Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 30, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Madonna fiddles while Joni burns
Canadian singer Joni Mitchell rarely gives interviews—a good thing for Bob Dylan and Madonna. Mitchell unloaded on her fellow folkie, the former Bobby Zimmerman, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “Bob is not authentic at all,” she said. “He’s a plagiarist and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.” As for Madonna, Mitchell linked her to America’s decline into the “stupid and shallow.” Madonna, she said, “is like Nero, she marks the turning point.” Madonna also inspired the wrath of supermodel Paulina Porizkova, in an online essay on the abuse of cosmetic procedures. She’s a Botoxed blond “who cannot frown,” Porizkova writes, while the much enhanced reality star Heidi Montag is “a cheap, plastic pool float.”

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They almost had it

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 1 Comment

Photograph by Tannen Maury/EPA

Cheryl Bernard has been curling for a very long time. Since she was a little girl, in fact. But not until her final match as a 2010 Olympian did she understand the true meaning of a steal.

The gold medal was hers. Everyone in the building sure thought so, clanging their cowbells and chanting her name. In the tenth end, when she was still up by two, Bernard was caught flashing that unmistakable smile, the one athletes get when they know they’re about to win, but are trying not to gloat.

And then she lost.

It didn’t happen in a blink of an eye. It actually took quite a few minutes for her gold to melt into silver, right there in front of 5,600 screaming witnesses. But even Anette Norberg, the Swedish skip who ended up with Bernard’s medal, had trouble putting into words exactly what she saw. “It just happened,” she said. “I don’t know how.”

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‘Old Bear’ has his day

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Morry Gash/Associated Press

The crowd didn’t bother waiting for the podium ceremony. Halfway through the final end, with Kevin Martin’s rink up by three in the gold-medal match, a few fans started singing O Canada. It spread slowly at first, section by section, but by “God keep our land glorious and free,” the entire place was belting out the anthem. Even Martin—Mr. Serious—couldn’t keep from smiling.

Eight long years after a heartbreaking silver medal in Salt Lake City, the best curler in the world had his Olympic gold, beating Norway and their diamond-checkered pants in the men’s final. The 6-3 win capped off Canada’s best day at the Vancouver Games (three gold and one bronze) and marked a raucous return to glory for the country’s other national sport. “Finally,” Martin said, the invisible monkey gone from his back. “It’s been a lot of work and a lot of years, and it feels really good. I said to the guys when we were coming to the podium: ‘It’s like we’re walking through a dream.’ ”

It was certainly a dream tournament for the Martin rink, which didn’t lose a single match on the way to gold. Their play in the finale was equally dominant. Third John Morris had the game of his life, landing one double takeout after another, and the skip sealed the deal in the seventh end with a perfect freeze in the circle that set up two points and a commanding lead. After both sides exchanged singles in the eighth and ninth, it was anthem time. “You get tingles and jitters up the spine,” said Marc Kennedy, Martin’s second. “You’re up three, you have a home crowd in the Olympic Games, and they’re singing the anthem. It just doesn’t get any better.” Thomas Ulsrud, the Norwegian skip, actually leaned over to Martin and said: “You’ve got to love this crowd, don’t you?’ ”

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Top 10 best moments of the Vancouver Olympic Games

By macleans.ca - Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 9:05 PM - 4 Comments

This best-of list does not specifically include Canada’s medallists. They deserve celebration, but are a bit too obvious, and too numerous to address, here.

Eight years later, Kevin Martin is golden

By Michael Friscolanti - Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 11:23 PM - 6 Comments

The crowd didn’t bother waiting for the podium ceremony. Halfway through the tenth end, with Kevin Martin’s rink up by three in the gold-medal game, the rabid, red-and-white fans stuffed inside the arena burst into their own rendition of “O Canada.” It started off small, section by section, but by “God keep our land glorious and free,” the whole building was singing. They knew it was over.

Eight long years after a heartbreaking silver medal at the Salt Lake City Winter Games, Martin finally got his gold, beating Norway 6-3 in the men’s curling final on Saturday night. The win was the climax of Canada’s best day yet at the Vancouver Games—three golds and one bronze—and a raucous return to glory for the country’s other national sport. “Finally,” said Martin, his gold medal dangling from his neck. “It’s been a lot of work and a lot of years. I said to the guys when we were coming to the podium: ‘It’s like we’re walking through a dream.’ It’s amazing.”

