THE CANADIAN PRESS
VANCOUVER — In just over a year the flame will be lit for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Canadian athletes will begin their quest to win more medals than any other country at the Games.
For some competitors it will be their final Olympics. For others, it will be the cornerstone of their career. For all, competing on home soil will be the thrill of a lifetime.
It’s enough to keep an athlete awake at night, a goal that needs to be nurtured and managed.
"I can’t wait," says cross-country skier Devon Kershaw of Sudbury, Ont., a bronze medallist in a Tour de Ski race in Oberhof, Germany earlier this season. "I need to break it into manageable chunks. You need to make those small steps and small adjustments every week on your way.
"It’s like climbing stairs. It would be sweet to jump to the top step, but you have to walk up all the stairs before you get to the top."
Snowboarder Matthew Morison of Burketon, Ont., who is still trying to qualify for the Olympic team, says thinking too far ahead can be a distraction from the task at hand.
"It’s always on my mind," says Morison, who has won a world championship and World Cup silver medal this season in parallel giant slalom. "It’s something I think about way too much."
Huge expectations will be heaped on the shoulders of Canadians competing at the Feb. 12-28 Games, which will be held in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C.
There will be pressure on Sidney Crosby to lead the men’s hockey team to a gold medal. Many will wonder if long-track speedskater Cindy Klassen of Winnipeg can match the five Olympic medals she won at the 2006 Turin Games after taking the year off to recover from knee surgery. The alpine ski team will be looking for its first Olympic medal since 1994.
The bump-and-fly sport of ski cross, making its debut at the Vancouver Games, will hope to catch the imagination of television audiences like snowboard cross did in Turin. Canadians will be looking for another surprise hero like Chandra Crawford of Canmore, Alta., who won an unexpected gold medal in the cross-country sprint at the 2006 Games.
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| NAMES TO WATCH IN 2010 |
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Patrick Chan (Figure Skating) The future of Canadian figure skating would love to capture the country’s first men’s singles gold in Olympic history. The 18-year-old from Toronto was thrust into the skating spotlight when world champion Jeffrey Buttle retired, and appears capable of living up to the legacy left by Canada’s strong male skaters. The two-time Canadian champion was ninth at the 2008 world championships last spring, then opened this season with a back-to-back Grand Prix victories in Ottawa and Paris. He went into the Grand Prix final in December ranked No. 1, but struggled with his triple Axel en route to a fifth-place finish. Canada has never won gold in Olympic men’s singles. Brian Orser and Elvis Stojko won two silvers apiece, while Buttle won bronze in 2006 at Turin. |
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Sidney Crosby (Hockey) Sid the Kid will get his first chance to win an Olympic medal. The 21-year-old from Cole Harbour, N.S., is a lock to be part of the team that will try and help Canadians forget the embarrassment of the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy, where Canada failed to advance to the medal round. There were questions about why the NHL’s first-overall draft pick was left off the 2006 roster. Crosby was only 14 when Canada won gold at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Some of his teammates from the 2005 world junior championship team, like Dion Phaneuf, Jeff Carter, Ryan Getzlaf and Mike Richards, could join him in Vancouver. |
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Cindy Klassen (Long-track Speedskating) Canada’s most decorated Olympic athlete hopes to bring her Midas touch to Vancouver. The 29-year-old Winnipeg native won five medals in Turin, including a gold and two silver. She also won a bronze at the 2002 Salt Lake Games. Klassen decided not to compete this season after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery during the summer. She will lead a strong Canadian long-track team that also includes Clara Hughes, Kristina Groves, Denny Morrison, Mike Ireland, Christine Nesbitt, Shannon Rempel and Jeremy Wotherspoon. |
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Erik Guay (Alpine Skiing) Guay, 27, of Mont-Tremblant, Que., is a threat in both downhill and super-giant slalom. He hopes to become the first Canadian skier to win an Olympic medal since Edi Podivinksy was third in the downhill at the 1994 Lillehammer Games. His best season was 2007 when he had five World Cup podium finishes, including a downhill victory at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Guay, who recently became a father when his fiancee gave birth to a baby girl, leads a strong ski team that also includes Jan Hudec, John Kucera, Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Emily Brydon, Kelly VanderBeek and Britt Janyk. |
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Jennifer Heil (Freestyle Skiing) The moguls skier made Canada’s first medal in Turin a gold and has the chance to do it again next February. The four-time World Cup overall champion took 20 months off to rebuild her body, then won a silver medal in her first competition back. Born in Spruce Grove, Alta., the 25-year-old McGill University student just missed a medal at the Salt Lake Games, then sat out the 2003 season because of shin splints. |
Plenty of money has been poured into winter sports programs since Vancouver was awarded the Olympics in July 2003. Own the Podium, a $120-million, five-year program of corporate and government funding, was specifically designed to help Canada win more medals than any other country in 2010.
