Shannon Rempel wins two world cup medals including first career win.
Canadian Sport News

NAGANO, Japan- Shannon Rempel of Winnipeg stepped on the podium for the second straight day on Sunday with a bronze medal in the women’s 1,000 metres to conclude the fifth stop on the long track speed skating World Cup circuit.

Chiara Simionato of Italy took the gold edging Olympic champion Marianne Timmer of the Netherlands.  Rempel, who earned her first career World Cup in Saturday’s 1,000, followed. ‘’It’s been a long fall and to head home with two medals is very satisfying,’’ said Rempel.  ‘’Unfortunately today I didn’t have my best race.  There were certain parts of the race I knew I was doing things wrong, I entered turns poorly and lost a lot of speed.  But at least I knew what my errors were.’’

Kim Weger of Regina was 15th and Clara Hughes of Winnipeg 17th. In the 1,000 World Cup standings after seven of 10 races, Simionato still leads at 502 points, Timmer is second at 424 and Rempel remains this at 403.

‘’I’ve had 18 World Cup races overall before Christmas which is unusually high,’’ said Rempel, who faces two exams later this month at the University of Calgary.  ‘’I approached it more as preparation for the worlds later this winter but I surprised myself in the first World Cups and continued to build from there.’’

There was more good news for Canada at this World Cup.  Brock Miron of Calgary posted the best international result of his career placing fifth in the men’s 1,000 while Mike Ireland of Winnipeg was fifth in the men’s 500, his best result this season.

In the men’s 1,000 Jan Bos of the Netherlands was the winner while Miron clocked fifth for his second top-10 performance this weekend.  François-Olivier Roberge of St-Nicholas, Que., was 10th and Vincent Labrie of St-Romuald, Que., 19th.

‘’I’m extremely pleased,’’ said Miron, 26, in his fourth season on the national team.  ‘’I had the legs going after yesterday’s encouraging result and had a great ending to my race today which is when it counts the most.  ‘’Each World Cup has gotten a little bit better and it culminated with a nice performance.  These are the kind of results I wanted for this season but I thought if would have taken a bit more time.’’

In the men’s 500, Kang-Seok Lee of South Korea earned his first victory this season while Ireland was fifth.  Miron was 15th.  In the B Group, Roberge was fifth. ‘’It’s starting to get a little better,’’ said Ireland, who missed the entire 2004-05 season due to a concussion then completed a strong run last winter to make the Olympic team where he placed seventh in the 500.  ‘’I’m still settling in with my new equipment but I feel it’s coming around.’’

Other Canadian results: in the men’s 100-metre dash, Ireland was seventh, Labrie 21st, Miron 28th and Roberge 34th.  In the women’s 500, Rempel was 12th, Weger 15th, Krisy Myers of Lloydminster, Sask., 18th and Hughes 19th. In the women’s 100, Weger was 13th, Rempel 15th and Myers 19th.

Klassen wins Lou Marsh Award
CBC Sports

Long-track speed skater Cindy Klassen, who set a Canadian record with five medals at the Torino Olympics, was named the winner of the Lou Marsh Award on Monday.

The award is given annually to Canada's outstanding athlete by the Toronto Star and is named after the newspaper's former sports editor. The winner is chosen by a panel of sports editors and broadcasters. "It's such a huge honour and a very special way to end the year off," Klassen told CBC Newsworld on Monday afternoon.

The 27-year-old from Winnipeg is the country's most decorated Olympian, with six career medals. She set a Canadian record at the Games in Italy in February, when she won gold in the 1,500 metres, silver in the 1,000 and team pursuit and bronze in the 3,000 and 5,000.

Her five-medal haul marked the highest total by a female speed skater, surpassing the four gold medals won by Lidiya Skoblikova of Russia at the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games.

Calgary’s Grant Golding wins men’s all around title at Elite Canada.

CALGARY- Grant Golding of Calgary completed his domination in the men’s all around event on Saturday at the men’s Elite Canada gymnastics competition.

Golding, a member of Canada’s best-ever sixth place team at the world championships in October, totalled 182.350 points over two days for the gold with Ken Ikeda of Abbotsford B.C., second at 174.450 and Luke Boyd of Calgary third at 173.950. Devon Sidwell of Calgary was fourth at 167.800, Alexander Jeltkov of Montreal fifth at 167.500 and Peter Andersen of Surrey, B.C., sixth at 166.800.

