Canadian Sharp pins down wrestling bronze.

Erica Sharpe captured bronze Saturday at the world wrestling championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, while fellow Canadian Brittanee Laverdure just missed out on a medal of her own.

Sharpe, originally from Whitehorse now living and training in Calgary, defeated Tatyana Bakatyuk of Kazakhstan 1-0, 3-2 in one of the two bronze-medal matches in the women’s 51 kilogram freestyle division. Anne-Catherine Deluntsch of France won the other bronze. Hitomi Sakamoto of Japan beat Ren Xueceng of China 3-0, 2-0 in the gold-medal bout to claim her third consecutive world title.

Laverdure fell 1-0, 0-1, 6-1 to Dorj Narmandakh of Mongolia in a bronze-medal match in the 59 kg category. Nataliya Synyshyn of Ukraine also nabbed a bronze.

Canadian Carol Huynh lost in the bronze-medal bout of the women’s 48-kilogram class Friday while Russia capped its dominant performance in the men’s freestyle competition with two more golds.

Huynh, a native of Hazelton, B.C. who trains in Calgary, won a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Brazil in July. She lost 3-4, 4-1, 1-1 to Mayelis Caripa-Castillo of Venezuela in the bronze-medal match to end up in fifth spot.

Short Track World Cup Teams Finalized at National Team Selection.

CALGARY- Kalyna Roberge (Ste-Étienne-de-Lauzon, QC) and Charles Hamelin (Ste-Julie, QC) won the 1000m races to take the overall first ranks at the Short Track National Team Selection, and Speed Skating Canada has now announced the teams that will compete in the first World Cups of the season.

Roberge once again swept all three events this weekend, becoming the first ever Canadian women to win all 9 events in three National Team Selections in a row (NT 1 in Calgary, last fall, Canadian Championships in Sudbury, last winter, and this weekend in Calgary).

Even better, she broke the Canadian record in her semi-final race with a time of 1:29.870, skating lower than the World Record (1:30.037). Just like with Hamelin’s record yesterday, her record will only count as Canadian, as the event is not ISU-ratified so her time can’t become an official World Record.

The former Canadian record was 1:30.823 and it was that of Amanda Overland (Montréal, QC). Overland finished 2nd today, which gives her the fourth rank in the overall standings and a spot on the World Cup Team. Tania Vicent (Verchères, QC) was third, an excellent result for the skater who had no expectations coming into this weekend as this was her first competition in over a year. This third top-four finish of the weekend ensures her of a place for the World Cups as well.

In the men’s competition, the final was highly contested between Hamelin, Marc-André Monette (Pointe-aux-Trembles, QC), Rémi Beaulieu (Montreal) and Michael Gilday (Yellowknife, NT). Hamelin was first overall before the race so he was sure to make the World Cup team, but a win was needed from any other skater to qualify. It was a close race, with Monette trying to pass Hamelin at the finish, but he was 0.01 seconds too late and had to settle for 2nd. This places Monette in 5th place overall, so he will still have a chance to compete in the World Cups this Fall.

Following the end of the competition, Speed Skating Canada officially announced the teams that will take part in the first 4 World Cups of the season. On the men’s side, it will be Mathieu Giroux (Montréal, QC), Alex Boisvert-Lacroix (Sherbrooke, QC), Charles Hamelin, Steve Robillard (Montréal, QC), François-Louis Tremblay (Montréal, QC) and Marc-André Monette. Tremblay could not skate this weekend due to an injury, but he was granted a bye.

The women’s team for the first two World Cups (Harbin, Oct. 19-21 and Kobé, Oct. 26-28) is made of Kalyna Roberge, Anne Maltais (Québec, QC), Tania Vicent, Amanda Overland, Andréa Do-Duc (Montréal, QC) and Jessica Gregg (Edmonton, AB). Gregg will be replaced by Valérie Lambert (Sherbrooke, QC) for the 3rd and 4th World Cups (Heerenveen, Nov. 23-25 and Torino, Nov. 30 to Dec. 2).

Is Calgary an Ultimate Sports City?

Mount Royal’s Sport and Recreation Business and Entrepreneurship Program calls for Calgarians to tell SportBusiness.com why Calgary deserves to be considered one of the world’s Ultimate Sport Cities

Candidates announced for Ultimate Sports City 2008 Thu, 20/09/2007

A shortlist of 25 cities has been announced unveiling the contenders for the Ultimate Sports City 2008, to be published by SportBusiness early next year. The report was last published in 2006 when Melbourne was declared the winner, followed by Paris and Sydney, tied jointly in second place. Berlin, came fourth and London, fifth.

