Nesbitt notches third silver, Morrison on the podium at speed skating World Cup.
Canadian Sport News

HEERENVEEN, The Netherlands- Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont., completed a silver hat trick while Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., earned his first medal this season on Sunday to conclude the opening stop on the long track speed skating World Cup circuit.

In the women’s 1,000, Anni Friesinger of Germany took the gold with Nesbitt second and Ireen Wust of the Netherlands third.  It was the same order of finish for Friday’s 1,000 and Saturday’s 1,500.

Kristina Groves of Ottawa was fifth, Shannon Rempel of Winnipeg 10th, Brittany Schussler of Winnipeg 20th and Krisy Myers of Lloydminster, Sask., 27th.

In the men’s 1,000, Shani Davis of the U.S., took the gold edging Kyou-Hyuk Lee of South Korea in second with Morrison third.  Morrison was coming off an 11th  place  in Saturday’s 1,000 and seventh in Friday’s 1,500. ‘’I felt a lot of relief after today’s performance,’’ said Morrison, 21, second in the 1,500 World Cup standings last season and a member of the Olympic silver medal winning men’s pursuit team.  ‘’I just went out there focusing on being totally relaxed.  I didn’t care about the result.  After my first two races here I was wondering was up, because I felt so strong.  But I just needed to race more efficiently.’’

François-Olivier Roberge of St-Nicolas, Que., was 10th, and Mike Ireland of Winnipeg 20th.  In the B Group, Brock Miron of Calgary was second and Vincent Labrie of St-Romuald, Que., ninth.

Groves was also fifth in the women’s 3,000 with Michele d’Amours of Ste-Foy, Que., 20th, Schussler 28th, Justine l’Heureux of St-Tite, Que., 29th and Shannon Sibold of Calgary 30th. In the men’s 500, Ireland was ninth, Miron 20th and Labrie 24th.

The next stop on the World Cup goes this Friday to Sunday in Berlin.

Canadian women rule; But the national hockey team won't let up in the pursuit of excellence.
Hamilton Spectator

Hayley Wickenheiser has seen the enemy and it lurks on Team Canada's periphery, the seductive notion this country is so far ahead of the world in women's hockey that it can let up a bit.

The world's best player isn't going to let that happen in the wake of another Four Nations Cup title in which Canada romped unbeaten, beating the U.S. 5-2 on Saturday for the title. "We have the challenge of not being complacent in our program, to make it a better game and to force other countries to do the same," she said after Canada won its ninth title in 11 Cups.

Tell that to Peter Elander, coach of a Swedish team which looked to have made a breakthrough with a silver medal at the Turin Olympics. "Canada could put out five teams and beat us," he said as he considered the future of his team, which was beaten 7-0 by the Americans to miss the final but won the Four Nations bronze medal with a 3-2 win over Finland.

Elander says by any measure his country must make enormous leaps ahead to challenge the Americans consistently and Canada at all. But if that is playing the sympathy card, one of those veteran players he lauded for strength and work ethic, Vicky Sunohara, was passing. "We don't ever think about that. We don't think about the score. We think about the next shift."

Being on top with an unmatched depth of talent further benefits Canada. The national program can gradually expose young players at the top level, rather than risk a green 17-year-old as Sweden, Finland and the USA, to some degree, must. "If I have someone who is 17 and good, I have to play them," said Elander. "I can't wait."

The Americans under coach Mark Johnson brought a young team with three 17- year-olds and though his team, which first practiced together Monday, showed some fire in Saturday's final, it often looked like women and girls.

Meantime, Team Canada head coach Mel Davidson stressed Canada is working on more depth by developing an under-18 national as a third level of elite development. Hockey Canada clearly learned from the history of the men's game, which dominated international competition for so long but arrogantly resisted change.

The determined mindset of Davidson, Wickenheiser and Sunohara suggest no letup in the pursuit of excellence. Next stop on that route is the 2007 world championships in Winnipeg.

