CANADIANS STORM ONTO PODIUM AT WORLD CUP SKELETON EVENT IN LAKE PLACID.

CODA - LAKE PLACID, NY—Canada racked up three more medals at the Viessmann Skeleton World Cup in Lake Placid, N.Y., on Friday, bringing the team’s season total to nine after the opening three races.

Michelle Kelly and Jon Montgomery slid to the podium for the third time in as many races, with each pocketing a silver medal. Carla Pavan grabbed her first bronze medal of the season, while Mellisa Hollingsworth narrowly missed grabbing a piece of the loot, and settled for fourth.

“Our team is awesome and just a great group of athletes that are all fired up, having fun and feeding off of each others energy,” said Michelle Kelly. “We are helping each other out to step our game up in training because we know our teammates will be pushing us every race. We are all competitive and I think this is what is putting us on the podium.”

Kelly’s teammate, Carla Pavan, was on pace to grab the second World Cup victory of her career when she set her first-ever track record on the first run. Known as an intense slider, the Lethbridge, Alta. native lost some time after a skid in her second run, which contributed to bumping her into the bronze-medal position.

Olympic bronze medallist, Mellisa Hollingsworth, of Eckville, Alta., nearly completed the podium sweep for the Canadian women, but settled for fourth spot.

On the men’s side of the draw, Jon Montgomery, of Russell, Man., continued his torrid start to the 2007-08 World Cup season. The 28-year-old, who has won back-to-back bronze medals in Calgary and Park City, won his first-ever silver medal on Friday.

“I am thrilled. I know that I am strongest on the North American tracks because that is where I have had my most run volume so I am very happy to be able to slide as well as I have,” said Montgomery, who is competing in his second full season on the World Cup. “I am looking forward to getting to Europe. The rest of the world doesn’t get to slide there lots either so with great coaching, I do think I can keep it going.”

Calgary’s Paul Boehm, who slid to his first World Cup victory two weeks ago in Calgary, settled for 11th spot, while Mike Douglas, of Toronto, finished 12th.

Lightning strikes twice for Brydon; Canadian takes super G silver.

The Globe and Mail - Alpine skier Emily Brydon has decided she very much likes the date: Dec. 16. And she has a soft spot for the course at St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Yesterday, the 27-year-old from Fernie, B.C., won the silver medal for the super giant slalom at the women's World Cup event in St. Moritz, seven years to the day she won her first World Cup medal. And that medal, the bronze in the downhill, was won on the same hill and on the same "hero snow," as she calls it.

St. Moritz definitely offers good karma for Brydon. Yesterday, conditions were ideal: the sky was blue, the snow was perfect and Brydon was living a dream after two strong downhill training runs earlier in the week. Brydon was only 0.04 seconds away from catching winner Anja Pearson of Sweden, but nevertheless, it was her best result yet at a World Cup event. She had earned four bronze medals in previous events. "I was kind of sick of getting thirds," she said. "I'm excited that I'm moving towards the top."

While Brydon was watching the others follow her, she didn't know how to judge their time splits. Her last split was her best. She made up seven-tenths of a second in her final time interval. "I had no idea how I was sitting," Brydon said. "When she [Pearson] got me by four-hundredths, it was, like, okay, wow. You can't even blink at four- hundredths."

Brydon's career has had many setbacks since she earned the gold medal in combined and the silver in slalom at the world junior championships in 2000. She tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee the next year, then six months later tore the ligament in her other knee. She's had to reflect a couple of times whether to continue in the sport.

Brydon now is ranked fourth in the world in super G and 19th overall. Brydon's silver was the fourth World Cup medal Canadian skiers have won this season, but the trend is opposite to last year, when Canadian men won 12 of the 14 medals. So far, Canadian women have earned three of the four medals. Alpine Canada Alpin has set a goal to win 14 World Cup medals again this season. "We decided to pick up the slack a little," Brydon said. "Now the men can chase us."

Yesterday, John Kucera of Calgary finished fourth in the giant slalom at Alta Badia, Italy, missing the podium by only .09 seconds. It was his best effort in a giant slalom in his career, topping his fifth-place finish last year on the same hill. Brydon said she gained great inspiration from Janyk's efforts earlier this year.

"We just build from it," she said. "It's kind of like the guys last year. I hope I'm coming into my own now. That's why I'm still here. I believe there's more out there for me."

GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE FOR CANADIAN TWO-MAN BOB TEAMS IN LAKE PLACID.

