News: e-Newsletter
Sport Performance WeeklyMay 4th, 2009 |
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Kristina Groves Taking on a Leadership Role.JAMES CHRISTIE - Globe and Mail - May 2, 2009 - In her long blades and racing suit, Kristina Groves is speed skating's superwoman, No. 1 in the world at 1,500 metres, top three at two other distances. But within the walls of her Calgary condo, she is brought to the same standstill as other mortals. This morning, she is killing time, waiting for a refrigerator to be delivered. Time seems to drag on the fridge vigil, but the Olympic season is something that's coming fast, and Groves, 32, is making the most of the last summer before the biggest winter of her life. A year before the Vancouver Games, the Ottawa native added a twist to her training. She took a 10-day bicycling tour to south Utah with her boyfriend, Scott Maw. The trip was a model of multitasking. Maw isn't just a friend, he's the strength consultant at the Canadian Sport Centre in Calgary. So the trip was an excellent way for Groves to get into top shape, and an opportunity to get away together as a couple after a season that took Groves to China, Japan, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. It was a way to counter, physically and psychologically, the bad-news announcement in March that access to Calgary's Olympic Oval for Canada's skating crew would be slashed because of a funding crisis. Legacy funding intended to run Calgary's Olympic facilities has been hit hard and the Oval budget was cut to $2.1-million a year from $3.6-million. "It isn't just a huge part of what we do, it is what we do. We skate," said an incredulous Groves, who was on the podium 11 times in this past World Cup season. She had four golds (three at 1,500 metres and one at 1,000). She also got two bronze at the world single distance championships, at 3,000 and 5,000 at the Olympic venue in Richmond, B.C., and she lost another sure medal when she hit a puck marking the lane in the 1,500 metres. The Canadian long track speed skating team is expected to produce 10 to 12 medals at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The last year is crunch time. "It's having the blinders on ... and I guess that's different from my approach after Torino, when I let my brain go and just did the training, thousands upon thousands of metres," Groves said. "With each year it's become more specific ... "I'll try to qualify in every race I feel I have the potential. I can do everything from the 1,000 metres up to the 5K and team pursuit. My focus is on the skating and executing the best I can. "Obviously everyone's striving for the top and success breeds success. But until Clara [Hughes] and Cindy [Klassen] came along, I didn't know it was possible to be No. 1. The Dutch, the Germans, they always were the ones to beat. Now we know we can beat them, we all have the capability of being up there." Capability comes from countless laps of the track, and how many laps depends on the focus of training. "At the beginning of the season, we do a lot of long, slow laps," Groves said. "Certain base-training workouts are 60 to 80 laps ... and 25 laps is 10 kilometres, so we're talking 30 kilometres." Then comes interval training, with sets of laps done at specific speeds with specific rest. "Sometimes there's hardly any rest. Our coach [Harbin-born Xiuli Wang] is really a stickler for lap times. Sometimes, if you aren't hitting the times, you have to start over again. It's good, it makes you learn how to pace yourself." Skaters from the men's developmental team are often on the ice with Groves, younger, stronger, but not necessarily wiser in terms of pacing. "They're not so fast we can't keep up to them," Groves said. "The girls still lead quite a bit." There's time spent in the weight room for work on the body core, then squats and jumps to build the strength for pushing power. Groves can pack away about 4,000 calories a day when in heavy training. "But I'm conscientious about food. I'm focused on what I eat, and it stems from my upbringing. I don't eat crappy food, not so it won't harm my performance but because it would affect my health. "I'll eat a huge amount of carbohydrates to maintain that [4,000 calories], lots of brown rice and pasta and a lot of veggies. I don't eat much red meat, it's more eggs, protein, whey protein ... and I enjoy