But after several seasons of climbing to new peaks, Canadian athletes seem to have reached a plateau.
So far this winter, Canada’s medal count from World Cup events is lagging behind last year’s total. As of Feb. 1, Canadians had won 96 medals (26 gold, 33 silver and 37 bronze). At the same time last year Canada had claimed 173 medals and in the 2006-07 season 118.
Canada’s strength remains in speedskating. As of Feb. 1, the long-track team had won 29 medals (11-10-8), followed by the short-track skaters with 26 (4-10-12). The freestyle skiers, competing over the weekend in a World Cup event on the Olympic course at Cypress Mountain, had won 11 medals (2-4-5) and snowboard team eight (1-3-4).
For Chris Rudge, chief executive officer for the Canadian Olympic Committee, watching the medal tallies can be like playing the stock market. There are highs and lows and some factors are completely out of your control.
"There are always things you think about that might require some tweaking," says Rudge. "It’s certainly not within our mandate to interfere with the sport development programs of the various federations."
Rudge remains confident Canadians will claim their share of hardware at the Vancouver Games and lose the title of the only host country not to win a gold medal. No Canadian reached the top of the podium in Montreal in 1976 or Calgary in ’88.
"I can state unequivocally, and give you an absolute guarantee, that we’re going to have a number of gold medals in Vancouver," he says.
Roger Jackson, Own the Podium’s chief executive officer, says Canada remains second only to Germany in World Cup medals. The Germans have won more medals in the sliding sports than in the past, while remaining strong in biathlon, nordic combined and speedskating.
Rudge says several factors have contributed to Canada’s drop in medals.
Some of Canada’s top medal earners are hurt or coming off injuries. Besides Klassen, long-track speedskaters Mike Ireland of Winnipeg and Jeremy Wotherspoon of Red Deer, Alta., are injured. A nagging foot injury has kept Crawford from competing and alpine skier Jan Hudec has just returned after missing more than a year with a knee injury.
Scheduling is another factor. The freestyle skiers and snowboarders are just entering the meat of their season. Several women’s alpine races have been cancelled.
The medals are also being spread around more countries.
Some athletes are overcoming slow starts. Veteran bobsled pilot Pierre Lueders of Edmonton struggled before winning back-to-back two-man races at St. Moritz, Switzerland earlier this year.
Women’s pilot Helen Upperton also has a pair of victories.
Canada’s speedskating teams remain strong. As of the beginning of February, Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., had won three gold medals and a silver in his last four races and was second in the 1,000-metre World Cup standings. Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont., led the women’s 1,000-metre standings with Kristina Groves of Ottawa second.
Leading the charge in short-track is Charles Hamelin of Levis, Que., and Francois-Louis Tremblay of Montreal.
Olympic moguls champion Jennifer Heil of Spruce Grove, Alta., took 20 months off freestyle skiing to recover from a knee injury. Heading into this weekend’s World Cup, she has a victory and three medals in four World Cup events.
As of the first of the month, Steve Omischl of North Bay, Ont., led the aerials standings and was second in the overall World Cup rankings. Alex Bilodeau of Rosemere, Que., topped the World Cup moguls standings and was third in the overall rankings.
Among this year’s surprises is Jeff Batchelor of Oakville, Ont., who won the silver medal in the half-pipe at the snowboard world championships in Gangwon, South Korea.
In cross-country skiing, Ivan Babikov of Canmore won a gold medal in a segment of the gruelling Tour de Ski, a series of seven races over nine days in three different European countries. Alex Harvey, 20, St-Ferreol, Que., teamed up with veteran George Grey of Rossland, B.C., to win a bronze in the team relay in a World Cup event held last month at Whistler Olympic Park, the venue for the 2010 Games.
