Curtis Myden announced his official retirement from swimming last week. We wish you all the best Curtis!

The soft-spoken Calgary native, who holds the national record in the 200- and 400-metre individual medley, captured three Olympic bronze medals during his 10 years on the national swim team.

"He's decided to move on and do other things," a source said Monday. "It's a good decision for him. Going through to the next Olympics just wasn't an option."

Myden, who turns 29 on New Year's Eve, plans to study medicine and is deciding where he wants to attend university. He currently trains at the National Training Centre at the University of Calgary.

In a time when many athletes, even swimmers, trash talk and preen, Myden was a throwback to the silent, Gary Cooper type. Always polite, he was economical with his words but spoke volumes in the water during his prime. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics he finished third in both the 200 and 400 IM. Four years later in Sydney, he won the only Canadian swimming medal- another bronze in the 400 IM.

The 26-year-old Canadian arrived at the finish line to a throng of screaming teammates and international competitors after smashing the Canadian track record for the second time of the day with a time of 44.556, giving him a combined time of 129.286, and the first podium finish of his career.

"This is completely unbelievable," said Seitz, who started luging in 1988, and has been leading the Canadian senior team since 1996.

DID YOU KNOW? Only one other Canadian luge athlete has reached the podium in World Cup history. Marie Claude Doyen finished third in a World Cup women's singles event at Sarajevo in 1987.

Canada 1 finishes 0.6 seconds behind Germany to bring home the silver this weekend at the bobsleigh World Cup in Germany.

Considered the "most difficult artificial track in the world", Lueders piloted the Canada 1 to finish just .06 seconds behind the gold-medal winning team of pilot Rene Spies and brakeman Franz Sagmeister of Germany 1. The Germany 2 sled of Andre Lange and brakeman Kevin Kuske won the bronze.

Powered by Lueders 2002 Olympic brakeman Giulio Zardo, Canada 1 had the fastest push starts in both of their runs. Starting the World Cup season off with a silver medal win, fits Lueders' objective of being in the top three all season.

CANADIANS CAPTURE SILVER AND TWO BRONZE AT
SHORT TRACK WORLD CUP

ST.PETERSBURG, RUSSIA (CSN) - Canada's men's relay team lost a heated battle with China and settled for the silver medal Sunday in the men's 5,000-metre relay to conclude the third stop on the World Cup short track speed skating circuit.

The Canadians, with François-Louis Tremblay, Jonathan Guilmette, Mathieu Turcotte and Éric Bédard, lead a large portion of the race but fumbled an exchange with three laps to go and finished second to China.

South Korea and Italy, the other two countries in the final, were both disqualified. It was Canada's first loss this season in the men's relay. The Canadians are the two-time defending Olympic champions in the event.

"The men's relay was a bit indicative of our day overall," said Canadian national team coach Guy Thibault of Montreal. "We were very close to winning but couldn't shut the door on the opposition. It's a bit frustrating but when you look at the big picture we did well."

TRIVIA: Modern Pentathlon has made news lately as one of 3 sports that were under review by the IOC last week. What are the 5 events that make up the Modern Pentathlon? (See below for answer)

CALGARIANS EARN TITLES AT 2002 SWIMMING NATIONALS EDMONTON, ALBERTA (CSN)- Brittany Reimer of Surrey, B.C., broke a national age group record and won her first national senior title Thursday at the age of 14, placing first in the women's 800-metre freestyle at the 2002 Canadian Open and short course nationals swimming competition. In the men's 800 freestyle, veteran Rick Say of Calgary also had hopes of a national mark but fell short by 3 seconds. David Creel of Victoria was second and Jarrod Bellem of Calgary third. The Canadian senior record was set by Gary VanDerMeulen of Calgary in 1990. "I was able to keep an eye on the clock while I swam and I noticed I started to lose steam at the 600-metre mark," said Say. "I came into this meet not totally prepared and I'm just trying to get as much out of it as I possibly can. But it would have been nice to begin the winter season with a record." Say later added the 200 freestyle title to his wins in the 400 and 800 freestyle. Rick Say won 3 gold medals this weekend at the 2002 Canadian Nationals. Lauren Van Oosten of Calgary placed first in the 200 breaststroke with a personal best time for her eighth career national title. She spent three months at Waterloo this summer and returned to the University of Calgary this fall. "The change of venue this summer was great for me," said Van Oosten, a world championship medallist in 1998. "I learned a lot about myself and about training. It was a huge step for me and I'm having such a good time swimming now." Other Calgarians capturing gold were Lauren Van Oosten in the 100 breaststroke and and Richard Cormack in the men's 1,500 freestyle.