All the top five cities have made the cut again based on major sports events hosted or awarded between 2004-2012. Cities were also selected from each region of the globe. “The list is extremely interesting this time,” says Ultimate Sports City author Rachael Church-Sanders, a consultant at SportBusiness, “with some nations such as Australia, Canada, China, India and Spain having more than one representative within their regions, thus highlighting competition within countries for hosting major sporting events.”

Now the shortlist has been determined, each city will be analysed and graded according to a number of criteria in addition to numbers and importance of sports events including facilities, transport, accommodation, government support, marketing, weather, legacy, public sports interest, cost of living and quality of life. The 25 cities vying for the title of Ultimate Sports City 2008 are as follows (in alphabetical order):

Athens (new candidate)
Beijing (ranked 8th in 2006)
Berlin (ranked 4th in 2006)
Bridgetown (new candidate)
Budapest (new candidate)
Cape Town (ranked 10th in 2006)
Doha (new candidate)
Hong Kong (new candidate)
Istanbul (ranked 12th in 2006)
Kuala Lumpur (ranked 18th in 2006)
London (ranked 5th in 2006)
Los Angeles (new candidate)
Madrid (ranked 6th in 2006)
Melbourne (ranked 1st in 2006)
Montreal (new candidate)
Moscow (ranked 19th in 2006)
Mumbai (new candidate)
New Delhi (new candidate)
Paris (ranked 2nd in 2006)
Sao Paulo (new candidate)
Shanghai (new candidate)
Sydney (ranked 2nd in 2006)
Tokyo (ranked 9th in 2006)
Valencia (new candidate)
Vancouver (ranked 11th in 2006)

Readers or City representatives wishing to comment on the shortlist or contribute to the report can contact the author at rchurch@sportbusiness.com

Veteran producer to lead team designing Games ceremonies.

Times Colonist (Victoria) VANCOUVER—David Atkins, who produced some of the most memorable opening and closing ceremonies in Olympic history, has been given the job of crafting the B.C. Place ceremonies for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

Backing Atkins up is a stable of Canadian artistic and cultural luminaries whose stables of artists include the cream of Canadian talent, including Victoria native Nelly Furtado, Nanaimo native Diana Krall, Sarah McLachlan, Michael Bublé, Bryan Adams, Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell and Avril Lavigne, as well as U.S. country star Martina McBride.

Atkins, whose production of the 2000 Sydney Summer Games ceremonies is classed in the four top Olympic performances, was named yesterday as the executive producer of a 10-member team heavy with Canadian talent, including impresarios Sam Feldman, Bruce Allen, Nettwerk Records’ Dan Fraser and Jacques Lemay, the co-founder of the Canadian College of Performing Arts.

Vancouver-based Feldman and Allen alone account for a massive number of Canadian artists who may well be drafted to appear in the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as nightly victory ceremonies. “My artists have not been contacted yet, but I’ve been instructed to hold the date open,” Allen laughed.

Atkins’ company, David Atkins Enterprises, beat out a field of 15 other contenders to head the $40-million production. The combination of Canadian creative talent with Atkins’ experience at mounting major shows sets the stage for Vancouver to have one of the greatest Olympic experiences of all time, said Vanoc ceremonies vice-president Terry Wright.“What a great journey lies ahead for this team and this city,” he said.

There is a long way to go before Vanoc and Atkins’ team know who will be involved in putting on the 21/2-hour opening ceremony on Feb. 12, 2010, and the slightly shorter closing ceremony 17 days later.

Atkins and Wright said they haven’t yet created a list of Canadian talent they will want on stage, and will now begin a long process of determining what should be included in the events.

But Atkins said that shouldn’t pose a problem. “There’s no shortage of talent in Canada, in fact there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Canada’s resource of performers, artists and cultural practitioners. The ceremonies will profile and represent the best of these.”

He also pledged the ceremonies will be uniquely Canadian, saying a host country’s ceremonies must reflect all the things that make it special.

Fast & female; At just 23 years old, Olympic gold medallist Chandra Crawford is determined to give young girls a chance to blaze their own trails.

National Post - CANMORE, Alta. -At this stage of her career as an Olympic gold medallist, Chandra Crawford isn’t kidding herself. She knows she should probably just worry about her ski racing and recapturing her form of 2006, when she came from total obscurity to win a gold medal in the sprint event at the Turin Olympics.

She has a lifetime to empower the young girls of Canada, but at age 23 and coming off a brutal post-Olympic season, she might only have two Olympic Games left.

The problem is, this Canadian woman is as overburdened with energy as she is inherently impatient. She simply can’t wait another 10 years to start influencing a country that is following the United States down the french-fry path to obesity; a nation that, by this Alberta girl’s reckoning, “builds too many roads, and not enough trails.”