| NAMES TO WATCH IN 2010 |
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Pierre Lueders (Bobsled) Lueders is the most successful bobsled driver in Canadian history and would love to end his Olympic career with a medal on home soil. The 38-year-old Edmonton native shook off a slow start to the season by posting back-to-back two-man victories with brakeman David Bissett in St. Moritz, Switzerland, last month. He won gold in the two-man at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and silver in Turin. He also has collected eight world championship medals. |
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Steve Omischl (Freestyle Skiing) Omischl would love a podium result in Vancouver to wash the bitter taste of a 20th-place finish at the Turin Olympics out of his mouth. The 30-year-old North Bay, Ont., native, who now lives in Kelowna, B.C., is a three-time World Cup aerials champion. Last season he won six of nine events. Omischl failed to reach the podium in his first two starts this season but then claimed gold at a World Cup at Mont Gabriel. It was his 36th World cup medal. |
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Hayley Wickenheiser (Hockey) The tournament’s most valuable player in Canada’s last two Olympic victories, the 30-year-old from Shaunavon, Sask., scores at crucial times for the women’s hockey team and creates room for her teammates by drawing defenders. She’s taken on a bigger leadership role as captain following the retirement of Cassie Campbell. The five-foot-10, 170-pound Wickenheiser is currently playing in a Swedish men’s pro league. Sports Illustrated voted her among its top 25 toughest athletes at No. 20 last year. Wickenheiser was one of only two women on the list. |
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Chandra Crawford (Cross-Country Skiing) A surprise Olympic gold medallist in the sprint at the Turin Games, it’ll be difficult for the 25-year-old from Canmore, Alta., to defend her title in Whistler. This Olympic sprint is a classic-style event and not her specialty, which is skate ski. Crawford’s best shot at a medal is in the relay, which is a skate-ski race, with Sara Renner as her partner. Renner and Beckie Scott took silver in the relay at Turin. Crawford is currently dealing with nagging tendinitis in her foot and has yet to race this season. |
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Charles Hamelin (Short-track Speedskating) The 24-year-old Hamelin is Canada’s premiere short-tracker. The Montreal native is currently ranked No. 2 in the world in the 500 and third in both the 1,000 and 1,500. His rivals for gold in those distances are Koreans Lee Ho-Suk and Sung Si-Bak. Canada’s short-track team is traditionally a medal-producer at the Olympics and there are high expectations for 2010. |
"It means Canada’s men’s relay team can podium at the World Cup and at the Olympics," says Harvey.
There also have been some disappointments this season.
As of the beginning of February, Canada’s alpine ski team managed just three medals and no wins on the World Cup circuit. The women’s team had yet to reach the podium.
Hudec remains confident the ski team can reach its goal of winning three Olympic medals.
"It’s just a matter of timing and putting down that run on race day," says the Calgary resident. "Sure there aren’t as many podiums and stuff this year but . . . there have been fourth places and fifth places and really great split times coming down some tracks.
"I think we are in good shape now to bring home medals at the Olympics. It’s just a matter of who is going to do it on race day."
The Canadian skeleton racers had just three medals and no victories as of Feb. 1, well off pace from last season when they captured 14 medals.
That could change now races will be held on tracks in North America where the team usually does well.
"I’ve been thinking about 2010 since I picked up my sled in the outrun of 2006," says Melissa Hollingsworth, the Eckville, Alta., native who won a bronze medal in Turin. "We’ve got a four-year plan and it’s always there. That’s the ultimate goal and what you’re working towards."
There also is some concern for the women’s hockey team which lost to its arch rival the U.S. in both the world championships and Four Nations Cup.
"Those things have made us more focused, I really believe that," says head coach Melody Davidson. "Maybe I can get more attention from the players because some of the things they’re doing aren’t working and we need to make some adjustments."
For Canadian athletes to reach Own the Podium’s goal of topping the 2010 medal standings they will probably need to win more than 30 medals.
Germany led the medal count in Turin with 29, including 11 gold. The U.S. was next with 25. Canada finished with seven gold, 10 silver and seven bronze for 24 medals.
Speedskaters are expected to win about half of Canada’s medals in Vancouver.
"The expectation put on our sport from Own the Podium together from short-track and long-track is 15 medals," says Jean Dupre, director general of Speed Skating Canada.
Jackson says success in sports like snowboard, bobsled, skeleton, figure skating and ski cross is essential.
They are "the key middle sports that have to produce medals if we are to achieve the No. 1 status," he says. "If they can’t do that, then there are a lots of other countries that will win 20 to 25 medals.
"Our goal is to be above that group."
Most athletes live in a world where their next competition is the most important. They are excited about the Games coming but know a lot of hard work remains before they actually compete for Olympic gold.
"There is going to be a lot of hype and a lot of focus and attention about what is happening here in 2010," says Groves. "I think that’s awesome, it’s great to be part of it.
"But I keep my feet on the ground and keep my head out of the clouds and just focus on what I’m doing."
