Calgary’s Earle Connor recovers from illness to win gold at track and field competition.
(Canadian Sport News)

LEVEKURSEN, Germany- Earle Connor of Calgary overcame an illness which put him in the hospital to win the gold medal Sunday in the men’s amputee 100-metre sprint at an international track and field competition.

Connor, the world record holder in the event, took the gold in 12.51 seconds to finish ahead of two of his biggest rivals at the upcoming Paralympic Games. Urs Kolly of Switzerland was second in 12.86 and Hienrich Popow of Germany third in 13.08.

“It wasn’t a great time for me but it took every ounce of energy I possessed,” said Connor, who later withdrew from the 200. “It’s a bit disappointing because I’m in the best shape of my life and I was hoping to do some big things here. The conditions were perfect.”

On Friday, his 28th birthday, Connor started to feel queasy and passed out in the hotel lobby. He was rushed to hospital where he was diagnosed with a gastro-intestinal ailment. He was released later Friday but returned before his race Sunday morning and also after the race for more fluids.

“There are still a lot of positives out of this for me and to beat those guys under these circumstances is very good for my confidence,” he said. “It’s probably good something unfortunate like this happened now rather than at the Paralympics.”

Earlier this year, Connor won the prestigious Laureus World Sport Award as the planet’s top athlete with a disability. He broke the world record in the 100 last year in Levekursen clocking 12.14 seconds.

Connor lost his left leg at three months because of a problem with his fibula but that didn’t deter him from excelling in able-bodied sports as a youngster. He runs with a state of the art prosthesis.

Connor and several top Canadian Paralympic medal hopefuls compete next week August 6-8 at the Canadian Paralympic track and field championships in Edmonton.

Four medals at the Worlds in Spain for Canada's Rowers.
( Rowing Canada Release)

Canada's four senior boats in today's finals each won medals at the FISA World Rowing Senior (non-Olympic) & Junior Championships (July 27 to Aug. 1). Canadian senior crews will bring home three silvers and a bronze from this year's Worlds, held on the 1992 Olympic course in Spain.

"Everyone just really stepped up their game today," said National Development Coach Terry Paul, who was an athlete in the '92 Games, winning gold in the men's eight. "It really shows there's depth in Canadian rowing and that the development program is paying off."

In a photo-finish race that left rowing fans in Banyoles on the edge of their seats, Canada's men's coxed four was second by only .02 of a second. Italy was first, Canada followed and the U.S. came in closely behind in third.

The coxed four members are Andrew Ireland of Hamilton, Ont., Peter Dembicki of West Vancouver, B.C., Malcolm Howard of Victoria, B.C., Rob Weitemeyer of Coquitlam, B.C., Stephen Cheng of Toronto (cox). Ireland and Weitemeyer will be heading to athletes as spares for Canada's powerful heavyweight men's crews.

Both the men's and women's lightweight quads also picked up silvers at the Worlds today.

The lightweight women's quad was second to China. The crew includes Gen Meredith of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que., an Olympic spare in 2000 and 2004, Shona McLaren of Victoria, B.C., Elizabeth Urbach of Vancouver, B.C. and Sheryl Preston of White Rock, B.C.

"This has been a phenomenal experience. We knew from the moment we got in the boat together that it was magic," said Preston. "Even though we only trained together for a month, we drew confidence from that and just went out there to race."

Matt Jensen of Innerkip, Ont., Scott Moore of Toronto, Ont., Liam Parsons of Thunder Bay, Ont., and Jeff Bujas of St. Catharines, Ont. - rowing in the lightweight quad - finished second with Italy narrowly taking the gold.

"This was only our second race together as a quad, but training in the development camp this year really prepared us for this," said Jensen. "We were racing against guys who've been together for a year or more, so it was a great experience to beat crews such as the Germans."

The lightweight men's pair of Olympic spares Doug Vandor of Dewittville, Que. and Mike Lewis of Victoria, B.C. finished third behind Denmark and Italy.

In adaptive events, Richard Vander Wal of Toronto, Ont. finished fourth in his race today. This is the first time Canada has sent competitors to the adaptive World Championships.

Yesterday, the junior men’s coxed four stepped onto the podium to receive their bronze medals – bringing Canada’s total medal count at this regatta to five. The next major development competition is the World Under-23 Regatta to be held in Poland next week.

The Victoria native set a Canadian record when he won the men's 800-metres at the Heusden IAAF Grand II meet in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium.

Reed clocked one minute, 44.92 seconds in the victory. The previous record was 1:45.05 set by Achraf Tadili at the Pan Am Games last summer in the Dominican Republic. Joeri Jansen of Belgium was second, while American Khadevis Robinson was third.

Reed, a member of Canada's world championship team last year, guaranteed his spot in the 800 metres for the Athens Games at the Canadian Olympic track and field trials on July 11.

Sydor is game: In hunt for another medal.
(By DONNA SPENCER - CP / CBC Online)

Alison Sydor may be considered long in the tooth in the sport of mountain biking, but she cannot be counted out as a medal threat at the Olympic Games in Athens.

