Canadian Sport Centre launches Fuel for Gold: first-ever premium nutrition program for Canada’s elite athletes.

Calgary, AB, Wednesday, August 22, 2007– The Canadian Sport Centre Calgary (CSCC) in partnership with the Alberta Beef, Egg, Turkey and Pork Producers announced Fuel for Gold, a new program commited to supporting Canada’s athletes with premium nutrition program.

The Fuel for Gold program has been implemented by the CSCC to improve the training environment of Canada’s top athletes and help them reach the podium on the international stage. Up until now, there has never been been a meal program in place anywhere in Canada like there are in competing countries. Through this program, elite athletes will now receive first-class and convenient nutrition specific to their performance needs without exceeding their budget.

“Having access daily to this program is going to give Canada’s athletes a 'nutritional' edge, and I commend the CSSC Calgary for setting this up,” said Kyle Shewfelt. “The Fuel for Gold chef is first-class and the athletes are excited to have the Alberta Beef, Egg, Turkey and Pork Producers involved because we know we will get meals that not only taste great but will also include the proper nutrition I need as an athlete.”

Fuel for Gold is a subsidized program designed by CSCC dietitians, strength and conditioning trainers, and prepared by local gourmet chef Aurelio Gualtieri with the assistance of Chartwells at the University of Calgary Dining Centre. The program will save the athletes valuable time, money and energy and be a big improvement to their day-to-day lives, allowing them to focus on training to be the best in the world.

Beijing-bound Olympians begin to emerge from the shadows.

Ron Scammell [ CanSport ] Less than a year away from the start of the Beijing Olympics, Canadian athletes are beginning to emerge from the nether world they inhabit in the years between the only Games that matter.

Most of the attention, however little, our Beijing-bound athletes have received so far has focused on holdover stories from the last Olympics three years ago in Athens.

Will Perdita redeem herself and claim the expected gold medal she ignominiously lost while crashing into a hurdle mere seconds into the women’s 100-metre final?
Can Canada’s once mighty swimming team reclaim some of its former luster? Can Alexandre Despatie step it up a notch and derail the Chinese juggernaut in diving?

Given the dearth of coverage of Canada’s Olympic athletes in the years between the big show, it comes as no surprise that we hear little if anything about the rising stars and new developments in our sport programs until the final weeks leading up to the start of the Games.

Among the many stories flying well under the radar since Athens has been the transformation of Canadian gymnastics from Olympic also-ran into one of our best bets for multiple medals in Beijing. Until Calgary’s Kyle Shewfelt hit the floor running, flipping and spinning to his landmark victory in Athens, Canada had never won an Olympic medal of any colour in artistic gymnastics.

Next summer our gymnasts should be heading to Beijing with no less than three solid medal contenders in Shewfelt, who will be attempting to become just the second gymnast in Olympic history to repeat as men’s floor champion, Edmonton’s Brandon O’Neill, a threat on both floor and vault, and Toronto’s Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, who changed the face of women’s gymnastics in Canada last fall with her breakthrough medal at the 2006 world championships.

Add trampoline gold medal favourite Karen Cockburn of Toronto to the mix and it’s clear Gymnastics Canada, which governs both the sports of trampoline and artistic championships, has something to smile about looking ahead to 2008.

Against formidable odds in one of the world’s most competitive sports, Canadian gymnasts have managed to push and shove their way to unprecedented heights as Shewfelt’s Olympic breakthrough had an immediate and powerful impact on both the men’s and women’s national teams.

With Shewfelt taking a year off after Athens, ONeill was quick to demonstrate the Canadian team had more than one trick up its sleeve, winning a silver medal at the 2005 world championships. A year later Hopfner-Hibbs took up the mantle for the women’s team with her bronze on beam at the 2006 worlds in Aarhus, Denmark. Although not in the same league as Shewfelt’s Olympic gold, Hibb’s accomplishment was another huge breakthrough for Canadian gymnastics, giving the women’s team its first medal winner at a world championship and its best-ever shot at the Olympic podium.

Meanwhile, the men’s squad at last year’s world’s, consisting of Shewfelt, O’Neill, David Kikuchi of Halifax,, Ken Ikeda of Abbotsford,B.C., Adam Wong, and Nathan Gafuik, both of Calgary soared to new heights in the team final boosting them ahead of the mighty Americans and within striking range of other traditional gymnastics powers like China, Russia, and Romania.