KYLE SHEWFELT CAPS GREAT YEAR WITH 6th
WORLD CUP GYMNASTICS MEDAL

STUTTGART, GERMANY (CSN) - Kyle Shewfelt of Calgary capped a breakthrough 2002 season with a silver medal on floor but Canada's national team coach felt he deserved gold Saturday at the World Cup final in gymnastics.

Shewfelt won silver at the World Cup in Germany this weekend.
(AP photo/Kevin Frayer)

"All the other coaches came up to me afterwards and said Kyle should have won the gold, it wasn't even that close," said Canadian men's national team coach Edouard Iarov."

Shewfelt, 20, was happy to rebound with a silver after not qualifying for the floor final at the world championships last weekend. "I did a really good routine and second place is great," said the soft-spoken Shewfelt. "I did the same thing as last week and the big difference was I had a much better opening line."

On vault, Shewfelt placed fifth with an average 9.506 score.

In addition to his World Cup success, Shewfelt was fourth on vault at the world championships last weekend and won double gold (floor and vault) at the Commonwealth Games. He has clearly established himself among the world's elite on his two best events.

"I'm happy with how everything's gone and I look forward to next year," he said. "I've matured a lot this year in my gymnastics. I've established my international reputation and I'm no longer the new kid on the block." Iarov says Shewfelt is on his way to being a big star in the sport. "He's only 20 years-old, his career is just beginning," he said.

"The report recognizes that if you reduce physical inactivity by 10 per cent you would save $150 million a year," said Victor Lachance who heads the Sport Matters Group, which represents 50 amateur Canadian sports organizations. The 23rd recommendation of the 47-recommendation report suggests "all governments should adopt and implement the strategy developed by the federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for sport, recreation and fitness to improve physical activity in Canada."

OLYMPIC UPDATE...
2004 ATHENS TICKETING PROGRAMME RELEASED
68% OF TICKETS COST UP TO $47.00 CDN

MEXICO CITY, MEX (IOC Press Release) - The ATHENS 2004 Ticketing Program has as an objective to make the tickets to Olympic events accessible to all through the use of the most advanced technology. These will ensure fair, effective, reliable and user-friendly sales and ticket distribution methods.

In the ATHENS 2004 Ticketing Programme: 1. There are no free tickets or invitations, and 2. The public will have access to purchase tickets for every sports-session and for every price category. The ticket sales process for the public will begin on May 12, 2003 (simultaneously in all countries around the world). Residents outside of Europe can purchase their tickets from the National Olympic Committee of their country or through the relevant NOC Official Ticket Agent.

In the case(s) where demand exceeds supply of available tickets, a random selection-awarding process will be held through a ticketing-system software. A similar random selection process was used during the past 3 Olympic Games (Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Salt Lake City 2002) and in other major sporting events such as the 2002 Commonwealth Games. All tickets for the ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games include free transportation cost to and from the Competition Venues via public transport.

FUTURE OF OLYMPIC BASEBALL, SOFTBALL AND MODERN PENTATHLON SAFE FOR NOW

MEXICO, CITY, MEXICO (IOC Press Release) - The 114th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) today concluded on Friday after two days of productive meetings. The 117 members present in Mexico City discussed four key areas, including the future inclusion of Softball, Baseball and Modern Pentathlon in the Games.

The IOC confirmed the principle of periodic review of the sports programme and decided to postpone the decision on the exclusion of the three recommended sports, i.e. Softball, Baseball and Modern Pentathlon, until after the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens 2004 to allow the International Federations concerned to implement changes. The decision to cap the number of sports at 28, the number of events at 300, and the number of athletes at 10500 was unanimously adopted.