The 37-year-old from North Vancouver won a silver medal in mountain biking when it was introduced to the Olympics in 1996 and finished fifth in Sydney four year ago. Since trading in her road bike for a mountain bike in 1991, Sydor has collected 12 world championship medals.

An important one was a silver last year, when she finished 12 seconds behind gold medallist Sabine Spitz of Germany. "I'm definitely in the last year or years of my career for sure, although I thought that in Sydney," Sydor said. "But to prove to myself as I'm getting older that I still have it, to be 12 seconds away from winning the world championship last year was very significant personally. "I still do have a chance to be at the top level on my best day of the year."

Sydor has three top-five results in five races on the World Cup circuit this year.

She went into Atlanta in 1996 as the favourite for gold after winning three world championships, but finished second to Italy's Paula Pezzo, who defended her title in Sydney.

This time it's Norway's Gunn-Rita Dahle, 32, who is picked to win it. But although Dahle won every World Cup last year, she did not reach the podium at the world championship. "It's not enough to be the favourite," said Sydor, speaking from experience. "You have to have everything where it should be on the day."

Dahle, Spitz and Pezzo, a veteran along with Sydor at 35, Poland's Magdalena Sadlecka, Anna Szafraniec and Maja Wloszczowska and Russian Irena Kalentieva are expected to be Sydor's rivals for the podium.

There are few riders who can answer Sydor in terms of competition experience. Only Switzerland's Thomas Frischknecht on the men's side has as many world championship medals as Sydor. Lesley Tomlinson, Sydor's teammate on two Olympic teams, has seen first-hand what has made Sydor so successful. "Alison has remained at the top of the sport because her ability to reflect on her racing and training and assess what she has done wrong and right and to make the appropriate adjustments," Tomlinson said. "She has an incredible ability to focus and commit to the big goals.
"I think that she has a very strong chance at a medal."

With the clock ticking on Sydor's career, she will chase that elusive Olympic gold even harder. "Alison has a difficult time getting very excited for the smaller goals that she has already achieved," Tomlinson said. "The Olympic goal is bigger and is important to her."

Sydor raced in May at a test event at the Parnitha Olympic Mountain Bike Venue north of Athens and was encouraged by a third-place finish there. "The most valuable experience was to feel how hard that last lap is," she said. 'It's a deceptively energy-sapping course. "No huge climbs, but it's just relentless. There's sandy soil so traction is a big issue in a lot of sections. If you've got good technique, you're saving energy."

Sydor said she'd spoken to some of the local people who said the riders could get the benefit of a cooling breeze. She said the course was at the base of a mountain and most of it was in the forest, which would also offer protection from the blazing sun. "Everybody is very obsessed with the heat," Sydor said. "That's one of the good things about being around for a long time. I remember all this before Atlanta as well. "That's just one element of a lot you have to consider to be at your optimum for Athens."

Drawing on her vast experience, Sydor knows what mental state she must be in to perform. "You have to have just the right amount of stimulation, the right amount of confidence," she said. "These things are probably the hardest things to get. "The athlete's mind is very complicated."

Sydor has spent much of this year living and training in the mountains near Annecy, France. "The Tour de France comes right by where I'm living right now," she said. "Incredible terrain, very beautiful. Coming from Vancouver, I'm used to have a pretty nice place to train."

The Olympics, world championships and all World Cups except the two Canadian ones were in Europe, so it made sense for her to make her training base there. "As I've got older, I think it's been important for me to try and keep the travel fatigue down a little bit," she said.

After three years with the U.S.-based Trek-Volkswagen team, Sydor switched to Rocky Mountain/Business Objects this year. "I started my career racing for Rocky Mountain, which is a Vancouver-based bike company, and finishing with them, it's kind of special for me to race for a Canadian company, a Canadian team, a Vancouver-based team," Sydor explained.

Holding court with Denyse Julien.
(By Jennifer McIntyre - CBC Sports Online)

I never even saw it coming.
The shuttle whipped past me at about 200 kilometres per hour and landed with a decisive "thwack" on the court somewhere to my right. On the other side of the net, Denyse Julien grinned impishly and fixed me with an appraising stare. Fair enough. After all, my experience with badminton is limited to a couple of matches in high school and occasional backyard tournaments with my little brother.

The 44-year-old Julien, on the other hand, has won 31 national badminton titles, represented Canada at 11 world championships, and was a member of the first badminton team ever to represent Canada at the Olympics, at the 1992 Barcelona Games, where she reached the round of 16 in women's singles.

She was recently in Kitchener, Ont. with the rest of the Olympic badminton team for a pre-Athens tuneup, and took some time out of her hectic schedule to give me some pointers -- and kick my butt. I was certainly in for some surprises, first and foremost being the sheer speed of the game. Most North Americans, myself included, tend to view badminton as a leisurely pastime suitable for picnics or backyard barbecue parties.