The dream result was never really in doubt. Canadian third John Morris had the match of his life, landing four crucial double takeouts, and the skip sealed the deal in the seventh with a perfect freeze in the four-foot circle. When Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud tried to remove both rocks, he left the Canadian stone behind, allowing Martin to hit for two and a 5-2 lead. After both teams exchanged singles in the eighth and ninth, it was anthem time.

“You get tingles and jitters up the spine,” said Marc Kennedy, Martin’s second. “You’re up three coming home, you have home crowd in the Olympic Games, and they’re singing the anthem. It just doesn’t get any better. I don’t know how I’m going to top this.” Even the Norwegian skip couldn’t help but smile. As fans belted out the lyrics, Ulsrud leaned over to Martin and said: “You’ve got to love this crowd, don’t you?”

It’s hard not to. Of all the venues at the Games, none—not even the hockey stadium—has attracted more passionate, frenzied fans than the Vancouver Olympic Centre. With only 5,600 seats, it feels more like a movie theatre than a sports arena, except people in movie theatres don’t stop their feet in unison, honk air horns at the most inappropriate times, or ask Cheryl Bernard to marry them. It got so loud that some players had to resort to hand signals because their “Hurry hards!” were being drowned out by “Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those sweepers!” It was a heckler’s paradise, with the dress code to match: sparkly wigs, maple-leaf capes, and a beer in each fist.

“I’ve never been prouder to be Canadian,” said Morris, who was about to shoot when the anthem began, and waited, with a wide grin, for the song to finish. “The crowds have been in there all week. They’ve been so appreciative and so supportive of us. We have one of the greatest countries in the world to live in, and to be able to win an Olympic gold for Canada is an outstanding feeling.”

Earlier in the day, Canadian athletes won gold in speed skating team pursuit and giant slalom snowboarding, and a bronze in ski-cross racing. Add the victory in men’s curling, and Canada now has 13 gold medals—more than any other country at the Vancouver Olympics—and 25 medals in all, the most Canada has captured at any Games, summer or winter.

It was actually that winning snowboarder, Jasey-Jay Anderson, who helped inspire the curlers to victory. Martin, Morris, Kennedy and lead Ben Hebert spent the hours before their match watching Anderson’s heats on television. They were in the locker room, eyes peeled to the screen, when he won his gold-medal race. “We watched his prelims and his quarters and his semis, and we thought: ‘This could be a great day for Canada if we win. Three gold medals,’ ” Kennedy said. “That was the unexpected thing these last two weeks, just how proud we were to watch our other athletes.”

Coming into these Games, Martin was certainly one of the athletes to watch. A hard-luck loser in 2002, he had the final shot against Norway in Salt Lake, but left his rock barely an inch to heavy and had to settle for silver. Martin has insisted, over and over, that he doesn’t dwell on the past nearly as much as the media thinks he does. But seeing him on the top step of that podium, beaming from ear to ear, it was clear that a very large weight had been lifted. “We’re really proud of him,” Kennedy said. “He put together a plan for us, we stuck with it for four years, and it’s come to fruition. I don’t think there’s any doubt he’s the best player to ever play, and he’s topped himself today.”

Ulsrud, who has matched up with Martin’s rink many times over the past few years, had equally high praise for his rival—and the fans who cheered him to victory. “It was an amazing crowd to play in front of, I really enjoyed it,” the Norwegian said. “To be honest with you, the team that deserved it most won. Against all the other teams here, the way we played today would have been a tight match. But against these guys, the way we played today you’re going to be crushed. They just smacked us. What can I say? That’s how good these guys are.”

German bobsled slips by Canuck Rush

By Nicholas Köhler - Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 9:03 PM - 2 Comments

With so many golds won by Canadians over the past days, a bronze medal may appear a little off colour.

But Canada-1 pilot Lyndon Rush’s performance today in the four-man bobsled is the first time Canada has made the podium in the event since Innsbruck in
1964.

And the gold secured by our neighbours south of the border—American pilot Steven Holcomb finished first today at the Whistler Sliding Centre—is the first time a U.S. bobsled has beat the world in four-man since the 1948 games in St. Moritz.

The anomaly, which relegated the normally stronger German team under Andre Lange to silver (stealing the second spot from Rush, who’s held it for Canada through the first three runs), has prompted some to wonder whether there isn’t a sea change west underway in the sport.

