Beckie Scott adds title of mom to her accomplishments.

The Edmonton Journal - Canada’s cross-country ski queen, Beckie Scott, has added the title of mom to her list of accomplishments.

The two-time Olympic medallist from Vermilion, along with husband Justin Wadsworth, a three-time Olympic cross-country skier for the United States, welcomed Teo Jacob Wadsworth to the world on Sept. 16 at Banff Mineral Springs Hospital. He weighed eight pounds, five ounces.

“Standing on the Olympic podium is an incredible experience that I will never forget, but the day Justin and I finally got to meet and hold Teo for the first time was absolutely hands down, the best day of our lives,” said Scott.

Scott, 33, retired from competitive skiing nearly two years ago. During her record-breaking career she had four World Cup victories, won 15 World Cup medals and two Olympic medals—a gold in the five-kilometre pursuit race at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and a silver medal in the team sprint event in 2006 in Turin, Italy.

Scott will continue her role as a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission, a position she has held since the 2006 Games when elected to an eight-year term.

Wadsworth will resume his coaching role with the U.S. cross-country ski team in October, something he may be having mixed feelings about. “Being a ski coach and a father won’t be the easiest combination, but the current coaching structure of the U.S. ski team allows us to have good quality home time between trips which I’m really excited for,” said Wadsworth. “The first week of being a daddy has been absolutely awesome and I know it is only going to get better. We are both so excited.”

News of Scott’s new addition comes only a few months after her longtime teammate Sara Renner of Canmore gave birth to her first child, a baby girl. After taking the last year off, Renner is now training with an eye to returning to the World Cup circuit this winter.

“Sara and I ended up delivering the babies with the same doctor, in the same hospital, only eight months apart, so it is getting more difficult to convince people we don’t do everything together,” joked Scott. “Sara’s baby, Aria, was one of Teo’s first visitors. It has been great to have Sara around to turn to, and ask questions about being a mom. It really has been a special experience to both become mothers in the same year.”

2007 AthletesCAN Leadership Award presented to Bobby Milroy.

WHITEHORSE – AthletesCAN and the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) are pleased to announce that Badminton Player Bobby Milroy is the recipient of the third annual AthletesCAN Leadership Award.

The award, sponsored for the first time by the COC, was presented Friday at AthletesCAN’s 15th Athletes Forum in Whitehorse, Yukon. The AthletesCAN Leadership Award recognizes the contributions of Canadian athlete leaders and celebrates the importance of athlete representatives and the successes they have achieved through their work as leaders and change agents. Bobby’s leadership efforts have led to positive changes to the sport of Badminton throughout the world.

“I have always been inspired by not only Canada’s great athletes, but also the athlete leaders who give hope and direction at all levels of sport,” says Milroy, 28, of Calgary. “In aspiring to the examples of athlete leaders before me, I have seen a strength within Canadian athletes that I believe will be the foundation for a great sporting future. It is with sincerity and pride that I thank AthletesCAN and the COC for this award and for recognizing my efforts.”

“Bobby embodies all the values that the AthletesCAN Leadership Award stands for,” says AthletesCAN President Claire Carver-Dias. “He is an excellent example of the impact athletes can have on their fellow athletes, their sport and the sport system when they reach beyond training and competition. I look forward to seeing what great things Bobby accomplishes in the future.”

The AthletesCAN Leadership Award was created in 2005 and is presented annually to a national team athlete or former national team athlete who has made a significant contribution to sport and athletes through their involvement as an effective athlete leader, advocate, or as a builder of bridges for athletes within their sport community.

The 2006 AthletesCAN Leadership Award was presented to Beckie Scott. Lori Johnstone and Lilo Ljubisic received the inaugural award in 2005.

AthletesCAN is the collective voice of Canadian national team athletes. Established in 1992, AthletesCAN provides programs of leadership, advocacy and education to ensure a fair, responsive and supportive sport system for athletes.

The Forum is AthletesCAN’s flagship event. Hosted annually, it is the largest and most inclusive gathering of Canada’s national team athlete representatives outside of competition. Over 100 delegates, including athlete representatives from over 40 sports participate in the weekend long conference. The Forum provides the opportunity to bring together Canada’s high performance athletes to network with others, share ideas, learn about the sport system and develop leadership skills.