curds in smoothies. "I treat myself time to time," Groves added. "My weaknesses are Kettle chips - made with good oils, not bad - good cookies and dark chocolate. I'm lucky, my parents were into good foods. I never had store-bought bread as a kid, and my mother still orders organic grain from a farmer and grinds it." Groves took on the mantle of leadership in a season in which some of the team's best known stars were sidelined - Klassen recovering from knee surgery and Jeremy Wotherspoon nursing a broken arm. To heap more psychological stress on the team, coach Finn Halvorsen departed in a controversy - described as philosophical differences with management - at the end of the season. "Our team is so strong and so deep that even if some are hurt, Chris [Christine Nesbitt], Shannon [Rempel] and Clara [Hughes] have been up there for years and know how to shut out the distractions and perform. "I wasn't surprised at all, but it will be even better when they're back." And for whatever criticism went along with Halvorsen's departure, Groves lauds one of his ideas as something that could manifest itself in hardware next February. "One thing Finn did was bring in Johann Olov Koss as a mentor to the team," she said of Norway's multiple gold medal icon from the Lillehammer Games and the head of Right to Play. "We're in awe of him for two reasons: his success and his starting of Right to Play. He has been out a few times over the season, telling us what are the things we should think about with a home Games. It's just really good advice, it fully becomes a part of you. And, no, I won't tell what it is." |
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Automatic Berths to Curling Olympic Trials Announced.Glenn Howard is the lone Ontario entry among four men’s teams that have earned a direct berth into the Canadian Olympic curling trials. Last Wednesday, The Canadian Curling Association named the men’s and women’s teams that have earned automatic spots in the Olympic trials, which will take place Dec. 6-13 in Edmonton. Defending Brier champion Kevin Martin leads a trio of Edmonton-based men’s teams that have earned berths; Martin, who placed second at the world championship in Moncton, N. B., earlier this month, is joined by Randy Ferbey and Kevin Koe. Howard, the 2007 world champion whose home rink is the Coldwater & District Curling Club, rounded out the top four. Defending Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion Jennifer Jones earned the top seed in the women’s trials. Her Winnipeg foursome will be joined by Shannon Kleibrink and Cheryl Bernard of Calgary and Stefanie Lawton of Saskatoon. The teams qualified by winning three specific events over a three-season period (2006-2009) or by their cumulative points total on the Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) during that time. A pre-trials event, held Nov. 10-14 in Prince George, B. C., will feature 12 men’s and 12 women’s teams vying for the four remaining spots in the trials. On the women’s side, 2007 world champion Kelly Scott of Kelowna, B. C., former Canadian junior champion Marie-France Larouche of St-Romuald, Que., 1998 Canadian champion Cathy King of Edmonton and 2008 Players’ Championship winner Amber Holland of Kronau, Sask., lead the way. Heather Rankin and Crystal Webster of Calgary, Sherry Anderson of Saskatoon, Rachel Homan of Ottawa, Sherry Middaugh of Coldwater, Ont., Michelle Englot of Regina, Krista McCarville of Thunder Bay, Ont., and Eve Belisle of Montreal complete the women’s pretrial field. The winning teams from the trials in Edmonton will represent Canada at the Vancouver Olympics. |
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Anderson, Loo lead Canadian snowboard team.Canwest News Service - May 1, 2009 - Canada’s national snowboard team will be led by some familiar faces in 2009-10. The Canadian Snowboard Federation announced Friday that the eight-member team for next season will be led by world champion Jasey-Jay Anderson of Mont-Tremblant, Que., and 2006 Olympian Alexa Loo of Richmond, B.C. Joining Anderson on the men’s team is Matthew Morison of Burketon, Ont., Michal Lambert of Toronto, and Patrick Farrell of Oakville, Ont. On the women’s side, Loo is joined by Calgary’s Kimiko Zakreski, Caroline Calve of Aylmer, Que., and Ariane Lavigne of Mont-Tremblant. “We have a solid plan and very clear goals for our national