Canada opens a new Olympic quadrennial with 2010 in mind.
The Vancouver Sun

World record challenges, world championship gold, top-10 breakthroughs, season-long consistency. Or perhaps, it's just the debut of a new trick. With the World Cup winter sport season about to get going in earnest this weekend -- long track speedskaters start their campaign in the Netherlands and alpine skiing's slalom specialists are in Finland for their season-opener -- the goals are as varied as the sports for Canada's elite athletes.

Last season, the Canadian Olympic Committee was quick to trumpet the remarkable run by those athletes in the leadup to the Olympics in Turin, regularly sending out updates on where Canada stood in terms of podium finishes. And why not? Canadians were setting a record pace on World Cup circuits and it translated into the country's best Olympic medal count and a No. 2 slot behind Germany in the overall number of 2006-07 World Cup medals won.

So what can the Canadian public expect this year from their sliders and skaters, boarders and bobsledders, in the first year of a new Olympic quadrennial?"Quite frankly, we're probably looking for something different for each sport," says Alex Gardiner, the COC's director of international performance.

Just don't automatically expect a repeat of last year's numbers. Outright retirements, one-year sabbaticals and burnout-induced late starts are inevitable in the year following an Olympics. Canada has several top athletes in those categories.

Cross-country skier Beckie Scott and short-track speedskater Eric Bedard have called it quits. Cross-country's Sara Renner is taking at least a year off to have a baby. Long-track speedskater Cindy Klassen, Canada's most decorated Olympian, won't start her season until January, and teammate Clara Hughes is on a light schedule until the new year. "Especially those athletes who trained hard through the last quadrennial, for them to have a bit of a backing off period, there's nothing wrong that," says Gardiner. "You need to be fresh as a high performance athlete. You've got to be excited about what you're doing. If you've got pains or just burnout, take more time."

Peter Judge, CEO of Freestyle Canada, agrees Canada may not match last year's No. 2 overall spot, when it finished ahead of such powers as the U.S., Norway and Russia. But he's also not about to sell the country short, either."My gut says probably no. And that stems from retirements from key athletes in speedskating and cross-country. And there's going to be some people taking a pause. But who knows? Maybe some of the younger kids step up and more conversions in alpine come along and pick up the slack."

Alpine Canada boss Ken Read thinks his team is capable of great things. When he set out a 2010 game plan two years ago, it included some specific benchmarks, including six World Cup podiums and an Olympic medal in 2006. "Well, we got 12 podiums and no Olympic medal, but three fourth-place finishes and a fifth [in Turin]. We had set seven World Cup podiums in '06-07 and one world championship medals. But we've decided we're not going to go backwards, so we've adjusted that to 12 podiums and two medals at the world championships. "It's ambitious, but it's something that lays out very clearly to everybody that we're not going to go backwards. We want to keep moving forward."

Even though the Olympics are four years away, Jenn Heil, a gold medallist in freestyle moguls at Turin, said Canadian athletes are going to have to start preparing now for the home country pressure. "We can already feel it," she said in Montreal this week. "People you meet on the street want to talk about the Olympics and that's something new for us because traditionally that didn't start until the year before."

Klassen, 27, is in Canmore, Alta., this month enjoying a "mental break" from skating by training on the cross-country trails. She'll return to Calgary later this month to begin her work at the Oval. With a late start to the competitive season, she likely won't be able to defend her overall World Cup title, but says that's not her focus this season.

She wants to peak for the world championships in Salt Lake City in March and says "the big picture is getting ready for 2010." Hughes, a long-distance specialist, is sitting out the stop in the Netherlands this weekend. She will race sprints in Japan in December to work on technique and won't return to the 3,000 and 5,000 metres on the World Cup circuit until later in the season.

One of her immediate goals is to challenge the four-year-old world record in the women's 5,000 metres. Hughes, who will need to cut six seconds off her personal best to set a new record, says it has given her something to focus on when the 2010 Games still seem so far away."When you don't have a solid goal, you can become very, very lost," she told the Canadian Press. "Four years is a long time. People are already asking me if I'm ready for Vancouver. I just finished Torino."