CODA - LAKE PLACID, NEW YORK—No stranger to the track or top of the podium in Lake Placid, Pierre Lueders and brakeman Lascelles Brown put together a win at the 2007-08 Viessmann FIBT World Cup Race.   Today’s win was the first for Leuders in the two-man this season.

“It was nice to be on top of the podium again,” said Lueders.  “We were very competitive at the start, Lascelles did an excellent job.  We had a few mistakes at the top in the second run but still good enough to win.”  Lueders owns both the push and track records at Lake Placid, achievements he set in 2003.

The two-time Olympic medallist from Edmonton held off Andre Lange of Germany by .13 seconds for the gold.  Lyndon Rush, of Humboldt, Sask., improved on his best World Cup finish in the Canada 2 sled today when he and brakeman, Dan Humphries, of Calgary finished up 8th.

Helen Upperton of Calgary continued on her hot streak of podium performances early this season, just missing the top position when she and brakeman Jennifer Ciochetti finished +0.10 behind German leaders Sandra Kiriasis and Romy Logsch. Upperton is currently second in the World Cup standings with 627 points behind Kiriasis with 650.

Making the podium for the first time was the second Canadian team of Kaillie Humphries from Calgary and Shelley-Ann Brown of Pickering, Ont. who posted a two-run total +0.43 seconds off the winning pace. “My brakeman pushed a start record today and for me, a rookie pilot, this was a very good podium win.  We put down two really good runs,” said Humphries.  “The support from family and friends and advice from Pierre has helped it all come together,”

A friend of Humphries once reminded her of the saying ‘winning is a habit’. “I believe that the more I can win, the easier it is and the more I will learn,” explains Humphries.  “And I have a great brakeman in Shelley.”

Canada concludes successful first half to long track speed skating World Cup season.

Canadian Sport News - ERFURT, Germany – Something unusual happened at the long track speed skating World Cup competition on Sunday.  Canada didn’t win a medal. But that didn’t damper an impressive first half to the 2007-08 season for the Canadians.

Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., and Cindy Klassen of Winnipeg were both edged out for a podium spot finishing fourth in their respective 1,000 metre races after medal performances at the distance on Saturday.  It was the last day of competition before the Christmas break and concludes three consecutive weekends of World Cup events in Europe.

There have been five World Cup competitions so far this season encompassing 13 days of racing.  Sunday was the first day a Canadian was not on the podium.  In all, Canada has collected nine gold, 15 silver and six bronze medals this season on the World Cup.

Davis still leads the 1,000 World Cup standings with 510 points followed by Morrison at 356.  Bos is third at 337.

Early success for Canada's Freestyle Team.

The Leader-Post (Regina) - Nine months have passed since they won freestyle moguls world championship titles, but Thursday, Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau of Drummondville, Que., and Kristi Richards of Summerland, B.C., made it seem like it was just a week ago.

That's because both wound up back on the podium at the World Cup opener in Tignes, France -- Rousseau, 28, winning a single moguls event for just the second time in his long career and Richards finishing third on the women's side.

"Oh, my God, it's like a dream for me," said Rousseau by cell phone from France. "I'm usually having success towards the end of the season for most of my years on the circuit. For me to start up with a win, it's totally crazy."

Richards, 26, was just as delighted to get her season off to a good start on a sunny, perfect-conditions day. "It gives me great confidence for the next few World Cups, and now I can just trust my training and my technique," Richards, who survived a case of falling pants in the morning qualification, said by e-mail. "I have had a history of starting off the season poorly, but I have broken that cycle now and I'm excited for the rest of the season."

"My morning got off to an interesting start as I forgot my belt for my ski pants," said Richards. "I skied my first warm-up run and my pants fell around my knees. Oops. Someone quickly fetched my belt from my hotel room before the competition started."

Alcock off to blazing start to skeleton season including her first win in four years in an international competition.

Cochrane Times - The start to Lindsay Alcock's skeleton season couldn't have been much better, with a gold and silver in her first two races.

The slider finished first in the opening race of the circuit in Cesana, Italy, on Dec. 2, which was her first win in four years in international competition. "It was quite a big deal to have that breakthrough," she said. "That alone was a personal victory for me."

The Intercontinental Cup is a new circuit started for bobsleigh and skeleton this year, and acts as a feeder circuit for the World Cup. She was especially pleased with the consistency of her runs, each a personal best on the track and within one one-hundredth of a second of each other. "It's so important to be consistent on both your runs. In the past on this track, including at the Olympics, I've had one fast and one slow run."