teams — to win,” Christian Hrab, the director of high performance for the Canadian Snowboard Federation, said in a statement. “We are focusing our efforts on providing the resources and programs our athletes need to win on the international stages. “Our focus is to build on the momentum of the last few record-breaking seasons and to pursue our commitment to our goals for the upcoming season and at the 2010 Games.” Anderson is second in the men’s FIS parallel world rankings, while Morison ranked sixth. On the women’s side, Loo and Calve sit seventh and eighth, respectively, in the women’s parallel world rankings. “We want to win every time we enter a start gate. We have fire power in both men’s and women’s categories ready to face any competitor and provide legitimate threats for podium performances,” said Anderson. The alpine snowboarding team recently wrapped up a training camp at Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver, where boarders tested new equipment in hopes of getting a jump on the 2010 World Cup season at the Vancouver Olympics. |
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Need for speed fuels Nesbitt's fire.Canwest News Service – April 27, 2009 - When most 23-year-olds are debating the relative merits of U2 or other bands of that ilk, Christine Nesbitt sways to a decidedly more stylized beat. “My favourite kinds of music,” reports Canada’s late-starting speed skating prodigy, “are jazz and blues. Dinah Washington? Absolutely wonderful, wonderful, singer. I like Otis Redding, but that’s more R&B, I guess. “The old guard, of course. Louis (Armstrong) and Ella (Fitzgerald). I love Ella. And Sam Cooke. Ever heard him sing You Send Me? His voice ... he’s the male Ella.” Wise beyond her years. Ahead of her time. Skating-wise, way ahead of her time. Imagine, only five years into her long-track speed skating career and already a world single distance champion in the 1,000 metres. Already an Olympic silver medallist, in team pursuit. Already a trophy case choked with world championship and World Cup baubles. Christine Nesbitt, huh? Hmmmmmmm .... Can’t quite place the name? Not surprised. She’s the Canadian skating star most Canadians have never heard of. On a long-track speed skating team fairly busting at the seams with recognizable names—Cindy Klassen and Ottawa’s Kristina Groves and Clara Hughes and Jeremy Wotherspoon—Nesbitt is invariably caught in cloud cover. When asked what it’s like nowadays to have folks walk up and call her “world champion,” she looks somewhat taken off guard, then a little rueful. “Don’t know. It doesn’t happen often.” On a 21/2-week furlough from training, with the ice out at Calgary’s Olympic Oval, Nesbitt spends the down time puttering around the house she bought last year, painting walls, picking out a new fridge, devouring science fiction paperbacks, listening to jazz CDs. “That’s my way of relaxing. Sounds really mundane, I guess, but usually life is so busy, so hectic—training, travelling.” The idea of slowing down, of taking things easy, of, is completely foreign to her competitive instincts. “She’s so ... driven,” says her current coach, Ingrid Paul. “She has great mental strength; just wants to go, go, go, fast, every single day, every time on the ice. That’s something we’ve had to work on. Something I’ve had to protect her from. “I’ve had to reinforce to her that you ARE fast. You don’t need to be every day. “She has such intensity, such determination. But sometimes you have to pull back, to save it for the races. You don’t want to suddenly find you have nothing in the tank on the big day.” Only five years after shifting her attentions from short-track to long-track speed- skating, she outduelled a legend, Germany’s Anni Friesinger, to win the 1,000-metre title at the Richmond, B.C., Olympic Oval in mid-March. As validations go, a person could do worse. “I skated an incredible last lap,” recalls Nesbitt, born in Melbourne, Australia, but raised in London, Ont. “It was a thrill, it meant a lot, but I don’t think Anni was skating as well as she can. I mean, it’s only the second time I’ve beaten her. “A lot of girls are going to skate faster next year at the Olympics. I know that. So I’m going to have to be faster, too." Nesbitt is in her first year working with Paul, after spending the entirety of her long-track career under the guidance of Marcel Lacroix.