But Olympic-calibre badminton could not be more different: At this level, it's a lightning-fast sport where the shuttle can move at up to 260 kilometres per hour, and players can cover several kilometres during the course of a match. "With you, (or) someone that's hardly ever played the sport, the one thing is that first of all, you don't realize the speed of the game," said Julien. "Because when you talk about backyard badminton, that's like 'Ping, ping, ping.' At the level we play, it's very fast.

There was a moment of silence broken only by the soft "plink" of our racquets, as we rallied back and forth. Julien barely broke a sweat, whereas I scrambled about with all the grace of a dog chasing a hornet.
"I think if you shorten your grip, it's going to be OK," she said tactfully as I bent to collect the shuttle once more. "If you swing really hard, it's just going to go everywhere. That's my view on teaching beginners: No big swing, and at the end, a quick hit."

I spent the next few minutes concentrating on this, which is easier said than done because one's overriding instinct, when assailed by a fast-moving airborne object, is to haul back and hit it as hard as possible."And that's when it goes everywhere," said Julien, "because the racquet is very light. It's not like a tennis racquet (which is) heavier, so you tend to overswing and totally miss the shuttle."

Julien, who will be playing mixed doubles with Philippe Bourret and women's doubles with Anna Rice in Athens, admits that learning the basics and moving up came almost naturally to her. "I competed in tennis 'til I was 12, and then I picked up badminton because we didn't have indoor courts in the wintertime," explained Julien, who grew up in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec.

"I started badminton and I really liked it. "It's very quick and I like that. And I like the fact that you have to be powerful, and agile also. You have finesse shots, you have power shots -- it's a mix of a lot of things. I like that. It's not just finesse at the net -- you have to be smart, creative, and what I like also is that the people that play the sport, they play because they love it.

"There's no money in this sport. You survive, but you don't make money at it." At least not in Canada. There may be money for the sport's biggest stars in Europe and Asia, but Julien admits to being many thousands of dollars in debt, since she, like most badminton players in Canada, must pay her own way to international tournaments.

For Julien, though, the financial haemorrhage will slow after Athens, where she will be the oldest badminton player by a long shot; badminton players tend to peak around 28. She has accepted a position as assistant badminton pro at the Atwater Club in Montreal for the next year and plans to play in several tournaments, as well.

"I still love competing," she said, "but I am finding it harder and harder to have to train every day. I have been doing it for 25 years so ... maybe I have a special heart."

The rest of the team is already in the van, so Julien smiles and wraps up our "lesson." I pick the shuttle off the floor one last time, and shake hands with Canada's Badminton Queen, who grins and accepts my offer to buy her a drink.

We head off, and I take solace in knowing that if Shuttle Retrieval ever becomes an Olympic sport, I'll be a shoe-in for the podium.

Olympic Village opens its doors.
(IOC News)

The Olympic Village for the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens has opened its doors today. The Village is the largest venue of the 2004 Olympic Games. It will host 16,000 athletes and delegation members.

34 days around the clock
The Village will be fully operational for 34 days, around the clock. Over 10,000 people will be employed there at Games time.

8,814 rooms and 17,428 beds
There are 366 functional buildings with 2,292 apartments - amounting to 8,814 rooms and 17,428 beds - in an area of 1,240,000 square metres. With 16 square metres per athlete – the size of the rooms - the Village offers spacious facilities.

Adjacent training centres
It is the first time that the training centres have been adjacent to the Olympic Village, so that the athletes have direct access.

Housing for 2,500 families
After the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic Village will be given to the beneficiaries of the Workers Housing Association. Some 2,500 families will be given the chance to live in this exemplary estate, the first of its kind in Greece.

Prime example of Games legacy.
“The Olympic Village is a prime example of this Olympic Games' legacy which will be bestowed to Greece and its people - an inexhaustible legacy that goes beyond the present and embraces future generations”, said Gianna Angelopoulos- Daskalaki, President of the Organising Committee at the Village’s opening ceremony.

Free public barbecue luncheon set for opening ceremonies, August 13

Calgary-Calgary will officially kick off a month-long celebration of the Summer Games this week with a public flag signing, August 3-11, 2004, at the entrance to the Olympic Hall of Fame and Museum in the main Daylodge at Canada Olympic Park.

C.O.P. is encouraging all Calgarians, and visitors to the city, to stop by the Park and sign the large Canadian flag, which will be on display over the next week in conjunction with an Athens Olympic exhibit.

The flag, full of messages of support from Calgarians young and old, will be sent to the Canadian Olympic Team at Canada House in Athens, Greece on Wednesday, August 11, where it will hang for the duration of the Games.

The Olympic celebration in Calgary will thrust into full-gear on Friday, August 13, when C.O.P. will hold a free public barbecue luncheon in the main parking lot of the facility on the western edge of Calgary to watch the nation's top high-performance summer athletes march into the Olympic stadium in Athens, on large television screens. More details of the celebration will be announced shortly.

WHAT: Canadian Flag Signing (flag to be sent to Canadian Olympic Team)

WHEN: August 3-11, 2004

TIME: 9 a.m. - 9 p.m.

WHERE: Main Daylodge - Canada Olympic Park
(entrance to Olympic Hall of Fame and Museum)