Alcock credited her work with a sport psychologist for helping her improve as an athlete, saying it's given her a better idea of what mind frame she needs to be in for a race.

She followed her win with a second-place finish at Konigssee, Germany, on Dec. 9. Alcock could get a boost to the World Cup circuit if one of the three Canadian racers falls below a top-eight ranking on the World Cup after a certain number of races, or if one suffers an injury. "The best thing I can do now is stay healthy and stay on the podium," she said.

With the strong performance of the Canadian women's skeleton team on the World Cup circuit so far, Alcock will likely remain on the ICC circuit through January and February as it comes through North America.

However, that competition from her countrywomen has also given her something to shoot for and compare herself against. "They're setting the standard, and you start to analyze what you've got in your own package that can make you that much better," she said.

Alcock next races on Saturday, Dec. 15 at Winterburg, Germany, then returns home for Christmas.

They're canadian now; Import coaches bring a lot to Canada's team, but there are also many cultural challenges they face.

The Vancouver Sun (Excerpt only) - With names like Kucera, Hudec, Janyk, Lustenberger and that diversity trifecta, Manuel Osborne-Paradis, on the Alpine Canada athlete roster, perhaps it's not surprising the coaching staff reads like a United Nations roll call.

In addition to a handful of Canadians, including Whistler's own Rob Boyd, there are a couple of Austrians, a Frenchman, an Italian, a Slovenian and a Yugoslavian by way of Park City, Utah.

Not to mention the two guys overseeing it all after crossing the Atlantic to coach and never going home -- Austrian Max Gartner, Alpine Canada's chief athletics officer and director, Own the Podium projects, and Slovenian Dusan Grasic, the ski team's alpine director.

"I came in 1995 as head coach of the B.C. Alpine team," says Grasic, who joined the national team in 2002 as a coach of the technical team. "Basically, my wife was on a maternity leave and we said 'Okay, one year, who cares. We will learn the language and go home. "It was rough the first couple of years ... but I'm Canadian now."

Hiring foreign coaches is by no means a new practice. A guy named Pepe Salvenmoser came over from Austria in the late 1950s to coach the Canadian women.

But the challenges are significant. Cultural adjustments must be made, not the least of which is accepting that skiing in Canada isn't quite the religion it is in Europe. And where coaches in Europe can often return or even live at home during the season, those who come to Canada are away from family for months at a time.

In addition to geographic and cultural challenges, the autocratic, hard-nosed approach of many European coaches, particularly of the often-exported Austrian coaches, doesn't always jibe with the sometimes laid-back approach of Canadian athletes.

In Austria, the athlete pool is incredibly deep, skiers are tested almost every day and a coach can ride his charges hard, knowing that when someone fails or is hurt, there is always another Fritz, Herman or Renate to fill the spot.

In Canada, they have to nurture, even pamper to some extent, and develop more cooperative approaches that rely on open dialogue and compromise. "If you don't have the depth that you need to be able to push hard, sometimes you have to accept that you have to do some compromises," says Lionel Finance of France, who is in his second season as head speed discipline coach for the men's team.

"I'm not saying we coddle our racers at all, but we have to nurture their talents because we don't have as many," says Paul Kristofic of Toronto, head coach of the men's team.

He says some of the European coaches might have come across as cold and unfeeling, but it was more a product of the system in which they grew up. "It's not that they care less about the racers," said Kristofic. "They're incredibly dedicated to their sport, as are Canadian coaches, but their approach is to just push, push, push until it breaks. We don't have too many to break out there."

The soft-spoken, cerebral Kristofic worked for a few years alongside Austrian Burkhardt Schaeffer, a noted taskmaster, as the two guided a young group of Canadian men that included Erik Guay, Jan Hudec, Vincent Lavoie and others. Guay and Hudec both now have multiple podium finishes on the World Cup circuit.

Hudec, who won the men's downhill at Lake Louise on Nov. 24, says Schaeffer was the right guy for himself and Guay, who were both 21 when the tough-minded Austrian came aboard. "We were pretty young and pretty green," recalls Hudec. "It was good to be grilled pretty hard by a coach like that who had the experience and knew what it took to win. It made us really tough. A couple of guys didn't make it, a couple of guys stopped skiing. The guys that kept at it and lived through the tough times are thankful for it now."