Consider the women’s two-man, where Canadian drivers Kaillie Humphries and Helen Upperton took the top two spots on the podium respectively, with Erin Pac of the U.S. picking up the rear. Not a German in sight, and one of the three German sleds, piloted by Cathleen Martini, crashed.

But though he acknowledged the stronger women’s teams coming out of Canada and the U.S. these days, the always thoughtful Rush rejected the premise of a North American shift.

“They’re still really strong and this is our backyard, you got to remember,” Rush said of the Germans in a press conference. “If these Olympic games were in Germany, you wouldn’t see me here. You wouldn’t see Holcomb here either. This is in our backyard, it was really in our favour, and the Germans still got a silver. Those guys are so good.”

Rush admitted he was initially disappointed by the result, which saw his crew slip in just .01 seconds behind Germany’s Lange with an overall time of 3:24.85, because he had held his crew’s position in second over the first three runs.

“We had them for three heats and to give it away in the last heat, I was mad,” he said. “We won an Olympic bronze, but I like racing, right? And when you come up short in the last heat, you’re mad. You always want to see a ’1′ coming down the last heat.”

When Rush, a medal favourite, instead crashed in the second heat of the two-man bob a week ago today, scuttling the race, he apologized to his brakeman, Lascelles Brown. Now, he said, his three brakemen, including Brown, were “trying to cheer me up because they think I’m crazy for being upset.”

This is Brown’s second medal, after winning silver backing Canadian Pierre Lueders in Turin.

Lueders placed fifth today after a disappointing second run yesterday. Lueders followed the effort by storming past reporters in the mix zone swearing. This afternoon he explained he’d been upset because for the first time in his very ling career, two sleds had crashed consecutively before his run, spoiling both his momentum and the sliding track’s ice.

LIVE BLOG Men's Curling: Canada 6, Norway 3 (F)

By Scott Feschuk - Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 5:55 PM - 14 Comments

Doing this on the spur of the moment. I don’t know a ton about curling. I do know, however, that from a distance Donald Sutherland looks like a homeless man. (Lest you think this a pejorative statement, I also believe that many homeless men look like Donald Sutherland.)

2:56 p.m. PT Another Olympic venue, another blast of Trooper over the soundsystem. I can’t believe the 1988 Olympics are almost over.

3:01 Bagpipes. People standing and clapping. Some folks seem drunk. This seems kind of familiar but I can’t– hang on, is someone going to try to feed me a haggis now?

•

First end

Everything is in place. The ice is ready. The medals podium sits just off to the side. John Morris has just enough facial scruff. And we’re underway, throwing stones for the gold. Canada opens with the hammer.

For those of you wondering about my own knowledge of and personal expertise with this sport… Number of Briers attended: One. Number of bonspiels watched on TV after failing to convince my Dad to Continue…

Cheryl Bernard loses the gold

By Michael Friscolanti - Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 12:42 AM - 43 Comments

Cheryl Bernard has been curling for a very long time. Since she was a little girl, in fact. But not until Friday afternoon did she understand the true meaning of a steal.

The gold medal was hers. Everyone in the building sure thought so, clanging their cowbells and belting out: “We love you, Cheryl!” In the tenth end, when Bernard was still up by two, she was caught on camera smiling that uncontrollable smile, the one athletes get when they know they’re about to win, but are trying not to gloat.

And then she lost.

It didn’t happen in a blink of an eye. It actually took quite a few minutes for her gold to melt into silver, right there in front of thousands of witnesses. But even Anette Norberg, the Swedish skip who ended up with Bernard’s medal, had trouble putting into words exactly what she saw. “It just happened,” she said. “I don’t know how.”

From a strict curling perspective, here’s what happened. In that tenth end, Bernard’s rink was up 6-4 and needed the boss to complete a relatively simple takeout to seal the victory. But she couldn’t knock the second-last Swedish stone out of the house, allowing Norberg to hit for two and send the match into overtime. In the extra end, Bernard had the hammer in hand and two rival rocks in the circle. All she had to do was stick a standard double takeout. Her shot only took out one. 7-6 Sweden. Game over.