Coaches of Canada Announces its 2007 Award Winners.

OTTAWA, October 1, 2007 - Coaches of Canada today announced the 2007 winners of its two national awards - the Jack Donohue Coach of the Year Award and the Sheila Robertson Award. Both awards will be presented during Petro-Canada Sport Leadership sportif, scheduled to take place in Halifax, October 12-14, 2007. The Sport Leadership Awards Ceremony will take place on Friday, October 12, 2007, at 7:00 p.m. at the Cunard Centre.

The Jack Donohue Award recognizes a coach’s dedication to the profession and the outstanding performances of his or her athletes during the past competitive season. The legendary basketball coach for whom the award is named was a towering figure in Canadian sport who taught his athletes to value life and to learn from each and every experience.

The 2007 winner of the Jack Donohue Award is alpine ski coach Paul Kristofic, ChPC, of Toronto. In only his first season as head coach of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team’s men’s program, Kristofic led his skiers to 12 podium performances, a result not seen since the heady days of the Crazy Canucks. Highlights include downhiller Jan Hudec’s silver medal at the 2007 world championships; Erik Guay’s five podium performances, consisting of his first-ever win and two second- and third-place finishes; John Kucera winning a Super-G at Lake Louise and recording a third-place finish; Manuel Osborne-Paradis capturing a second and third; and Michael Janyk recording a strong second-place finish, his first World Cup podium performance.

“Such consistent results don’t come by chance, but instead are a reflection of Paul’s commitment to state-of-the-art coaching, employing the latest technology, studying the latest coaching trends, designing athlete-specific training methods, paying strict attention to detail, and exemplifying the fair play philosophy and treating each athlete with respect and as equals,” says Ozzie Sawicki of Cochrane, Atla., vice president of Coaches of Canada. “Paul embodies Jack’s characteristics and is a most deserving recipient of this award.”

The Sheila Robertson Award, inaugurated in 2005, is named in honour of the founding editor of Coaches Report magazine. The award recognizes a national sport organization that demonstrates a consistent approach to valuing and recognizing the role of the coach within the organization, with the media, and with the public.

The 2007 winner is Skate Canada. “Skate Canada met our criteria to the letter,” says Gail Donohue of Vancouver, a member of the Coaches of Canada board of directors. “Coaches serve on its board of directors and as members of many committees. It promotes and recognizes its coaches internally, through its web site, publications, and annual awards, and externally on many levels and through various media.”

Upcoming Sport Presentations at Mt. Royal College.

a) Ian Bird from Sport Matters (www.sportmatters.ca) will be speaking in the Jenkins Theatre on Wed., Octo 17th at 2:00. This is open to the public. Ian will be addressing two topics:

- Given that Alberta is leading Canada, with economic and political hegemony expected for at least the next 3-5 years, how is sport maximizing this opportunity?

- Sport Matters Group has recently argued that sport in Canada is moving – or ought to be moving – towards a new economics. How can we work together to create a new economics that generates new forms of capital, strengthened partnerships with corporate Canada, and supply side economic policy frameworks that assist organizations and leaders in achieving financial growth.

b) Panel Presentation on Media and Sport, Wednesday, October 31st from 2:00-3:30 pm. The panel will be open to the public with the following panelists already confirmed:

Jermaine Franklin from TSN, Bruce Dowbiggin from the Calgary Herald, Jock Wilson from QR77, Eric Francis from the Calgary Sun and Jack FM, Chris Dornan from CODA and Joslin Green, Publisher of Player Magazine.

Potential Questions could include:
- Is there a potential of social networking websites to take value out of sports?
- How do changing tastes and media consumption habits impact the audience for sport and, consequently, the business models and revenue streams of media and marketing organisations?
- How does the emergence of sites including YouTube where the users  by-pass the established sports media value chain by posting content which can be viewed free by audiences anywhere in the world have an impact?
- Can can sport retain and build its value and relevance as content in a digital media world?
- How will developing technologies impact business models and advertising opportunities around sport?
- Who will hold the balance of power in sports media?
- What’s the role of public broadcasters in the future of sport?
-  Is new media a lifeline or concrete boots for ‘minority’ sports?
- Will new media mean new competition and further inflation in sports rights fees?
- How has the industry evolved and changed; what are the pros and cons?

c) Dr. Steve Norris from the Canadian Sport Centre Calgary will talk about the Long Term Athlete Development on Monday, Oct 22, 2:00 pm in the Jenkins Theatre.