Testing the truth about altitude training for athletes. Is it a way to Own the Podium, or just another form of doping?
DAWN WALTON Globe and Mail

CALGARY -- Young men wander into a cool, dark room, grumbling about how tired they are, as technicians hook them up to a heart-rate and blood-oxygen-level monitor before they slip into their beds in "Altitude City" for another night. Some are reading and others are doing homework, but all have volunteered to live in a bubble for a dozen evenings under the bleachers at the speed-skating Olympic Oval in Calgary.

They will be scrutinized, while they sleep in oxygen-deprived tents, by researchers trying to figure out whether so-called altitude training can give athletes an edge.
It's a rare glimpse into Canada's "top secret" Own the Podium 2010 research program, funded by government, corporate sponsors and the Canadian Olympic Committee. University of Calgary researcher Jon Kolb hopes it will be Canada's "secret weapon" in getting to the top of the medal count when Vancouver presides over the Winter Games in four years.

But scientists around the world are also trying to find ways to give their athletes a boost in the global battle for sporting supremacy."There's a lot going on that nobody knows about," said Dr. Kolb, who refuses to outline in too much detail precisely what is taking place in Altitude City. Researchers in the United States, France, Germany and elsewhere are conducting their own tests using artificial altitude and they're holding their cards tight, he said."Everybody in the competitive playing field is doing it," Dr. Kolb said. "If they're not doing it, there are certain events, especially endurance type events, they're not going to be in the running.
"It's not that it's cheating or immoral or anything like that, it's just that not everyone has access to national research or cash."

The use of hypoxic tents or rooms to simulate low-oxygen conditions of high altitude comes with a hat-trick of issues. The practice is backed by scant scientific research, yet has support of elite-level athletes -- including Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the gruelling Tour de France, as well as Canadian Olympic cross-country ski medalist Beckie Scott -- and it is embroiled in controversy.

For years, athletes have trained at high altitudes in an attempt to improve their body's oxygen-carrying capacity. Hypoxic tents use artificially created thin air to achieve the same effect. A suction device separates nitrogen from the oxygen in the air, and then air that is high in nitrogen and low in oxygen is pumped into the tent. The levels can be adjusted so effectively that the atmosphere inside the tent simulates an ascent of Mount Everest.

Low-oxygen prompts the body to produce more oxygen-carrying red blood cells. If red blood cell mass is increased, so the theory goes, athletes can carry more oxygen per unit of blood, which translates into performance boost. The same effect can be achieved chemically through banned drugs such as erythropoietin, or EPO, but athletes who have been caught using them have been suspended from their sports.

The tents, however, have caught the eye of those trying to clean up sport. The World Anti-Doping Agency debated the use of artificially induced hypoxic tents in September, but decided against adding to them to list of prohibited substances and methods for 2007. Officials didn't hide their reservations about the practice.
WADA's scientific and ethics committees found that while the tents can be performance-enhancing, the threat to athletes' health is inconclusive and the method appears to be contrary to the "spirit of sport."

"While we do not deem this method appropriate for inclusion on the list at this time," WADA president Dick Pound said when the agency's executive committee voted this fall, "we still wish to express the concern that, in addition to the results varying individually from case to case, use of this method may pose health risks if not properly implemented and under medical supervision."

Dr. Kolb, a kinesiology professor, and his team hope to inject some hard numbers into the debate. "There's definitely athletes using simulated altitude, but it's not occurring in any research-based way," he said. "That's why these [tests] are important. All we have is anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is only anecdotal evidence."

Here, in the bowels of the Olympic Oval, where the national cycling team also stores their bikes, 10 tents will be set up from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. for 12 consecutive nights, ending the morning of Nov. 20. The tents are designed by Hypoxico Inc., an 11-year-old New-York-based outfit, which claims the rights to the first patents to the creation and application of hypoxic air and boasts a list of athletes who swear by the system.

