Canada’s athletes prepare for Olympics after riding many 2005 highs – Yahoo! News
NEIL STEVENS
Thu Dec 22, 3:18 PM ET
(CP) – Third in Turin – that’s where the Canadian Olympic Committee figures our athletes can finish in overall team standings at the Winter Games in February.
It will take at least 25 medals, which is an adventurous target given Canada won 17 in 2002 in Salt Lake City, but outstanding performances in this new season and at world finals last winter give the COC reason to believe it’s possible. What wasn’t possible this year, regrettably, was a Stanley Cup final as the NHL lockout wiped out the playoffs for the first time since 1919.
Steve Nash helped fill some of the void last spring when he became the first Canadian named the NBA’s most valuable player.
Best game?
The Edmonton Eskimos winning the Grey Cup 38-35 over the Montreal Alouettes in the first overtime CFL titlefest in 44 years. Canada’s junior hockey team smashing Russia 6-1 to win the world championship ranks right up there, too.
Best athlete?
Nash tops most lists. Speed skater Cindy Klassen, skier Thomas Grandi, teenaged hockey sensation Sidney Crosby, diver Alexandre Despatie and soccer player Christine Sinclair have to be high on any list.
Klassen is a wonder on blades. She won two world championships and the World Cup 1,500-metres points title last season, smashing a world record in the process, and appears to be reaching peak form heading to Turin.
Grandi’s World Cup bronze in giant slalom and silver in slalom just a few days before Christmas was another indication that Canada’s alpine ski team could be capable of big things at the Olympics. The two medals boosted Canada’s total in alpine skiing this season to seven. Guay got the ball rolling for Canada with three medals earlier in December.
Crosby earned rave reviews through the first three months of the NHL season despite being only 18.
Despatie won two diving gold medals, and Blythe Hartley earned one, at the world aquatic championships.
Sinclair was among the top female soccer players in the world this year, and she led her university team to the U.S. title.
Highest expectations?
When Canada’s hockey teams both won Olympic gold in 2002, they ensured that the 2006 entries will be considered failures if they don’t also step to the top of the podiums. Captains Joe Sakic and Cassie Campbell will bear that pressure until the last puck drops.
Meanwhile, the Olympic-inspired heroics of cross-country skiers Beckie Scott and Sara Renner have been an inspiration to all of Canada’s Turin-bound athletes in winning World Cup medals this month.
Renner became the first Canadian to win a world championship nordic ski medal when she earned sprint bronze last winter. Scott, the only Canadian with an Olympic cross-country skiing gold medal, won gold in the 15-kilometre event one week before Christmas. It was her fourth podium appearance in four World Cup races this season.
Our speed skaters were brilliant at home and abroad all year.
Klassen, who set world 1,500-and 3,000-metres records in November, stamped herself as an Olympic favourite, and Jeremy Wotherspoon won the 500-metres World Cup title for the fourth straight year.
Joining them on World Cup podiums this month were Clara Hughes, Kristina Groves and Denny Morrison.
The short-trackers were impressive, too. They were Canada’s biggest medal producers at the 2002 Olympics, and look to do the same in Turin.
At their world championships last winter, Francois-Louis Tremblay, Charles Hamelin, Mathieu Turcotte and Steve Robillard won the men’s relay and Alanna Krauss, Kalyna Roberge, Chantale Sevigny and Tania Vincent took the women’s relay. Mathieu Giroux has broken the 3,000 world record this season.
Figure skater Jeff Buttle, who won world silver last March, won more silver at the Grand Prix Final on Dec. 17 and appears to have a good shot at the podium in Turin. Ice dancers Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon have boosted themselves into contention by having a career season that included bronze at the GP Final.
Our freestyle skiers continued to amass medals. Jennifer Heil led the moguls division on the World Cup circuit for the second year in a row and also won a world moguls title. Steve Omischl won the men’s aerials world title. The team’s talent depth is so deep that new stars emerge each month. Warren Shouldice just won his first career World Cup competition.
In the highly-competitive alpine skiing realm, Guay just earned his second silver of the season. Led by veteran Grandi and including established racers such as Emily Brydon, Gen Simard and Allison Forsyth, the team is hopeful of Olympic breakthroughs.