At the 2007 world championships next week in Stuttgart, Germany, Shewfelt and Hopfner-Hibbs will again lead the way primed and ready for the next crucial step on the road to Beijing.

A top-12 finish is needed to secure full-team berths for both men and women at the Olympics. Much will be also riding on the outcome of the individual event competitions at the final worlds before the Games.

How our gymnasts have come so far in such a short time is but one of the many made-in-Canada stories that make the journey to the top in any sport every bit as compelling as the crowning achievement of winning an Olympic medal.

Canada hopes to track down two medals; Perdita Felicien headlines team heavy on athletes headed to Beijing Olympics.

The Vancouver Sun - OSAKA, Japan—The road to the medals podium must always go through the final round of competition, a fact often overlooked by the casual observer and the quadrennial fan of Olympic sport.

Les Gramantik knows that once you’re in the final, almost anything can happen. And that’s the message the veteran head coach of Canada’s track and field team is sharing with his modest 27-member squad to the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, which began here today.

If Canada plans to end a two-Olympic track medal drought next summer in Beijing, its blueprints are on display this week. The emphasis is on quality rather than quantity; the goals of its focused athletes are not met simply by making the team.

The journey to China begins with a goal of winning two medals at this meet, which Athletics Canada expects can translate to two more in Beijing. The governing body has not specified colour of medals, nor who will be wearing them.

But clearly, Canadian track and field officials know the value of the podium—how it will broaden the base of its participation pyramid, attract corporate sponsors, instill a contagious confidence in its athletes. “I’d say that 75 to 80 per cent of the group you see here is our core group for Beijing,” Gramantik said on the eve of the biennial world championships.

This squad is headlined by Perdita Felicien, the 2003 world champion in the women’s 100-metre hurdles; Tyler Christopher, the 400-metre bronze medallist in 2005; and 400-metre hurdler Adam Kunkel, ranked fifth in the world this season.

But there is much more talent on a promisingly deep team, and whether it garners medals over the next nine days, the national program will use it as the bedrock on which to build.

Sprinter Donovan Bailey was the last Canadian to win an individual Olympic medal in track and field, winning 100-metre gold in world-record time at Atlanta in 1996. In Athens three summers ago, a greater percentage of Canadians than ever made finals.

But Gramantik has been around the sport long enough to know that statistics won’t buy shoelaces, much less the public’s interest. “We could put everybody in the finals, win nothing and we won’t look that good,” he said. “But if we put three into the finals and they all won medals, that would be awesome in the eyes of many. “If we never win anything, the public and our athletes won’t believe it can be done. We’ve set serious goals here, and for Beijing. “This is a deep, global sport with a very small margin of error.”

Self-imposed, tougher selection criteria have tightened the belt on Canada’s team size. “But it’s driven by people who are healthy and competitive, and they all think and hope they’re going to make the final,” Gramantik said. “There’s nobody who’s just happy to be on the team. Those days are gone.”

If Athletics Canada has set goals, so have its athletes. World track and field can be a lucrative business for those who have made it their life—that is, every Canadian here.

A medal finish in Osaka will earn between $20,000 and $60,000, depending on its hue, and that’s before sponsors and free-spending meet promoters come calling.
“It’s important for us as an association to see our athletes doing well,” Gramantik said. “It’s important for them individually. If we can match our goals, we’ll be happy. “If our athletes get the same performances here they got to come this far, they’ll probably all be in the finals. The sport is deep and difficult, but once you reach the top eight and line up with seven guys around you, anything can happen.”

The defining moment for Canada at this event could come Monday through Wednesday, when Felicien, Angela Whyte and Priscilla Lopes run the 100-metre hurdles. It’s not beyond reason that all three could make Wednesday’s final. Another near certainty for tonight’s shot-put final would seem to be Pan American Games champion Dylan Armstrong.

Sadly missed will be heptathlete Jessica Zelinka, ranked No. 4 in the world when she went down at Pan Ams with a ruptured plantar tendon—but not before running 800 metres on it to win the gold, one of six Canadian victories in Rio de Janeiro.