Right now, the concentration is on harnessing and channelling her intensity in the proper way. “I am not very good at multi-tasking,” Nesbitt admits. “I focus in on one thing and give it everything I have. That’s how I work best. If I’m washing dishes and cooking something in the oven, chances are, the meat is going to burn. “This is what I’m putting my energies into right now.” Fortunately for Nesbitt, and for Canada, there’s no end in sight. “She’s really just at the beginning of her career,” Paul says. “She has the strength and will to be at the top for years to come. Four years from now, eight years from now. Vancouver is not the end station for Christine.” No, the express train will just be leaving the depot, and ahead of schedule, too. That late-arriving recognition, it’s at hand, too. “I’ve won a world championship, but I really haven’t gotten much publicity,” she says, shrugging. “That’s fine, though. We have such a strong team, so many great athletes that have accomplished so much. “My time will come.” Circle February on your calendar as the date for a major coming-out party. |
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Athletes gather for last time before Games.The Canadian Press - Listening to speedskater Catriona Le May Doan talk about her doubts heading into the 2002 Olympics was a relief to Regan Lauscher. The luge athlete from Red Deer, Alta., has had her own challenges to deal with and just knowing she wasn’t alone gave her peace of mind. It’s that kind of information sharing Canadian Olympic Committee officials had in mind when they planned the Olympic Excellence Series. The COC’s final instalment of the series before the 2010 Games opens Friday in Vancouver and concludes Monday. It’s the last opportunity for Canada’s Olympic team to be together before they gather for the opening ceremonies Feb. 12. During a seminar a year ago in Whistler, B.C., Le May Doan opened up to other athletes about her fears in trying to defend her gold medal at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. “Just to hear Catriona say ‘I broke down and didn’t think I could do it’ before 2002, to hear someone who you think would never stumble . . . and for them to sit there and listen to you, know who you are and say ‘We support you, you’re here for a reason and part of this group and everyone knows you can do it’, you really feel you have an enormous support group behind you,” said Lauscher. Lauscher had surgery on one shoulder and was two weeks away from surgery on the other when she attended the Whistler event. She missed half of this season rehabilitating the injuries. “I definitely had to come back to the words of these people and I still lean on them when I sit there and go ‘I don’t know. Can I do it still? It’s a year out now and I still feel like I’m not there, but I want to be and have the potential to be and I’m capable of it.” Lauscher is among about 100 athletes planning to attend this weekend’s events and another 100 coaches and support staff will be there too. Athletes who have finished top five in world championships and World Cups were invited. Canadian ultramarathoner Ray Zahab, who recently completed an Arctic expedition, Norwegian speedskater Johan Olav Koss and Canadian synchronized swimmer Sylvie Frechette will be the key speakers. The athletes and coaches will also participate in team-building activities and strategy sessions with athlete mentors Le May Doan, former rower Marnie McBean and freestyle skier Veronica Brenner. “For a home Games, there will be a lot of demands on athletes from all angles,” said Derek Covington, the COC’s director of Olympic preparation and Games. “Things that take you off your Games is what the Olympics is all about. That’s what makes it different than any other event that they’ll ever go to because there’s so many more variables that are layered on top of the practice of their sport.” Retired and even current Olympians tell first-timers about issues that can be addressed months before the Games so their performance isn’t affected in Vancouver, Covington added. What won’t be formally addressed this weekend is the COC’s goal of the host team winning more medals than any other country in 2010. “We won’t be dealing with the topic,” Covington said. “The goals are out there as they were for Beijing. It’s up to each one of the sports and athletes to decide how they want to achieve their own personal goals.” A personality profiling exercise Lauscher participated in last year in Whistler was a revelation. The 29-year-old discovered she had a sensitive “blue” personality while her physiotherapist Louise Vien and coach Wolfgang Staudinger were scientific “green” personalities. “You learn about yourself and team dynamics and how you would handle a situation, but a coach or a teammate would see it differently,” she explained. “You learn to separate that it’s not personal. It’s kind of who they are.” The personality profiling opened lines of communication and understanding that can lead to better performance, Covington added. “I’ve heard that a lot from people, who said it changed their entire year in terms of how they worked together in training groups,” he said. Based on previous experience, Lauscher expects to come out of this seminar inspired and more confident as she prepare for 2010. “This might sound funny, but I feel more normal,” she said. “It’s easy to think ‘I must be the only one who gets worried about this or has to deal with this.’ “You can ask people ‘Did you ever have this problem and how did you deal with it?” |