Pierre Lueders won another world two-man bobsleigh title this year, and Helen Upperton continued her storybook road to Turin by winning silver at a World Cup event two weeks before Christmas. It was her second podium just three races into the new season.
Canada’s cool snowboarders won five medals, including two gold by Jasey-Jay Anderson, at their world championships last January.
Skeleton racing, requiring competitors to lie face down with their heads and legs hanging off a tiny sled, remained a Canadian specialty. Jeff Pain took the men’s World Cup crown and won a world title last February, and Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards won her fourth medal in as many World Cup races to begin the 2005-2006 season.
How fleeting can fame be?
Ask Randy Ferbey. His curling rink won a sixth Canadian and third world title in 2005 but it was Brad Gushue getting the glory at the Olympic trials, and he’ll go to Turin along with women’s winner Shannon Kleibrink.
The return of a salary-capped NHL in October saw a redistribution of talent that had big names switching teams, including Edmonton’s acquisition of Chris Pronger. Wayne Gretzky surprised everybody when he did something he’d said he’d never do and assumed the head coaching job in Phoenix, and the Ottawa Senators have been No. 1 most of the season.
Of all the Canadians playing major-league baseball, perhaps the most successful this year was Jason Bay, who hit 31 home runs and drove in 101 runs to earn a new $18.250-million US, four-year contract from Pittsburgh.
Mike Weir, Canada’s best-known golfer, didn’t win any of the 23 tournaments he entered in 2005, and he still had $1.36 million US in earnings.
Other consistently solid Canadian performers included: Paul Tracy, who won two races in the Champ Car motor racing series; mountain biker Marie-Helene Premont, who won two World Cup events and finished third overall; Colin Doyle, who was the MVP in pro lacrosse while helping the Toronto Rock win a fifth title in seven years; Brent Johnson, the B.C. Lions defensive end who was named outstanding Canadian in the CFL; Pat Onstad of the San Jose Earthquakes, goalkeeper of the year in Major League Soccer for the second time; and Jason Jordan, the Vancouver Whitecaps striker who was MVP of the USL First Division.
Two of the most remarkable individual accomplishments in 2005 got insufficient recognition: Sherraine MacKay won Canada’s first medal at a world fencing championship, taking bronze in epee; and Emma-Jayne Wilson, a mere apprentice, topped the jockey standings at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack.
The men’s under-21 men’s basketball team and the women’s national water polo team, led by Ann Dow who was named player of the tournament, won bronze at their world championships.
Athletes with disabilities continued to amaze.
Benoit Huot, who holds five world records, was named top male Paralympic swimmer of 2005 by Swimming World magazine. Jacques Martin won gold in men’s wheelchair javelin at the world track and field championships. At the European Paralympic track and field championships, Chantal Petitclerc, Alan Bergman, Jason Dunkerley, Andre Beaudoin, Dean Bergeron, Diane Roy and Eric Gauthier won gold medals.
Up-comers include Corey Perry, who was named MVP of the Memorial Cup after helping the London Knights go all the way; John Mills and Alena Sharp, who earned PGA Tour and LPGA cards for 2006; Tyler Christopher, who won world track and field bronze; and Juan Mendez, who became the all-time leading Canadian scorer in U.S. college basketball.
Others to watch for in the future include Brandon O’Neill, who won silver in floor exercises at the world gymnastics championships; alpine skier Francois Bourque, who made an impressive debut on the World Cup circuit; freestyle skier Alexandre Bilodeau, who won two gold moguls medals at the 2005 nationals; and Kyle George, who won the world junior curling title.
Skateboarder Pierre-Luc Gagnon emerged as Canada’s star at the X Games, which can only get bigger given the event’s popularity with teens, and Mary Spencer was named most outstanding competitor in winning a women’s world boxing title.
At the university level, there were two teams in particular that showed they know how to win. The Carleton Ravens took a third straight men’s basketball title, and the Alberta Golden Bears won a record 11th men’s hockey championship.
Attention turns now to the world junior hockey tournament in Vancouver, and to Turin.
Deidra Dionne hopes to be there. The freestyle aerialist broke her neck Sept. 1 in a training crash, but she has resumed training with hopes of fulfilling her Olympic dream. It doesn’t have an ending yet, but it is among the most compelling stories of them all this year.
Copyright © 2005 Canadian Press
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