That’s the technical explanation. The painful truth is that Cheryl Bernard blew it—and that’s what makes the whole thing so hard to believe. “I had two chances to win that game,” she said afterwards, tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Until now, her fans couldn’t have asked for anything more, either. After beating out the best curlers in the country for the chance to represent Canada at the Olympics, Bernard and her Calgary-based teammates (Susan O’Connor, Carolyn Darbyshire, Cori Bartel and alternate Kristie Moore) thrived on home ice against the rest of world. Backed by the rabid, raucous crowds that invaded the curling venue, the Bernard Bunch went 8-1 in the round robin, snuck by Switzerland in the semis, and set themselves up to be the first Canadian female curlers since the Sandra Schmirler squad to taste Olympic gold.

They tasted it. They just weren’t allowed to keep it. “It’s still sinking in,” O’Connor, Bernard’s lead, said right after the loss. “But as much as it hurts a little bit right now, I think maybe tomorrow or in a week or in a month or in a year we’re going to be really, really proud of this. It’s a pretty huge accomplishment and there are a million curlers in Canada that would kill to be in my spot right now.”

She’s right, of course. A silver medalist is hardly a loser, especially when that loss comes against the defending Olympic champions. But as commendable as second place is—and yes, let’s make it clear one more time: silvers are quite an accomplishment—Bernard was in control of that match. The 43-year-old was literally minutes away from standing on the top step of the podium, the big prize around her neck. A silver is the absolute last thing she wanted. “Obviously, I just didn’t throw the last one good enough,” she told reporters. “Eventually, this silver is going to feel great. Just right now, the gold was very close.”

As for what went wrong, Bernard said her final stone in the tenth end just didn’t curl quite enough, probably because it hit a patch of bad ice. The hammer in the eleventh? “It was a pretty routine double,” she said. “It missed by a millimeter. I couldn’t ask for an easier shot, but…”

Bernard, the good skip she is, was quick to accept blame. But her teammates would hear nothing of it. “Cheryl has been so stellar,” Bartel said. “Half an inch—that was the difference between winning and losing that game.” One reporter asked O’Connor what she told Bernard in the moments after their devastating loss. “I’m really glad you asked that,” she answered. “Cheryl is the reason we’re sitting up here now. She is the reason we were at the Olympics. There is nobody in the world that I would rather have throwing last rock for me.”

The people who paid big bucks to watch her compete were equally adoring; during the medal ceremony, they gave their silver medalists a golden ovation. “You’ve just lost a really big game and you still have 6,000 people cheering for you,” O’Connor said. “That’s more why I’m emotional than anything. It’s kind of like when you come off a loss and you do okay until your mom comes and gives you a hug. It’s like that—times a million.”

Bernard also praised the fans, both in the venue and in their living rooms. “Playing at home in front of Canada, we’ll never experience this again,” she said. “It was a chance of a lifetime.”

So, too, was that final rock.

LIVE BLOG: Cheryl Bernard settles for silver

By Michael Friscolanti - Friday, February 26, 2010 at 5:54 PM - 22 Comments

Cheryl Bernard certainly knows what’s at stake today. Win, and it’s gold for Canada in women’s curling. Lose, and it’s the bittersweet taste of silver. But just in case the skip does need a reminder, all she needs to do is look to her left (or her right, depending on which way she’s sliding). On the sheet at the far end of the arena, about twenty feet from where she’ll be battling for Olympic glory, is the medal podium. No matter what happens, Bernard will be standing there later tonight. On which step is the only question.

2:28 pm — Bernard and the rest of her rink have surfaced from the tunnel for their warm-up tosses, and the crowd certainly noticed. There is much applause and cow-bell tapping. It’s still more than 30 minutes before the gold-medal match, but the bleachers are filling up quickly—and each new arrival is trying hard to look more Canadian than everybody else. A simple hockey jersey just isn’t enough anymore. Ron Wolfe and Brad Hrycan, both from Saskatoon, are wearing red sweatpants, red and white wigs, Canadian flag capes, and maple-leaf shaped glasses. For the moment, they’ve taken off their red gloves. It’s easier to drink the beer that way.

3:03 pm — The bagpipers are finished belting, and the public address announcer is introducing the members of each rink. The roof nearly fell off when it was Bernard’s turn.

3:07 pm — Sweden goes first in end number one. The house is empty after six stones.

3:11 pm — Both rinks are trading hits and sticks. The famously raucous crowd is clearly on edge. Except for the odd “Let’s Go Canada,” there are some nervous faces inside the Vancouver Olympic Centre. Two shots to go, and here comes Bernard.