‘’The hard work and hard training has really paid off,’’ said Golding.  ‘’It really feels good to come to this meet and hit all my routines.  It gives me a lot of confidence for next year which is a big one for us with the worlds serving as an Olympic qualifier.   All the guys know we have to keep working hard.’’

Canada’s Pain, Kelly reach podium in World Cup skeleton event.
CP Wire

PARK CITY, Utah (CP-AP) _ Jeff Pain of Calgary raced to a silver medal while Michelle Kelly of Grand Prairie, Alta., won bronze at a World Cup skeleton event Thursday.

American sliders swept the gold medals on home ice, with Zach Lund edging Pain by 0.16 seconds in the two runs at Utah Olympic Park to win the men’s race while Russia’s Alexander Tretiakov took third.

Katie Uhlaender collected her second gold in as many weeks, winning the women’s race. Maya Pedersen of Switzerland was second. Kelly took the bronze, leading a group of four Canadian women that finished in the top-10.

Calgary’s Lindsay Alcock was fourth, while Carla Pavan of Lethbridge, Alta., finished seventh and Amy Gough of Abbotsford, B.C., was 10th.

Canada takes bronze and fourth in bobsled.
CBC.CA News

Canadians Helen Upperton and Jennifer Ciochetti finished a solid third in a World Cup women’s bobsled race Friday but couldn’t match American Shauna Rohbock, who is excelling in the driver’s seat.

Evgeni Popov led Russia to a convincing victory in Saturday’s four-man bobsleigh race in Park City, Utah, while Canada’s Pierre Lueders piloted his team to a fourth-place finish. The victory gave Popov his first gold medal in a World Cup event. He placed second in last week’s season-opening competition in Calgary.

Edmonton’s Lueders and his team of Ken Kotyk of Rama, Sask., Lascelles Brown of Calgary and David Bissett of Edmonton - which finished third in Calgary -was 0.54 seconds behind Popov’s crew on Saturday.

Lauscher sets Canadian mark in luge.
CBC Sports

Regan Lauscher was disappointed Friday, despite posting a Canadian track record and placing fourth at a World Cup luge event. “Fourth is good, but I know I can get back onto the podium,” she said after recording a two-run time of one minute, 34.329 seconds on Calgary’s Olympic Track.

”The track record is definitely bittersweet,” Lauscher said. “Calgary is a track that I expect to do well on, and it is one track in the world I know as well as anyone so, I have to expect a lot from myself here.” The native of Red Deer, Alta., entered the record books with an opening run of 47.005 seconds.

Lauscher was poised for a fifth-place finish until Germany’s Sylke Otto, the first run leader, nearly crashed mid-way down her second run and fell well off the leading mark. Otto’s mishap moved Lauscher into fourth place in the final standings. “You don’t like to see that happen to one of your competitors, but it is good to move up the standings a bit despite my performance,” said Lauscher.

German sliders finished 1-2-3.

Canada’s Jeff Christie saved his best for last, putting down the fastest run ever on his home track, en route to a sixth-place finish in men's singles.

The 23-year-old Calgarian, who was sitting in 11th spot after the first run, posted a lightning quick time to move him up to 6th. “That was the best run I’ve ever had on this track, and I will take so much away from this,” said Christie.

“This was by far the closest race I’ve been a part of on the World Cup,” said Christie. “So many guys were so close to the lead. It shows how strong the field is, and I have a lot of confidence now heading to Japan knowing I can compete with the best.”

Three other Canadians were also in the field on Saturday afternoon. Calgary’s Matt McMurray finished 22nd, Olympians Sam Edney, of Calgary, finished 29th, while Ian Cockerline, also of Calgary, who put down a great first run, crashed mid-way down the track during the second heat, and settled for 31st after he was able to flip back onto his sled.

In men’s doubles action, bBrothers Chris and Mike Moffat of Calgary finished in 11th spot. Grant Albrecht of Red Deer and Eric Pothier, of Airdrie, Alta., was the only other Canadian sled entered in the race, and finished in 14th spot.

Olympic couple playing it cool: GLOBAL WARMING: Renner, Gandi urge others to go carbon neutral.
The Vancouver Province

Two weeks ago in Finland, Canada’s cross country skiers were racing in the pouring rain ... on a course that was less than 100 kilometres from the Arctic Circle. That’s right. Rain. In November. On the edge of the Arctic Circle.