The University of Calgary study simulates the concept of "live high, train low," an altitude training technique that is believed to enhance performance. The body performs best at sea level, something that can be further augmented when altitude training is added. But researchers are trying to find ways to improve performance at altitude, which is where many venues for winter sports take place.
The unpaid volunteers, who are all physically fit and male, are monitored while they sleep.

Canadian Olympic Committee names performance enhancing quintet.
JAMES CHRISTIE Globe and Mail Update

"Performance enhancement" is usually a taboo phrase in Olympic sport, conjuring images of banned substances in syringes, capsules and creams.

But the Canadian Olympic Committee is putting a twist on the idea to help get maximum performance out of Canadian athletes for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Because most of the athletes will be facing conditions in the Chinese capital for the first time, the COC has launched a Performance Enhancement Team with the appointment of five specialists and experts in areas ranging from medicine to meteorology.

They will consult with Canada's national sport federations with strategic information on potential medical, environmental, climatic and other challenges facing athletes in Beijing and present strategies for overcoming them.

Among the initial members of the COC's Performance Enhancement Team are the Canadian Olympic squad's chief medical officer Dr. Robert McCormack of New Westminster, B.C., chief therapist Stephen King of Lennoxville, Que., and performance nutritionist Mélanie Olivier of Montreal who reprise the role they had in Canada's most successful Winter Olympics at Turin last February.

The COC also named Dr. Jon Kolb of Calgary as environmental physiologist and Doug Charko of Regina as meteorologist.

The complete development of the COC's Performance Enhancement Team will occur in two phases, with the second phase consisting of the appointments of a sport psychologist and a strength and conditioning expert.

"The COC's Performance Enhancement Team will be working hand in glove with the national sport federations in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympics in order to deliver specialized technical services designed to better prepare Canada's athletes and coaches for the uniqueness of the Beijing environment," said Alex Gardiner, COC senior director of Olympic programming.

"With less than two years to the 2008 opening ceremony, these specialists will immediately begin acquiring and sharing Olympic and Beijing-specific knowledge with the high-performance specialists of each summer national sport federation in an effort to help us reach our goal of a top-16 finish."

As the chief medical officer for the 2008 Canadian Olympic Team, Dr. McCormack will provide continuity and expertise to the Canadian Olympic Team. An orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in athletic injuries and musculoskeletal trauma, Dr. McCormack has been involved in sport medicine for over 15 years and is the Director of the Simon Fraser Orthopaedic Research Office and Head of the Division of Arthroscopy and Athletic Injuries at the University of British Columbia's Department of Orthopaedics.

King is an athletic therapist and osteopath who is currently the Head Athletic Therapist and Director of Sport Medicine at Bishop's University in Sherbrooke, Que. King's history woith Canadian Olympic missions dates back to Sarajevo in 1984, Albertville in 1992, Nagano in 1998 and Salt Lake City in 2002 and Turin 2006.

Olivier is the founder of ATP Nutrition and works with the National Multisport Centre — Montreal to provide expertise to a number of high-performance athletes, including national team members in synchronized swimming, diving, water polo and short track speed skating. A sports nutritionist for the past eight years, Olivier was the first expert from her field to join the Canadian Olympic Committee's team and support staff.

As the COC's Environmental Physiologist, Dr. Kolb will focus on developing and integrating a plan to provide Canadian athletes with the best possible environmental preparation in the areas of acclimatization to heat and humidity, strategies for competing under hot conditions and strategies to reduce the stress of travel, as well as understanding the potential air quality challenges at the 2008 Olympic Games. Dr. Kolb's research focuses on the impact environmental conditions have on athletic performance, with an applied focus in altitude training. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and a research member with the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Calgary. He is also a former national team coach with Gymnastics Canada.

Charko has done extensive consulting work with the Canadian Yachting Association and has nearly 10 years of experience forecasting for Olympic and America's Cup teams. In the role of Meteorologist, Charko will be responsible for preparing climatological analyses and detailed weather forecasts in support of outdoor sports competing in Beijing. He is currently in Spain working as a meteorologist with Lunarossa, the Italian Challenger for the America's Cup.