Ahead of 2008 Olympics, Beijing says goodbye to “Chinglish”.

BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- With the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games just around the corner, the Chinese are waging a war on baffling English translations popularly known as “Chinglish” as part of the capital city’s facelift.

A sign warning of a wet floor in a Beijing shopping mall was translated as “The Slippery Are Very Crafty”, and a theme park dedicated to China’s ethnic minorities had been called “Racist Park.” “Some of the translations are confusing or even offensive to foreign visitors,” said Chen Lin, a consultant with the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program. “As Beijing is developing to an international metropolis, we must change this situation.”

The Beijing municipal government launched a campaign in 2002 to clean up such mistranslations and Chen, a retired language professor at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, is at the vanguard of the “English police” enlisted by city officials to correct these bewildering items.

Hotlines have also been set up for citizens who spot an English-language- related mistake on a public sign to call and notify the authorities. According to Liu Yang, head of the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program, they have worked out 6,530 pieces of “standard” English translations to substitute the Chinglish ones on signs around the city.“Our goal is to make Beijing free of Chinglish signs by the end of this year, “ Liu said.

Still, one area is very challenging to address - menus. Chen said that deciding how to translate Chinese dishes like “Pock-marked Grandma’s Tofu,” a spicy pork-and-tofu dish named after its creator, is extremely tricky. “We finally set a principle - translation of the names for dishes should be based on one of four categories: ingredients, cooking method, taste, or the name of a person or place,” he said.

While some of the many foreigners living in Beijing welcome the drive, some others regret losing a source of amusement. “Correcting them is really taking away one of the joys of China,” Oliver Lutz Radtke, a German free-lancer who once lived in Shanghai, wrote in his blog (www.chingligh.de) which is dedicated to photographs of “Chinglish” signs.

But Chen doesn’t share this sense of loss. “We don’t want anyone laughing at us,” he said. “Moreover, our work is aimed to help foreigners. After all, Chinese people don’t need English-language signs. “

Biathlon boosters aim to spread sport’s appeal.

The Calgary Herald - It may be the popping sound of the air rifles that gets people’s attention, or the long lines of kids and adults waiting for a turn, but everywhere the ABC Caravan goes, a crowd gathers.

The Alberta Biathlon Club Caravan is a 28-foot trailer designed to showcase the sport. It contains a mobile air rifle range, a display of biathlon history, Olympic games and Canadian athletes in action, as well as LCD screens and a sound system for a complete multimedia experience. “The Caravan is unique to Alberta,” says Airat Aitniakov, the club’s sport development manager. “It has been in operation for 2 ½ years now and has been very well-received at community events, ski shows and competitions around the province.”

But not in schools. “Schools in the major metropolitan centres are very reluctant to have us promote the sport to their students,” says Aitniakov, who admits that it is difficult to separate the sport from the issue of guns in school settings.
Winter biathlon is listed among 30 other sports prohibited by Calgary Board of Education policy, confirms Ted Flitton, CBE spokesman. The Calgary Catholic School District also prohibits the on- or off-site pursuit of biathlon in any co- or extra-curricular activities. The policy stipulates the use of live ammunition, says CSSD spokeswoman Tania Younker, “but really, the connotation of guns, even air rifles, within the school is simply not acceptable.”

In smaller, rural schools, the Caravan is welcomed and is easily the most popular activity around. “These small communities are very keen on cross-country skiing, and adding rifles is not foreign to them. I don’t have to show them how to shoot the air rifle.”

The Alberta Biathlon Club is focused on introducing kids to the sport and recruiting new members. “We struggle to attract young girls to the sport, but once they start, they generally stay longer than the boys do,” says Aitniakov, adding that Alberta has one of the strongest women’s biathlon teams in the country. Zena Koher, 23, from Red Deer captured the bronze medal in the 2006-07 World Cup event.