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Admit one: How Olympic ticketing works.STEVE BREARTON - April 24, 2009 - On Feb. 28, 2010, 18,600 lucky fans will attend the men’s hockey final at Canada Hockey Place (usually known as GM Place) in Vancouver. It’s one of the most anticipated events of the Winter Olympics, and seat prices range from $350 to $750. But that’s chump change compared to the Olympian figures the events will generate. The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) anticipates revenues of $260 million on the sale of two million event tickets. There’s gold in these Games. 30% of the seats were immediately set aside for sale to the Olympic Family (sponsors, media, athletes and their families). Organizers haven’t said how many seats have been reserved, but admit it could be as many as 70%. Games organizers have committed to making a minimum of 30% of seats available to the public. VANOC received more than 140,000 requests for tickets to the gold-medal hockey match before selling 4,000 tickets through the first public lottery, in December, 2008. The decision to play the games on GM Place’s NHL regulation rink (as opposed to converting to the larger Olympic standard) means that up to 800 premium seats remain available for the final-a cash windfall of up to $600,000. In 2007, VANOC signed a $15-million deal with Jet Set Sports to handle foreign distribution of tickets through national Olympic committees. Some of the tickets to the men’s final were bundled into 120 pairs including hotel and transportation. The cost: $34,500 per couple. Many Olympic sponsors and supporters use their ticket allocation to host customers and business partners. The British Columbia Lottery Corp. has created a number of instant-win games that will ultimately award 32 tickets to winners. In March, 2009, resellers were asking more than $12,000 for a pair of seats on StubHub, an eBay subsidiary that connects ticket sellers with buyers. VANOC has threatened to invalidate tickets resold for more than face value. Top |
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Business of Performance brings Olympic Gold Medallist to Toronto May 12th.The Business of Performance corporate seminar series is bringing Olympic Gold Medallist Cheryl Pounder and Canada’s leading sport experts to Toronto on May 12th. The event will highlight proven methodologies drawn from sport and apply them to business. The ‘No Limits’ perspective can lead any company towards radically improved performance. Professionals from around Vancouver are invited to attend. Business of Performance on YouTube Some topics include:
Calgary Event May 15th. For more information visit www.businessofperformance.ca Read the Social Media Press Release Social Media Marketing for Business of Performance provided by:
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Talkin’ the talk. Canadian Olympians look for first-ever home gold.By WES GILBERTSON, SUN MEDIA - CALGARY—Mellisa Hollingsworth insists she didn’t need a script to film her CTV spot, one in a series of advertisements where Canadian medal hopefuls stare into the camera and spill about their Olympic dreams. Every instalment ends with the same phrase - “I believe” - but the rest of Hollingsworth’s monologue come straight from the heart. “Those were my words,” said Hollinsgworth, a 28-year-old skeleton star who brought a bronze medal home from the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. “I honestly cannot imagine anything more exciting than standing on top of the podium watching our Maple Leaf rise. That’s going to be a pretty cool opportunity.” There’s no need to remind our winter sports stars no Canadian athlete has claimed gold on home soil. When Calgary played host to the Olympics in 1988, the hosts grabbed two silver medals and three bronze. At the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, Canada’s haul included five silver and six bronze. With less than 10 months remaining before the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Games, the current crop of Olympic hopefuls are eager to put that storyline to rest. “The programs have evolved and changed so much and they’ve grown so much that I think it’s fair to say ‘It’s our turn,’ “ said luger Regan Lauscher, 29, a seven-time Canadian champ and veteran of two Olympic Games. “And we don’t disagree. Athletes, we’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re right, we haven’t and we’re going to.’ This is our time and it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen at home at the biggest event of all amateur athletics.” Hollingsworth, Lauscher and three other medal hopefuls got a boost yesterday from Spectra Energy, which announced it was committing $30,000 apiece to five Canadian Olympians on the road to Vancouver. Spectra is just the latest company to pledge its support for Canada’s would-be Olympians, and the athletes are quick to point out every little bit helps. At the official announcement yesterday at Flames Central, employees from Calgary’s Spectra office collected autographs from the medal hopefuls. “In the stretch to 2010 - the most important year, for sure, and the biggest event probably of most of our careers - it just means we can breathe a little bit easier with that support, to be able to just train and focus on what we need to do to be competitive with the rest of the world,” Lauscher said. |
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