A parade of former Olympians took their turns with the torch Friday, as the flame neared its final destination, reaching Whistler, one of the host sites for the 2010 Games.
“For Whistler . . . (this) is the actual beginning of the Games,” said Mayor Ken Melamed.
“The athletes are here, they are training on the mountains now, so this is really the kickoff for the Games.
“It is game-on now.”
Fourteen former Olympians carried the flame that will launch the Vancouver Games as it travelled on Day 99 of the relay.
It began the day in Squamish, B.C., travelling to Whistler, where some skiing and sliding events for the Games will take place.
Among the Olympians taking up the torch Friday was John Smart, who competed for Canada in freestyle skiing in 1992 in Albertville, France, and again in 1994 in Lillehammer, Norway.
“It is a great honour,” said Smart.
“Representing Canada in the Games was a great honour and now, as a former Olympian, it’s great way for us to be involved again in this Olympics. . . . It is exciting.”
Smart is married to a former Olympian, has two young boys and lives in Whistler. He owns and operates Momentum Ski Camps, which has helped train several of the 2010 medal contenders.
Smart’s torch run was Friday night through the centre of Whistler Village.
The former Olympians were asked by the Canadian Olympic Committee and presenting partners Coca-Cola and RBC to carry the torch as a way of honouring their commitment to sport in Canada.
“This incredible event will evoke the memories that these dedicated Olympians created, and inspire our 2010 Olympians competing in Vancouver and Whistler,” said Canadian Olympic Committee president Michael Chambers in a statement.
More than 300 Olympians are part of the torch relay.
On Friday, the torch travelled from Squamish after first making its way up a three-metre tree (thanks to a local logger and carpenter), to Whistler Olympic Park (site of the Nordic event competitions) and then on into the resort.
In all, 182 torchbearers were carrying the flame Friday across 104 kilometres.
But Olympians weren’t the only ones carrying the flame. Local schoolteachers, former mayors and even a 2010 Olympic hopeful, Julia Murray, were also taking part.
The relay will arrive in Vancouver on Feb. 12 to begin the 2010 Games.
Source: www.montrealgazette.com
Defending champion Joannie Rochette fell during her short routine at the Canadian Figure Skating Championships on Friday and trails Cynthia Phaneuf heading into the long program.
Phaneuf scored 66.30 points to win the short program ahead of Rochette, who received 64.15 points after her spill.
“Stuff like that happens and you have to deal with it,” said Rochette, who fell on her opening triple Lutz. “But I was still able to get a good score to be in a good position for the free skate and that’s what a short program is for – at least in my case.”
Amelie Lacoste was third with 53.99 points.
Rochette also trailed Phaneuf at last year’s Canadian championships before bouncing back in the long program to win her fifth straight title. Rochette, the world silver medalist, has already clinched one of the two women’s singles spots on Canada’s Olympic team.
Phaneuf, the 2004 champion, knows maintaining a lead through Saturday’s long program won’t be easy.
But then, the veteran said earning a ticket to Vancouver is her main goal.
“I’m not going to say I was not thinking about (winning the title), but I’m coming here to get to the Olympics, and this is my goal,” Phaneuf said. “For sure I’m not going to think about it when I’m doing my program, but I’m coming here for nothing else but that.”
Later on Friday, Annabelle Langlois and Cody Hay won the pairs short program with a score of 65.47 points. Defending champions Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison were second with 62.87 points, while Meagan Duhamel and Craig Buntin were third with 62.38.
Canada’s two entries in pairs for the Olympics will be up for grabs in Saturday’s free program.
Joannie Rochette Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images Sport
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
via www.seattlepi.com
Kids sat on their parents’ shoulders and craned their necks as torchbearer Gary Gibson ran with the Olympic flame to the Edgeworth Centre in Camrose Friday afternoon and lit the cauldron onstage.
Thousands of people came out to see country musician Aaron Pritchett, the Augustana Men’s Choir and Blue Thistle perform at a lunchtime celebration, before the torch team packed up and continued its journey through the city.
Maria Big Snake waited with her parents, sisters, nieces and daughters to see her eldest, Meagan Big Snake, run with the flame. The 20-year-old from Siksika Nation has travelled with the torch as an aboriginal youth torch attendant since Toronto.
“My hands are shaking and I have so much energy and adrenalin,” she said.
Earlier in the day, torchbearer Ray Nielsen’s eyes grew wide and shiny as he turned around and looked at the hundreds of people lined up along the route in Stony Plain just before 7 a.m. Friday.
“It’s just too emotional to talk about,” the Bruderheim resident said. People snapped photos of the torch and kids posed with Nielsen as the crowd cheered “Go, Canada, Go!,” while shaking tambourines and waving flags.