3:14 pm — If Bernard is nervous, she’s not showing it. Her first shot of the day was a nice hit and stick, leaving one Canadian stone in the house. But Swedish skip Norberg answered right back, completing the exact same shot.

3:16 pm — Bernard knocks the Swedes out of the circle, and herself too. Canada keeps the hammer, it’s 0-0 after the first end.

3:29 pm — Swedish second Eva Lund just made a beautiful shot, sneaking her stone past a Canadian guard and nudging it next to her opponents’ rock in the house. Canadian second Susan O’Connor couldn’t match the magic. Advantage Sweden.

3:31 pm — Bring on Bernard! She lands her rock on the edge of the four-foot circle, Norberg can’t squeeze her last past a guard, and Canada’s about to score.

3:33 pm — Big opportunity blown. With one rock already closest to the centre and the hammer in hand, Bernard failed to draw it into the circle. 1-0 Canada. Should be 2-0.

3:39 pm — Some background here: The Bernard bunch slaughtered the Swedes in round robin play. The victory was such a lopsided affair that Canadian alternate Kristie Moore, who is almost six months pregnant, saw action in the ninth end. Picture a college basketball blowout, when the bench-warming senior plays a few seconds of garbage time with his team up 35 points. Don’t think for a second the Swedish squad has forgotten that.

3:44 pm — If the Swedish squad loses, don’t be surprised if the skipper blames the crowd. As she set up for her first shot of the third end, more than one fan was yelling her name in that long, drawn-out kind of way. “Norrrrrr-berrrrrrg.” When Bernard’s up, it’s all hush-hush.

4:01 pm — Big shot coming up for Bernard. She has to squeeze her hammer through an army of Swede rocks or lose two more.

4:03 pm — Beauty! The shot, I mean. 2-2. (Should be 3-2 Canada, but I’ll stop saying that now. Unless it proves costly later.)

4:07 pm — Best heckle of the day so far from Canadian fans: “Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those sweepers!? Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those girls!?” Jeepers, creepers, where’s the beer guy?

4:14 pm — There’s a great moment in every end when Bernard, after inspecting the house, glides back to the other side of the sheet to delivery her shot. The crowd goes bananas. How she doesn’t slip is rather impressive.

4:16 pm — Drama time. Bernard just hit a beautiful draw into the house with her final rock, nicking the Swedish stone. But it’s not clear which one’s closer. Norberg then proceeded to draw the hammer closer than both of them. So it’s one point for sure for the Swedes. Maybe two. Here comes the measuring guy.

4:18 pm — The Swedish rock is a smidgen closer. You can tell because only the people with yellow and blue flags are cheering. Two huge points for Team Norberg, putting them up 4-2 with five ends to go. That podium suddenly looks much larger.

4:30 pm — A reader just asked a good question—proof positive that Olympic curling is attracting new fans (even if some of them are just tuning in to see Cheryl Bernard). In the first end, when Bernard used her hammer to knock out the Swedish stone, why didn’t she hit and stick so Canada scored a point? Answer: she would rather keep the hammer for the next end than score one measly single. See, if a team scores, they give up the hammer, and at this high level of curling, it’s pretty pointless to use the hammer to score just one. Better to keep it and try for more in the next end.

4:34 pm — Bernard just made a beautiful draw to the button, but Norberg didn’t waste any time knocking it out. The Swedes now have four stones in the house. Canada has none. Here comes Cheryl with the hammer.

4:38 pm — Bernard is really looking comfortable now. Avoiding a disaster, she curled her stone into the middle of house, knocked out the closest Swede, and stuck around for one. Sweden 4, Canada 3. Seventh end.

4:53 pm — The fans screamed “Shoot em up, Cheryl!” and “You can do it, Cheryl!” So she did it, knocking a Swedish stone from the four-foot circle and leaving three Canadian rocks all by themselves. Norberg ponders.

4:57 pm — What a seventh end! Norberg  silences the crowd with a gorgeous hit and stick, and then Bernard comes right back with her own, leaving two Canadian rocks in the four-foot. Norberg’s hammer falls short, and Canada steals two to take a 5-4 lead. A gold-medal match, indeed.

5:07 pm — I had to get a beer. Everyone else is having one.