OWN THE PODIUM 2010 AND CODA TEAM UP TO HELP CANADIANS TRACK HIGH-PERFORMANCE ATHLETES.

Own the Podium 2010 (OTP) and the Calgary Olympic Development Association (CODA) have teamed up to help national media, sport and business partners, and Canadian winter sports fans more readily track competition schedules and results for the nation’s top high-performance winter athletes.

OTP is pleased to recognize CODA, a winter sport partner, for making winter athlete results available to all Canadians.  The bilingual Results Database is designed to provide a one-stop resource for the Canadian sport community and public supporters who wish to track the performance and achievements of Canada’s top winter athletes on their journey to 2010.

Athlete results for all Olympic and Paralympic winter sports for the current and previous World Cup seasons are available by visiting www.ownthepodium2010.com Current season results will be updated weekly.

The Winter Sport World Cup competition schedule for the 2006-07 season is also available at www.ownthepodium2010.com

Alpine Summer School: Off-season base at Farnham Glacier could provide key to Olympic success.
The Edmonton Journal

FARNHAM GLACIER, B.C. - Dusan Grasic stands at the top of Farnham Glacier, watching groups of young skiers run through the summer training courses, knowing it is on this small patch of decades-old ice high in the Purcell Mountains that Canadian skiing medals hopes in 2010 may live or die.

He is a far distance and a long time away from the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler, but the man overseeing Alpine Canada's competitive programs is optimistic this new summer training centre will provide big benefits for Canadian alpine and freestyle skiers.

The glacier was first looked at three years ago and after a successful summer program in 2003, Alpine Canada and the Calgary Olympic Development Association began working on plans to develop it into a permanent training centre. It took a $1-million donation from philanthropists Don and Shirley Green of Brockville, Ont., and another million from CODA, which will also cover the annual $350,000 operating costs, to bring it about.

A CanFor logging road was extended seven kilometres up to near the basecamp, named Camp Green, to eliminate the need for costly helicopter use to get in and out of the glacier. A series of large insulated tents were installed beside a permanent wood-frame structure built earlier. The tents serve as living quarters, wax rooms and a fitness centre.

Satellites provide television and wireless Internet access, but other than that there's little to do but ski, train, eat and sleep. "Yeah, there's not much to do here, but then we're here to ski," says Ross Nevison of Prince George, a member of the Red Mountain ski academy at Rossland, B.C. "There's certainly nothing to complain about."

Even having to take turns at cleanup duty in the kitchen that includes doing the dishes? "Doing the dishes is neat because the cook is so awesome and he's there telling us stories," Nevison says.

Besides, on many nights the skiers are simply too tired to do much but relax, catch up on their e-mails and do some homework via the Internet. Their legs are exhausted after taking 15 to 20 runs during the days that always end with a 10- to 15-minute walk down to the basecamp.

Alpine Canada had been searching for years for a summer training facility at home that would allow it to avoid costly travel to train in Europe or South America, where the Canadian team had to take what was available after the host country's teams were finished.

"The biggest advantage here is we control the environment," said Grasic. "We are the ones saying we will start training at six in the morning if we feel the snow will hold at that time. We can't do that in Europe.

"Here we can groom and build the runs the way we know it will benefit our athletes the most. The other thing is we are home so the athletes are getting the food they're used to and the proper food because the nutritionist is looking after the meal plan up here."

Global warming is a growing concern around the world, melting ice caps and glaciers, and Farnham also recedes during the height of summer. But not enough to restrict much of the training and there's little concern at the moment that the ice cap would melt enough to have any serious impact.

No one has any documentation on the depth of the glacier, but while filling in one of the crevasses that developed this spring, one of the cat operators lowered a rope some 150 feet, about 45 metres, before hitting rock.

The development of Farnham as a training facility and not for tourist use is also a positive factor. While Farnham is used almost every day during winter heli-skiing season by RK Heli-Skiing out of nearby Panorama, its summer use is restricted to the racers.