Alpine skiing’s World Cup opener at Soelden, Austria, had to be cancelled due to rain and warm weather. The race is held in late October on a glacier at more than 3,000-metres. World Cup events are being cancelled all over Europe.

Global warming is a hot topic. And Canadian Olympic couple Sara Renner and Thomas Grandi of Canmore, Alta., are doing something about it. In conjunction with the David Suzuki Foundation, Renner, a 2006 Olympic silver medallist in cross country skiing and Grandi, a national alpine team veteran, are enlisting Canadian athletes for a program called ‘Play it Cool.’

The program asks athletes -- 21 Canadians have signed on—to go carbon neutral. They’ll determine how much carbon they use during their season and then purchase ‘carbon off-sets,’ a kind of voluntary tax that distributes money to environmentally-friendly projects.

“Over the years I’ve seen winter change in a lot of ways,” says a concerned Grandi. “I’ve seen the decline in the amount of snow and the warmer temperatures. Sara and I have decided to do something about it. “As athletes we’re role models and we feel it’s our moral responsibility to take some action and lead by example.”

Grandi and Renner will donate half their World Cup earnings to the Suzuki Foundation. Grandi asked the Foundation to calculate how much carbon he uses while flying and driving around the World Cup circuit. He then bought $535 worth of carbon off-sets. They’ve challenged Canadian and other athletes to make a similar economic commitment.

“We both feel that if we don’t stand for something we stand for nothing,” says Renner, who is sitting out this season to have the couple’s first child. “We’re still flying in the air but we’re taking responsibility and investing in things that will help.”

Arthur De Jong, the mountain planning and resource manager for Whistler-Blackcomb, applauds their efforts.“They (athletes) are societal influencers and we need every influencer we can on board to change the direction of the way we live,” says De Jong. “Our Canadian athletes are getting the climate change agenda at a level where it needs to be.”

Whistler has plenty of snow. But the company has, for decades, been acutely aware of the warming trend and has been preparing for the day when they’ll have less snow at the bottom of the mountain. More runs are being built well above the tree line and $25 million has been spent on snow-making systems over the past two years. In the offseason, rocks are being removed so less snow will be required to make ski runs.

“We’d rather not have to deal with climate change but it has been on our strategic operating plans for a long, long time,” says De Jong. “The glaciers have been telling us for years that it (global warming) is here.”

Meanwhile, the world’s athletes continue to slog around soggy Europe. “I’ve seen it bad before but not like this,” says national cross-country team head coach Dave Wood, whose skiers have been doing a lot of roller skiing. “It would appear to be getting worse. To race at plus-6 (degrees) in rain at not more than 50 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle ... the weather is certainly different.”

Kocher 6th in biathlon World Cup.
CBC.CA News

Canadian Zina Kocher skied her strongest sprint race of the season Friday to place sixth at the biathlon World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. She missed once on the range to finish slightly more than a minute behind winner Andrea Henkel of Germany.

“I skied really well today, and if I would have struck clean on the range, I think I would have been on the podium,” said Kocher, a native of Red Deer, Alta. “Winning the bronze medal a few weeks ago has given me the confidence I needed to know that I can be in the top 10 consistently and start to be a medal threat.”

Ottawa’s Robin Clegg and Calgary’s Sandra Keith posted their best finishes of the season, placing 27th and 37th in their races Friday. Other Canadian results: Marie-Pierre Parent of St-Paul de Joliette, Que., (70th); David Leoni, of Camrose, Alta. (55th) and Jean Phillippe Leguellec, of Shannon, Que., (100th).
The men’s and women’s pursuit races are scheduled for Sunday.

Malar feels better about post-swimming health.
The Toronto Sun

For seven years, three-time Olympic swimmer Joanne Malar “felt like crap,” suffering stomach aches, digestive problems and bloating, but could never figure out why. Doctors either said she looked fine or suggested medication which, as a high-performance athlete, Malar wasn’t interested in.

It was only after Malar retired from swimming and consulted a holistic nutritionist and naturopath that she learned the cause of her condition—sensitivity to dairy and wheat—and how to treat it. “After three months, I felt so good, that’s when I made my comeback,” said Malar, who enrolled at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition while training for the 2004 Olympics. “As swimmers, we can just eat tons, (but) I wasn’t eating the greatest foods. I wish I had known everything for the past 15 years that I knew by the end of my career.”