5:10 pm — The eighth end was a repeat of the first, except it was Norberg, not Bernard, clearing out the house. No points for either side. Sweden keeps the hammer heading into the second-last end. Oh, and someone topped the “jeepers, creepers” chant. As Bernard shot her final rock of the end, someone yelled: “Get in the hole!” Some other people thought it was funny.

5:26 pm — After the crowd urged each other to “Shhhh,” Bernard made a zinger, knocking out the Swedish rock in the house and leaving to Canadians behind. Norberg has the  hammer. Here it comes.

5:28 pm — Norberg was a little too hard. She knocked out one of Bernard’s rocks—but sent hers out, too. One Canadian stone left in the house equals one big steal. Canada 6, Sweden 4. Final end.

5:31 pm — “More cowbell!” someone screams. Cowbells ring.

5:35 pm — Ladies and gentlemen, the Bernard squad can taste it. We’re in the tenth end, the Canucks are up by two, and one fan just yelled: “I love you, Cheryl!” He’s not the only one.

5:38 pm — Bernard is about to take what should be her final two shots of the Olympics. The crowd went nuts, then dead quiet.

5:44 pm — Nice shot. Norberg knocked a Canadian stone out, put hers somewhat behind the guard, and left Bernard with a little work to do. Here we go.

5:43 pm — Bernard blew it. She couldn’t knock the yellow stone out, and Norberg hit and stuck for two. We’re tied at six going to extra ends.

5:52 pm — It goes without saying that the crowd is a tad deflated. The gold was there. If it’s any consolation, Bernard does have the hammer in the eleventh end.

6:01 pm — The Swedes just took a timeout to talk strategy. As they huddled with their coach, the crowd tried to be as noisy as possible. 

6:06 pm — Norberg just pulled off another gorgeous hit and stick, leaving Swedish stones in the four-foot circle. Bernard with the hammer. It all comes down to this. She needs to move both stones.

6:07 — Bernard couldn’t do it. Game over. Sweden Gold, Canada Silver.

China's man in Canada

By Michael Friscolanti - Friday, February 26, 2010 at 4:14 PM - 1 Comment

The Chinese women’s curling team (yes, China has a women’s curling team) captured an Olympic bronze medal this morning, whipping Switzerland 12-6. Watching it all unfold from the first row—and shedding a few tears afterwards—was a big bear of a man dressed in a red China jacket: Dan Rafael, their Canadian coach.

“I’m a little emotional,” said the Montrealer, who has helped transform the Communist state into a curling powerhouse. “It’s been two-and-a-half years of my life. What can I say? It’s worth it.”

Although the image still generates giggles, those who follow curling understand just how good the Chinese rink has become. In a country with 1.3 billion people—including 1.299999999 billion who have absolutely no idea what a double take-out is—four women with brooms have emerged into much more than a worthy challenger. They are a dynasty in the making.

Led by skip Bingyu Wang, the so-called “Wang Gang” qualified for their first world championship in 2005. Three years later, they captured their first medal, a silver. And last year—less than a decade after the team was assembled from scratch—China won its first world title in women’s curling. Today’s Olympic bronze was also a first.

After the win, each player enjoyed a tearful embrace with Coach Rafael.

Under his leadership, the Chinese team has become famous for ten-hour practices and late-night strategy sessions. Unlike, say, Canadian skip Cheryl Bernard—who is busy owning an insurance company when she isn’t drawing to the house—the Chinese squad does nothing but curl. They are constantly traveling from tournament to tournament, including long stints in Alberta, and rarely see their families. Even Rafael admitted today that such a rigorous regime wouldn’t fly with the curlers in his home country. “I doubt it,” he said. “Different culture. Different system. How many Canadians can you tell: ‘You won’t be home for six months. All you’re going to do is curl and do what we tell you.’ That’s just the way it is.”

When asked if the grueling schedule has taken a toll on his own life, Rafael answered this way: “I think the person you should be asking is my wife.” (It’s Sue, by the way. And he says he’s going to call you.)

Rafael also coaches the Chinese men’s team, but they’re not as good as the gals, finishing a distant 8^th at the Vancouver Games. Whether he’s back next season is still unclear. His contract is up at the end of June, and although he would like to keep his current gig, he said he’s willing to listen to other offers before making a choice. “Sometimes you’ve got to think about being home.”