“I learned in Rio that putting people in a position to be successful, at any level, is a great thing,” Gramantik said of Canada’s strategy to often send second-tier athletes to Pan Ams. “Why shouldn’t we take our best to win? It wasn’t easy—easier than it will be here—but six Canadians heard the national anthem and gained from that.”

On a vastly more competitive stage in Osaka, the task is far greater still. But even as they trained this week, you could see a poise that’s not always been evident. This group of Canadian athletes is running toward the challenge, not away from it.

New mom Renner getting back up to speed; Turin Olympics medallist mixes motherhood and training as she finds her ski legs again.

The Edmonton Journal - CALGARY - No one would have been surprised if Sara Renner had arrived at the delivery room on a pair of skis. Although the three-time Olympic cross-country skier put her World Cup training routine on hold while she was pregnant, there was still no chance of keeping her off the trails.

“I skied the day before she was born,” the 31-year-old said of her daughter Aria, who was born Feb. 1. “Skiing was a good complement to the waddle. It was really uncomfortable to walk, but to ski ... I was so glad I was pregnant in the winter.”

Renner, who is married to alpine skier Thomas Grandi, won a silver medal in the sprint relay at the 2006 Turin Olympics with longtime buddy and training partner Beckie Scott. She also finished 10th overall on the Nordic World Cup circuit in 2005-06.

The Canmore resident took last season off to start a family with Grandi, a 14-year veteran of the national alpine team who retired from competition at the end of March. Cutting back on her demanding training regimen during pregnancy—before Turin, she was doing up to 30 hours a week—made her a popular target on the trails. “I went out (skiing) with my friends and it was great because normally they can’t keep up to me,” said Renner with a chuckle. “For the first time in their lives, they were leaving me behind, so they were happy. I was definitely a marked target at the (Canmore) Nordic Centre all winter because there were tons of people that wanted to dust an Olympic medallist. “Which they did.”

Renner’s next big target is the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler. She resumed training in May with a little help from Grandi, who, in Renner’s words, turned into “Mr. Mom” to give her time to work out. But she still schedules her workouts around Aria and is trying to be patient with herself as she battles to regain fitness.

“I knew that to have a family, it would be better to have it as early as possible,” said Renner. “I definitely knew it would be easier to come back if I had more time, but at the same time you can’t rush these kinds of things, either. “You know, I’m never going to have a young baby again and I really want to enjoy it and make sure that I have energy for that. Vancouver is three years away, so I have time. “I know I have some time to be in my best shape. I won’t be in my best shape this year, but it will come.”

Renner’s current schedule involves up to 20 hours of solo dryland training—twice a day for five days. She also roller-skis sporadically with the women’s national ski team.

But thanks to some wise words from a few mother hens who have been there and done that, she doesn’t feel any pressure to make a quick comeback.“There’s quite a few women who’ve had babies who are cross-country skiers, so I had some great advice on not panicking and not rushing it,” said Renner. “It takes nine months for your body to (prepare for) a baby, so it’s going to take a while for your body to come back.

“My goal is to be in my very best form for Vancouver. It’s hard to say how long it’ll take, because I’ve never had a child. I definitely have a goal for the Vancouver Olympics and that’s to be a contender in all the events. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes me to get to that spot, but by Vancouver 2010 I hope to be a challenger in every event.”

Although Renner hasn’t started training full time with the national team, she’ll find her ski legs racing in Canada at the start of the season. She plans to return to the World Cup stage on Jan. 22 in Canmore and will then resume travelling on the 2007-08 international circuit with Grandi and Aria. “I’m really amazed at how quickly I’ve come back and how I’ve really almost reached my old training levels very easily,” she said. “I really enjoy my training because it’s a good break, but at the same time I can’t wait to get home. I have a focus in my day, and that’s sport when it has to be and then my family for the rest of the day. “I’ve really returned to my sport refreshed and full of energy. Having a child is such a great thing to come home to also.”

Renner’s Olympic pal Scott retired in April 2006. Scott is also due to give birth, in September, so before long they might be squeezing in skiing lessons together.
“People are always like, ‘Is (Aria) going to be an alpine skier or cross-country?’ I just hope we have fun together on skis as a family. “That’s pretty much my goal.