Now done with swimming, Malar is sharing the wealth of health knowledge she has acquired, working as a registered holistic nutritionist. She has teamed up with the Regent Health Centre in her home town of Hamilton, opening her own business called La Sante Life.

In just a month and a half of seeing clients, Malar has already helped swimmers and non-athletes improve headaches, acne, chronic fatigue, and recovery from heavy swim training that can total four hours a day. “The problem is most people don’t know what to do, or avoid, or try to eat,” Malar said. “They’re really eager to learn and avoid fad diets. Probably the biggest problem with people is they are taking digestive aids.”

Other substances such as aspartame, monosodium glutamate and BHT—which is added to breakfast cereals to maintain freshness—can be toxic in high amounts, Malar noted. “By empowering people with knowledge, at least they can choose,” said Malar. “A lot of people don’t realize that headache is from what they ate.”
For more information visit www.joannemalar.com.

New Podium Canada body created.
JAMES CHRISTIE Globe and Mail Update

Roger Jackson, 1964 Olympic gold medalist in rowing, has been given extended duties as chief executive officer of Podium Canada, a new umbrella body that takes in the strategies to get more medals at both Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

The new layer of organization, to be called Podium Canada, was launched Friday by Sport Minister Michael Chong, the Vancouver 2010 Organizing Committee (VANOC), the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees.

The move is a combination of housekeeping and Big Brother tactic by the bodies financing sport. Podium Canada will be monitoring results and looking for top results that live up to the high-performance mandate.

Jackson, former chief of Sports Canada, was already the head of the Own the Podium 2010 winter sport stream, which is aimed at making Canada the top medal-winning nation at the 2010 Olympics. Alex Baumann, 1984 Olympic double gold medal swimmer and double world record setter, heads up the Road to Excellence summer sport stream.

Chong said in a statement that gathering the two medal-winning initiatives under the same roof “demonstrates collective commitment to reach common performance targets” shared by the feds, provinces, territories, national sport bodies and Olympic and Paralympic organizations.

Podium Canada’s role, as an advisory body, will be to make funding recommendations based on expert analysis and to help the national sport federations to implement technical programs.

Podium Canada takes on the roles and responsibilities of the Canadian Sport Review Panel, which currently makes recommendations to national funding partners on where and how dollars are spent in high performance.

Chris Rudge, chief executive officer of the COC, said the bundling of the programs “will provide unparalleled technical expertise to support Canada’s athletes and coaches.”Brian MacPherson, chief operating officer of the Canadian Paralympic Committee, lauded the chance to pool resources and share information between summer and winter programs, for able-bodied and disabled athletes.

Podium Canada will not make binding funding decisions, the government’s statement said. It will make recommendations to the funding partners on close to $40 million in existing funding from government and non-government sources to support winter and summer sport excellence in Olympic and Paralympic sports.

Omischl wins World Cup aerials.
CBC.CA News

Canadian Steve Omischl used a more aggressive style to capture a World Cup freestyle skiing event Sunday in Jilin Beida Lake, China. Omischl, of North Bay, Ont., posted the opening round’s highest landings en route to a two-round score of 227.77.

Omischl, who finished fifth on Saturday following stumbles on both jumps, had a clean performance in the two rounds Sunday. “I wanted to be as aggressive as I can and I was exactly that,” explained Omischl, 28. “I was a bit more intense before my competition. My speed was off a little bit and landed before I wanted to, but I had good landings.”

Omischl’s win comes on the heels of Jeff Bean’s third-place finish on Saturday. The victory also earned Omischl the yellow bib, signifying the leader of the overall aerials standings. “I’m definitely satisfied with both competitions, and I’m happy to build on that,” said Omischl, who was hampered last season by an injured heel.

The injury also affected Omischl’s performance at the Torino Winter Olympics as he failed to advance past the preliminary jumps.

Spero’s fourth-place was satisfying to the Albertan, considering the soreness athletes feel with the event’s flatter landing area compared to the courses in Europe and North America. “This is a difficult event to get up for. Everyone’s beat up,” Spero said.

There were no Canadians entered in the women’s competition.