“There is a huge health issue in Canada. Everybody knows it,” she said. “A little bit of participation will go a long ways to prevent all these diseases that are just bogging down the health-care system. So, let’s do it. Something is holding us back.” What is it, she is asked, that is pulling Canadians towards the American weight problem? “I don’t know, but I’m going to change it,” she promises. “Interview me in 20 years. It won’t be there.”

That is something else you should know about Chandra Crawford: she is dangerously optimistic. Then again, she admits to flying to Turin as “Chawho?” in the minds of Canadians, before she came home with a gold medal after a stirring series of sprint races.

So perhaps 20 years from now, in Canadian homes where sport is present, hers will be a household name. And around that time, maybe at the 2030 Olympics, some young Canadian athlete will stand atop an Olympic podium, accept her medal, and then afterwards recount the story about how she skied with Crawford at a Fast and Female event in her hometown 15 years before, and was inspired to greatness.

“In the 2020s, everyone will know about Fast and Female,” Crawford says. “And they’ll say, “Wow, that was started by some little skiers in Canmore.’ It will be in schools. It will be a nation-wide wellness program. It will be my whole deal when I’m done skiing. I’d like to just be in the schools, all over Canada, making a difference.”

She is only slightly cocky, yet very confident. “And,” she’ll admit, she is a “shameless self-promoter.” It is one thing to talk about it, yet quite another to accomplish what Crawford has in the two years since she and a group of national B-team skiers identified a need for female role models in the nordic skiing community. Since that first event at Silverstar in Vernon, B.C., Crawford has taken the brand of Fast and Female to unbelievable heights.

The travelling Fast and Female event will debut in Ontario and Quebec this winter, giving young girls a chance to meet, ski and be inspired by Crawford and a national teammate. There is also a chance for parents to be enlightened on how to help their daughters make their way through a male-dominated sport. Soon, Fast and Female will have a component for coaches. “I was approached by a coach who said, ‘We need help. We don’t know what to do. The girls are crying. We’re saying toughen up. It’s not working. We’re part of the problem.’

So, as usual, Crawford plans on being part of the solution. “I don’t stew for very long, and I don’t worry much,” she said. “I usually just jump quite quickly to action. Dangerously so, sometimes. But this is something I cared about so much.”

In two years she has accrued an employee, some impressive names on her board of directors, a Web site, six figures worth of sponsors, and a smart, pink logo that’s plastered all over the little Toyota hybrid in which she scoots around Canmore.

When she speaks to girls, she tells them, “Be yourself. You can be girly and still absolutely charge on your skis. But what I emphasize is, charging on the skis directly translates into charging in life.” Then she tells them that she will be in Russia at the 2014 Olympics. And she expects to see a few of those girls competing there as well.

Crawford has been charging up and down the mountain almost since the day she was born in the old Canmore hospital, up on the mountain just above where the Canmore Nordic Centre sits today. The Crawfords will tell you that it is faster to ski home from the centre than to drive, a fact derived after years of racing their daughter home from skiing, the parents in the car and Chandra on skis.

The home where the Crawfords raised three kids is perched just a short mountain trail above the Bow River, which has always served as the family’s personal cold pool, and under the gaze of historic Ha Ling Peak. Chandra (pronounced CHON-dra), the eldest, was given a Sanskrit name meaning “of the moon” for the full moon she was born under in November, 1983.

Since, she has been orbited by friends. Crawford, her mother admits, has always been a collector of people. “As a family, we’ve always gathered up people,” Louise Crawford said. “When Chandra was younger and it was time for her birthday, we could never not invite some of the kids to the birthday party. Chandra would always say, ‘Well, we have to invite him, and her … ‘ So we’d invite the whole class.”

By the time Crawford reached high school, she had run every trail and skied to every back country lodge within a day trip of Canmore, which lies just outside the gates of Banff National Park. “She grew up skiing with her friends—always a pack of ‘em. All very strong, great athletes, intelligent … They weren’t the type to sit back and let the guys take charge,” said Jeff Howatt, a Canmore high school teacher who has known Crawford since she was in Grade 4. “What I like is I see her doing what she wants to do. Being who she wants to be. She’s presenting a lot of neat opportunities for a lot of young girls.”

His daughter is in jackrabbits, a nationwide program that introduces children to the cross-country discipline, and they skied at the last Fast and Female in Canmore with fellow Olympian Sara Renner and Crawford. “You see the kids—they’re just beaming,” he said. “Both of them, they give back without hesitation. To me, the measure of an athlete is, what’s their character? Chandra has character. So does Sara.”

Crawford’s motto for Fast and Female is twofold: “Spread the love; dominate the world.” She accomplished the latter in Turin. The former is well in the works.
Not bad, for 23 years old.