“It’s unbelievable. I’m surprised at how many people are here. It’s amazing,” he said.
Clayton Gitzel lined up with his family and friends to see the torch at 5:30 a.m. The 12-year-old hoped to get a pair of free red Olympic mittens the town handed out to the first 70 people, but since people started filling the streets at 5 a.m., the group missed out.
“We weren’t here early enough,” Gitzel said.
The flame passed through Spruce Grove before it reached nearby Enoch Cree Nation at 8:03 a.m.
Torchbearer Alissa Hodgson brought the flame to the band office, where Chief Harry Sharphead welcomed the cheering crowd before Elder Douglas Ward blessed the flame in front of hundreds of people holding candles and wearing Enoch hockey jerseys.
The sound of drums and singing erupted as Hodgson touched the flame to waiting torchbearer Rick LeLacheur’s torch, and he took off with it.
David McDonald watched the blessing with his wife and daughter and said he was proud to see the Olympic flame in Enoch.
“It’s an event we probably won’t see again for a while,” McDonald said. “It’s something, especially for the community, to come together like this with so many people.”
Then, at 8:35 a.m., the flame reached Devon, where torchbearer Sherman Chan was waiting for his turn, unable to stand still.
“I couldn’t sleep, and it’s all I was thinking about this morning” the 29-year-old Edmontonian said. “I’m just totally overwhelmed.”
Stacy Link showed up to the relay in Devon with her family to celebrate the Olympics before they head to Vancouver in February to watch the games live, she said. “We’re really excited.”
Photograph by: Larry Wong, The Edmonton Journal
Link has tickets to see women’s and men’s curling, hockey, and women’s giant slalom skiing in Vancouver.
The flame was to continue through the Alberta communities of Wetaskiwin, Hobbema, Ponoka, Lacombe and Sylvan Lake before reaching a torch relay celebration Friday night in Red Deer.
Edmonton Journal
via www.montrealgazette.com
Two-time Olympian Natalie Darwitz will captain the U.S. women’s hockey team in Vancouver.
Angela Ruggiero and Jenny Potter, both heading into their record fourth Olympics, will be Americans’ alternate captains along with two-time Olympian Julie Chu, USA Hockey announced Thursday.
Darwitz was the American captain during the past two international seasons, leading the U.S. team to IIHF world championships in 2008 and 2009. The former University of Minnesota star has played in 197 games for the American team, scoring 231 points.
“She’s a great scoring threat,” Ruggiero told The Associated Press. “She’s someone that definitely doesn’t say a lot, but she has a strong presence on the team and has proven to be successful.”
Potter has been on the U.S. team since 1997, while Ruggiero has played in a record 244 games for the team. Chu has been in the American program since 1999.
The U.S. team is in training in Minnesota before its final push toward Vancouver. The American women will play Finland in two final games in Colorado Springs, Colo., in early February before beginning Olympic competition Feb. 14 against China.
Natalie Darwitz
source: sports.espn.go.com – Associated Press
The Swiss skier Lara Gut announced Thursday that she had not recovered from a hip injury and would miss the Vancouver Olympics.
Gut broke the news on her Web site, confirming what many in the sport had suspected because of the severity of her injury. She sustained a dislocated right hip when she crashed during a training run in October. She had surgery and had hoped to be back on the slopes this week and compete in a World Cup before the Olympics. Now, she said, she is unable to start skiing for at least another month.
Lara Gut
Gut, 18, won two silver medals in the world championships last February and in December 2008 became the youngest skier to win a World Cup event, a super-G in St. Moritz. She is one of skiing’s bright up-and-coming stars, both photogenic and marketable, and was expected to challenge the American Lindsey Vonn in the downhill and super-G in Vancouver.
Miki Ando
Figure skater Miki Ando smiles while holding a ”Stitch” stuffed animal, a gift from a fan, at Narita International Airport, east of Tokyo, before leaving for the United States on Jan. 5, 2010. The 22-year-old Olympic athlete will be at the training base in Hackensack, New Jersey, before heading straight to Vancouver in February for the Winter Olympics.
from: home.kyodo.co.jp
Sasha Cohen’s coach says the Olympic silver medallist intends to skate at the U.S. championships later this month in Spokane, Wash., with an eye on participating at the Vancouver Olympics.
Cohen has been working “very, very hard,” long-time coach John Nicks says. The Chicago Tribune first reported Cohen’s plans Monday, with the skater telling the paper: “I’ve really put myself on the line for this.”
Cohen’s participation in Spokane had been in doubt after she withdrew from two Grand Prix events because of tendinitis in her right calf. She hasn’t skated competitively since the 2006 worlds.