"The development of the glaciers in Europe was based on commercial use for tourists, so they try to build it a little easier," explained Grasic. "Here we have a glacier we are building ourselves and we are doing it for the racers, not for the tourist. And what I really like about this glacier is the terrain configuration is more challenging than most of the glaciers in Europe."

With its 1.5-kilometre long run, Farnham provides the full vertical length for a World Cup giant slalom, but not for a full downhill. Grasic says Farnham's length is still plenty long enough for everyone but national team downhillers, and they will likely still make a summer trip to South America to get the full-length training.

Grasic figures Canadians could get twice the training at Farnham as they do elsewhere in the summer. They usually don't only because it would be too much of a strain on many of the skiers. Besides the 15 to 20 runs each day, the skiers' legs are also worked as they're pulled back to the top of the glacier by riding a rope tow behind a snowcat.

The national alpine team spent three weeks at Farnham before leaving for Europe earlier this month for the start of the World Cup season. "The Europeans have always had the advantage on us because they train on some of the best glaciers in the world," said national team veteran Thomas Grandi of Canmore, winner of two World Cup events last winter. "We have one in our backyard and to be able to make use of it is important for the development of Canadian athletes."

Members of the freestyle team were on the glacier earlier this fall. On this day one of the three snowcats -- moved here by truck from Canada Olympic Park in Calgary -- is devoted to grooming a steep area off to the side of the main glacier, filling in crevasses so next summer the entire area can be groomed and custom built for the freestylers.

The final month -- the site was shut down at the end of October -- has been devoted to members of the national development teams and provincial teams.

"That's one of the things we would like to increase," Grasic said. "We would like to have every provincial team and every club come here. In Europe the national team can get on the glacier and get the proper length of runs. If the provincial team comes they get the worst lane, they don't get on the best glaciers. This is an even bigger benefit for the development program than for the World Cup team."

But, while Alpine Canada is looking at Farnham as part of its long-term program and sees it as a key to the success of their contribution to the Canadian Olympic Committee's Own the Podium program for 2010, Grasic also sees an more immediate benefit. "I expect a lot (this season) from the slalom and giant slalom people who were here."

It hasn't been a great summer for glacier training in Europe because of the heat and he figures if the rest of the world struggled to find good training and Canada had it, the results should be obvious. "We are doing something wrong if that doesn't help," he said.

National Coaching Institute Calgary Expands to Include NCCP Level 1,2,3 Registration.

Beginning in January 2007, the National Coaching Institute, located at the Canadian Sport Centre, will be taking over the offering and registration of all National Coaching Certification Program courses. 

In a move to streamline activities and promote the development of Coaches for sport at all levels, these programs have been aligned with the NCI. 

Stephanie Mathieson will coordinate the programs, and for more information please see the Health and Recreation Centre web site www.ucalgaryrecreation.ca/certifications.

PC Leaders Debate, Wednesday, November 15th, 11:30-1:00, Physical Education Concourse, Mount Royal College.


On November 15 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM, The Students’ Association of Mount Royal College and the Department of Physical Education and Recreation Studies will host a Progressive Conservative Leadership Forum at the Recreation Concourse above the aquatic Centre.

This will be the perfect opportunity for Students, Faculty, Staff and the Public to come and listen to the platforms of leadership contenders and choose who best represents their views for the future of this province.  

Questions that the candidates will be posed with will have two focuses, the first regarding there positions on certain issues regarding Post Secondary Education in the province.  The second will focus on issues in society regarding Physical Education and Recreation from the student perspective.

At this time not all candidates have demonstrated interest, but over half have confirmed their attendance to this event.  For the candidates that do not attend, it will be a lost opportunity for them as candidates to gain votes of Mount Royal College Students.

Come out November 15 and gain a perspective on who you think should lead this province and allow the candidates to tell you why they should the Premier.  We have had the same Premier for 13 years now, have your say in Klein’s replacement and the future of Alberta.