He does know one thing, though: he’ll be in the arena for this afternoon’s gold medal match-up between Bernard and the Swedes. “I can’t predict that game,” he said. “Canada is Canada, and you can’t take that away from them. They can beat anybody. But we’re talking about Annette Norberg—defending Olympic champion, three-time world champion. We’re talking about one of the best teams of all time. They showed us yesterday, if you’re not on your game you’re out the door.”

The same is true if you’re up against China.

The Olympics worst-dressed list (UPDATED)

By Patricia Treble - Friday, February 26, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 17 Comments

Kevin Martin leads Canada past Sweden in curling semis

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:36 PM - 1 Comment

Kevin Martin has waited eight long years for a chance at Olympic redemption. Another 48 hours isn’t going to kill him.

With a convincing 6-2 semi-final win against the Swedes this afternoon, the Canadian skip earned his team a spot in Saturday’s gold-medal match—a match he famously failed to win during the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Martin was forced to settle for silver back then, and although he doesn’t exactly like to dwell on those memories, he is certainly anxious for a second crack. “It definitely won’t be the end of the world if we don’t win, but I seriously want to get up that podium one more step,” he said. “It’s a lot of work to get back here, and you don’t get that many chances in a lifetime.”

In order to taste redemption, the Canadians will have to beat the Norwegian squad, which ousted Switzerland 7-5 in the other semi-final match. Led by skip Thomas Ulsrud—and dressed in the most hideous of checkered pants—Team Norway is the only crew that has come close to defeating the Martin rink, losing by a slim 7-6 margin on opening day. “It will be a real tight battle,” Martin said. “All you can do is play well. That is the key to this whole thing: make sure we get a lot of rest, have a real important practice session tomorrow, and then come out and leave nothing on the table.”

Ironically enough, it was a team from Norway that denied Martin the gold eight years ago. But in typical Martin fashion, he doesn’t buy into that kind of hype. “That doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “It’s different guys.”

For a while this afternoon, it seemed as though the Swedes might spoil Martin’s storybook ending before it had a chance to begin. Both teams traded single points in the early ends, mixed in with some nifty saves by Swedish skip Niklas Edin. But in the fifth, Edin made a disastrous error, botching a take-out attempt that allowed Canada to steal two points. When Martin stole another two in the next end, his team was suddenly up 6-1 and cruising to victory—much to the cowbell-ringing delight of the 5,000 fans stuffed into the bleachers. “This was our goal,” said John Morris, the Canadian third. “This is why we play the game.”

Although Martin’s reclamation project makes for great headlines, it only applies to him. His teammates from Salt Lake City are not his teammates today. But the current ones certainly understand how important Saturday’s game is for Martin—and for them. “I don’t think he has to say what it would mean to him to win,” said second Marc Kennedy. “But he has taught us a lot about playing in big games. We’ve played in two Brier finals and World finals and Olympic trial finals, so we know what it’s all about. Whether it’s a Brier title on the line or an Olympic title on the line, you’re going to feel the same feelings. We’ve got big-game experience, so hopefully we can pull it through.”

Cheryl Bernard one step from gold

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 5:52 PM - 2 Comments

Let the Google searches continue. Cheryl Bernard, the skip of the Canadian women’s curling team—and a full-blown Internet sensation—is on the brink of Winter Games glory after leading her rink to a semi-final win over Switzerland today. The 6-5 victory sets up a gold-medal showdown Friday afternoon against Sweden, the defending Olympic champs. “It’s amazing,” said a beaming Bernard. “You get this close and you want it even more.”

She wasn’t quite so chipper last night. Battling a nasty cold, the 43-year-old Calgarian declined a chance to attend the Canada/Russia hockey showdown, choosing instead to gulp some NeoCitran and watch the game from her bed. It was the right choice. The only symptoms she felt this morning were the butterflies in her stomach. “There were a lot of nerves, but we tried to breathe and tried to do all the stuff we know how to do, and I thought we played great under the circumstances,” she said. “Our team handled the nerves.”

Tonight—with at least a silver medal now guaranteed—Bernard plans to drink something else: a glass of red wine. “Definitely,” she laughed.