Schaeffer left after the 2005-06 season and Kristofic was promoted to head coach of the men's team, with the low-key Finance coming aboard. Read and Grasic both say it was the right time to make a change. "When you're narrowing it down to seconds, tenths of seconds, you cannot compromise," says Read. "When you're looking for hundredths you need to understand what the athlete truly needs.

"You can back off because the athlete has learned. Now, it's all self-motivated. If anything, the athlete is probably harder on themselves and you have to hold them back."

CALGARY’S SANDRA KEITH THRILLED WITH TOP-15 PERSONAL BEST PERFORMANCE.

CODA - POKLJUKA, SLO – Sandra Keith’s 11th place finish today in the women’s 7.5 km sprint was something she has been working towards for a long time.  The 27-year-old veteran from Calgary was over the top with her result.

“I am just so excited for it all have come together today.  This result was a major confidence booster for me and I look forward to what I know I can do more often,” said Keith, who credits the great showing her teammates have had to date as inspiration.  “We have had an amazing start with three World Cups under our belt now and it feels great to be able to add to the results.”

Keith was clean in both shooting sessions today, something she usually only does in one race a year.  Her family, watching the internet broadcast from home, could see the smile spread across her face after the standing.  At the beginning of the last leg, Keith’s coach ran over from the shooting area to let her know her split had her in first place.

“I had a massive rush of adrenaline and was pushing for everything in the last 2.5 kilometres,” said Keith.

Olympic officials enthusiastic about completion of Whistler 2010 venues.

The Canadian Press - Wet snow fell and patches of fog hid the mountain peaks but it couldn't dampen the enthusiasm of Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee officials and politicians yesterday as they proudly showed off the just- completed Whistler sliding centre.

The 2010 Winter Games are still more than two years away but the major construction on the $252.2-million worth of sports venues at Whistler - which include the sliding centre, the Whistler Olympic Park and Creekside ski hill - is completed.

Testing will begin on the 1.6 kilometres of sliding track snaking down Blackcomb Mountain next month.

John Furlong, VANOC's chief executive officer, couldn't help but remember the old logging road and pine trees that marked the spot of the sliding centre when Vancouver was still bidding to host the Games. "I remember standing up here when the evaluation commission was up here and this was just red lines on white paper," said Furlong, snow flakes falling on the red and white Team Canada scarf wrapped around his neck. "It was a vision and dream we had.

"To be here today, three full winters away from the starting bell of the first event of the Winter Games, is very special. Our goal is to get is finish and give our national team a chance to come here and perfect their craft so they can be the team to beat at the Games."

Duff Gibson, who won a gold medal in skeleton at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, said having the track down in time for Canadian bobsledders, luge and skeleton racers to learn its nuances will be a major advantage come the Games. "It's a huge factor," said Gibson. "Literally, how many inches you are off the right wall going into corner four will separate you from someone else by a few one-hundreths of a second.

"The extra time and extra runs you have on the track will really separate you from the rest of the world."

The Whistler venues, located 120 kilometres north of Vancouver, will host 46 Olympic medal events and 62 Paralympic medal competitions in 2010.

Cross-country skiing, biathlon and ski jumping will be held at the Olympic Park while Whistler Creekside will be home to Alpine skiing.

Nathalie Lambert Named as Canada’s Chef de Mission for 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

On December 10 at a press conference held at GM Place in Vancouver. B.C. the Canadian Olympic Committee announced that Olympian Nathalie Lambert (short track speed skating) has been appointed as Canada’s Chef de Mission for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. Lambert’s chief responsibility over the next two years as Chef de Mission will be to provide overall leadership to the Canadian Team at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

A three-time Olympic medallist, Lambert and her teammates skated to a gold medal in the 3,000-metre relay at the Albertville 1992 Olympic Winter Games, and she was given the honour of being Canada's flag bearer at the Games' closing ceremony. Two years later in Lillehammer (1994), Lambert collected silver medals in both the 1,000m and 3,000m relays. Lambert first participated in the Olympic Winter Games when Calgary played host in 1988. Short track speed skating was introduced as a demonstration sport and Lambert and her teammates finished third in the women’s 3,000m relay.

“I am truly honoured to have been selected as Canada’s Chef de Mission for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games,” said Lambert. “To lead our Canadian Olympic Team into our own Home Games in Vancouver will be an experience of a lifetime. I look forward to working closely with the Canadian Olympic Committee over the next two years, providing optimum support for Canada’s athletes and coaches as we strive to own the podium in 2010.”