeKayak Canada.

Giles holds a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in California and is currently a Principal Systems Engineer with General Dynamics Canada.

“As an Olympic athlete with a strong sport technical and athlete relations background, Peter is an ideal candidate to serve as Canada’s Assistant Chef de Mission at the 2008 Olympic Games,” said Sylvie Bernier, 2008 Chef de Mission and 1984 diving Olympic gold medallist.  “Following his high-performance career, Peter became a great role model to all Canadian athletes by virtue of his successful transition from sport to the corporate world.  Peter’s post athletic career path is certainly an inspiration to all athletes and he will be a valuable member of the 2008 Canadian Olympic Team.”

As Assistant Chef de Mission, Giles’ chief responsibility over the next two years will be to work alongside the Chef de Mission to help provide overall leadership to the Canadian Team at the 2008 Olympic Games.

Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Venues Anticipated Completion Dates:                                                                         

UBC ice hockey arena - Spring 2008

Richmond Speed Skating Oval-  Fall 2008

Whistler Olympic and Paralympic (Athletes) Village - Summer 2009

Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic (Athletes) Village - Fall 2009

Hillcrest curling venue -  Fall 2008

Whistler Athlete Centre - Fall 2008

Whistler Sliding Centre -  Winter 2007 (Dec)

Whistler Nordic competition venue - Fall 2007

Cypress freestyle and snowboard venue - Fall 2007

Whistler alpine - Fall 2007

Hastings Park skating venue - Fall 2007

Training venues -  Fall 2008