From his experience, Aitniakov finds kids are usually pretty good at the sport, especially the girls, who tend to outshoot the boys. “It may be simple physics, body balance, mental sharpness, better recovery . . . it’s hard to say. But this has been noticed by many besides me,” he says.

Biathlon combines two contradictory disciplines that challenge the athlete. Skiing fast on a course will raise the athlete’s heart rate to between 150 and 180 beats per minute, but she must come into the rifle range prepared to slow that rate and balance her breath in order to shoot clean, hitting five targets with five shots from her 22-calibre rifle. Skiing with a rifle on her back and shooting in both prone and standing positions add to the difficulty. Extra distance or minutes are added for each target missed in the range.

It is an exciting sport for both recreational and competitive athletes and spectators. “It’s huge in Europe, the No. 1 event to watch on television or live,” says Aitniakov, who grew up in Siberia, Russia, where he competed in cross-country skiing.

Equally exciting and gaining in popularity worldwide is summer biathlon. Here the athletes run a course and arrive at the shooting range where rifles await them. This variation of the sport has taken hold in Europe and in countries without snow.

The Alberta Biathlon Club is holding a Summer Biathlon Race on Oct. 20 at Canada Olympic Park. “It’s a citizen’s race, meaning it is an open event,” explains Aitniakov. The race is in a relay format with teams of three competing in kids, corporate and open categories. Competitors must run between two and three kilometres and shoot twice, using air rifles that will be provided at the range. Registration is at 10 a.m. and races begin at noon.

For more information about the Summer Biathlon Race or the Alberta Biathlon Club, visit www.albertabiathlon.com or call 399-7605.

Web portal links students with Vancouver Olympic Games material.

The Vancouver Sun - Victoria’s Deanna Binder gazed up at the flashy new Olympic web portal displayed on the screen at the front of the room and nodded in approval. “This is the next generation,” Binder said Tuesday.

Twenty years ago, Binder was breaking new Olympic ground herself as the supervisor for the youth education program with the 1988 Calgary Games. She spearheaded an effort that resulted in every elementary school in Canada receiving a binder of learning materials that tied together curriculum and the Olympics for kindergarten to Grade 6 students.

But those were pre-Internet days. Tuesday at the Delta Ocean Pointe hotel in Victoria, Binder could only marvel at the unveiling of an “online education portal” for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

The website with the address www.vancouver2010.com/edu, nicknamed “slash-edu” by organizers, features a bilingual e-magazine that will include monthly cover stories, interviews with athletes, Vancouver 2010 press releases and updates and links to resource sites. Those sites include the Canadian and International Olympic and Paralympic Committees and the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Games.

The portal features a teachers’ section to share lesson ideas and best practices related to the “three pillars” of the Olympic movement—sport, culture and sustainability. That online forum will be operational in November. It also includes a section where schools can post projects and Olympics-related events, and one where students can “share their dreams and passion.”

Vanoc executive vice-president Terry Wright said the portal builds on the organizing committee’s commitment to “make Vancouver 2010 Canada’s Games.”
Canada has been a leader in this area since the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal featured the first education program tied to the Olympic movement. The Calgary Games in 1988 were the first to deliver an education program that supported core curriculum in the host country’s schools.

Following next year’s Beijing Summer Games, the website will be expanded worldwide. “A great legacy of our Games would be inspiring children to pursue their dreams, to seek their own podium,” Wright said.

B.C. Education Minister Shirley Bond said the portal will allow classrooms, schools and teachers from across Canada to connect with each other “to talk about striving for excellence.”

Vanoc director of education programs Don Black said the school section will enable Canadian teachers and students to showcase the positive things they are doing, even if they don’t seem obviously tied to the Olympics.

For example, a class or school working to clean up a local creekbed could post a report on that project, he said. And schools are expected to heavily use this area to post their experiences as the Olympic torch relay winds through their communities. “At the end of the day, slash-edu is really about helping teachers engage their students and inspiring the students to be the best they can be,” Black said.