Associated Press
Source:Toronto Star
Sasha Cohen
A decision on whether two Chinese gymnasts were old enough to compete at the Sydney Olympics is expected in February after the athletes appeared before a disciplinary commission.
Dong Fangxiao and Yang Yun, along with their parents and two Chinese gymnastics officials, met Saturday and Sunday with the International Gymnastics Federation’s disciplinary commission. Dong and Yang are suspected of being as young as 14 in Sydney, where China won the bronze medal and Yang also won a bronze on uneven bars.
Gymnasts must turn 16 during an Olympic year to be eligible to compete.
The three-person disciplinary commission will submit its opinion to the FIG’s executive committee at its Feb. 26 meeting. If the commission decides Dong and Yang were underage, it also could recommend sanctions.
Chinese gymnasts Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao, Sept. 19, 2000, after receiving the bronze medal in the women's gymnastic team finals © AP
Because the case involves the Olympics, however, it would be up to the International Olympic Committee to decide if China should lose any medals. The IOC has said previously it would take “necessary measures” if the FIG finds Dong and Yang were underage.
Questions about their ages arose during the FIG’s investigation into the eligibility of members of China’s team that won the gold medal at the Beijing Games. The 2008 gymnasts were eventually cleared, but the FIG said it wasn’t satisfied with “the explanations and evidence provided to date” for Dong and Yang.
Yang said in a June 2007 interview that aired on state broadcaster China Central Television that she was 14 in Sydney. Yang later told The Associated Press she had misspoken, but declined further comment.
Dong’s official birthdate is listed as Jan. 20, 1983, but the FIG said accreditation information for the Beijing Olympics, where Dong worked as a national technical official, listed her birthdate as Jan. 23, 1986.
That would have made Dong 14 in Sydney.
Dong’s blog also said she was born in the Year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac, which dated from Feb. 20, 1985, to Feb. 8, 1986. Dong has not denied that, but she refused to answer any questions about her age when reached by the AP.
source: sports.yahoo.com/olympics
Female ski jumpers set their sights on 2014 after losing their final bid to compete at the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal of two lower-court rulings that said Canada’s Charter of Rights cannot dictate which sports are included in the Winter Games.
The women contend that Vancouver organizers are breaking the charter by hosting only men’s ski jumping.
American jumper Lindsay Van, who won the first women’s world championship in February in the Czech Republic, said she was disappointed but not surprised by the court’s action.
“I feel totally opposed to everything the Olympics stand for,” Van said. “They’re not fulfilling their charter.”
Van said she has spent years training alongside men who will compete in February.
“It’s definitely going to be hard to watch,” she said.
The lower courts ruled that the charter does not apply to the International Olympic Committee, which decides which sports and events are included in each games.
“We are very disappointed the Supreme Court of Canada does not view this as matter of national importance,” said Ross Clark, attorney for the female jumpers.
The Supreme Court, as is its custom, gave no reasons for its decision.
The IOC has said it hopes that women’s ski jumping will meet the requirements for inclusion at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
Deedee Corradini, president of Women’s Ski Jumping USA, said the women will not give up in their fight to be in the Olympics.
“No qualified athlete should be denied the right to participate in the Olympics because of gender,” Corradini said. “We knew it was a long shot. This really has been a David versus Goliath story.”
Corradini said the group will continue to press the IOC to include women ski jumpers in the 2014 Olympics.
“Without this fight, I don’t think the women would have a chance at 2014,” Corradini said.
The women first launched a lawsuit against local organizers in May 2008, 18 months after the IOC decided against the inclusion of women’s ski jumping.
They dropped a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission when the federal government agreed to lobby the IOC. When that failed, they pursued a court case.
The women wanted the courts to force Vancouver organizers to either add a women’s event or cancel the men’s competition. Organizers said they could do neither.
The IOC voted not to include women’s ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympics because the sport didn’t meet the necessary criteria for inclusion. The IOC requires that a sport must have contested at least two world championships before it can become an Olympic event. There are also rules dictating how far in advance a sport can be added to the Olympic program.
The IOC has decided to include women’s ski jumping at the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012 at Innsbruck, Austria, and will consider adding the event to the 2014 games.
source: sports.yahoo.com/olympics
Christine Nesbitt of Canada has won the women’s 1,000 meters at the final long-track speedskating World Cup before the Vancouver Olympics.
Nesbitt skated the distance in 1 minute, 13.36 seconds Sunday at the Utah Olympic Oval.
Wang Beixing of China was second in 1:14.01. Nao Kodaira of Japan was third in 1:14.17.
Heather Richardson was the top American finisher, in ninth place. Two-time Olympian Jennifer Rodriguez was 10th and Elli Ochowicz 13th.
Four-time Olympic medalist Anni Friesinger-Postma of Germany was 11th.