There were certainly some tense moments. Trailing 5-4 in the ninth, Swiss skip Mirjam Ott looked ready to steal a point for the tie after guiding her rock onto the button, directly in front of one of the Canadian stones. But Bernard followed that up with the highlight of the morning, using her hammer to knock out the Swiss stone and capture one. (It was nearly two, but another Swiss rock was a smidgen closer than the other Canadian stone left in the house).

Down by two in the tenth, Ott had one final chance to tie things up, but after her final shot eliminated Bernard’s stone, it rolled a little too far. The crowd—which included Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and actor Donald Sutherland—erupted in applause. Ott could only shake her head. “It’s hard,” she said. “It was a close game and it was obviously not my best day.”

It wasn’t Bernard’s best day, either. But it was enough to ensure that the Canadian women leave Vancouver with some sort of curling medal in their suitcases. Had they lost, it would have meant a fight for the bronze tomorrow morning against the Chinese, who lost 9-4 to the Swedes. “I think there is pressure off,” said Dennis Balderston, the Canadian coach. “Personally, I felt the pressure. I tried not to show it to them, but this was the pressure game for me.”

Bernard agreed. “We know how much it meant, and I haven’t played a game like that before and neither have the rest of the girls,” she said. “There is not so much pressure now, but we still have a job to do.”

Susan O’Connor, Bernard’s third, said when Switzerland’s last rock slid out of the circle, her first emotion was relief. “Now it’s just exciting,” she said. “It’s exciting that we get to come play for the gold medal in front of this crowd. What could be better in the world?”

Just one thing. A win.

Liveblog: Kevin Martin smells gold

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 5:25 PM - 1 Comment

The best curler in the world is trying to rubber-stamp his status with an Olympic gold medal. But first Kevin Martin needs to conquer to the Swedes in today’s semi-final. After end number one, there’s no score. The other semi-final is Norway versus Switzerland.

2:28 pm — Two things stand out. One: Kevin Martin looks a whole lot younger in person. If he cut his losses and shaved off that last little bit of hair, the TV cameras wouldn’t be so unforgiving. Two: Norway’s famous checkered pants look a whole lot louder in person. The white belt is the clincher.

2:33 pm — Canada takes the early 1-0 lead after Martin sends his hammer into the four-foot circle for a single point. Same score next door, as Norway and their pants strike first against the Swiss.

2:41 pm — No sign of actor Donald Sutherland, who showed up (with a novel in his hand) to the women’s semis this morning. Still trying to confirm what book he was reading. And whether Kiefer likes curling, too.

2:46 pm — Norway 2, Switzerland 0.

2:50 pm — This could be a disastrous third end for Team Martin. Swedish skip Niklas Edin is lying three with the hammer in his pocket. Huge final shot coming up for Martin. The crowd is pumped.

2:52 pm — Minimal damage. Martin knocked a Canadian rock into the four-foot circle, and the best Edin could do was a single. Bit opportunity lost for the Swedes. To end four we go, tied at one.

2:58 pm — Hard!!!

2:59 pm — Harder!!!

3:09 pm — Sweet recovery by the Swedish skip. With his final rock of the fourth end, he knocked two Canadian stones out of the house and left his neatly inside the four-foot circle. Martin had no choice but to take the single point and relinquish the hammer. Canada 2, Sweden 1. This is an anxious crowd. They’ve usually sung O Canada by now.

3:23 pm — Martin steals two to end the first half, sending the bleachers into a cow-bell frenzy. That’s two costly misses now for Niklas Edin, the 24-year-old Swedish skip. 4-1 Canada. It’s the same score on Sheet B, with Norway in the lead. If this holds up, the gold-medal final will be Mr. Pressure versus Men in Checkers.

3:39 pm — Switzerland is fighting back. 4-3 Norway.

3:45 pm — Edin misses again. Another steal of two for Canada. 6-1.

3:59 pm — Seven ends done. This one’s over. News at 11. In the meantime, did you know that Kevin Martin owns a curling and tennis shop in Edmonton? It’s called “Kevin’s Rocks-n-Racquets,” and if you go there next week, you’ll see an Olympic medal hanging behind the counter. The only question is which one: gold or silver?

4:14 pm — A fan is desperately trying to get the rest of the crowd to sing O Canada, but they won’t bite. They’re too busy watching a blowout. End number nine, 6-2 Canada.

5:07 pm — Canada vs. Norway for gold.

Liveblog: Women's curling semi-finals

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 4 Comments

Welcome to the Vancouver Olympic Centre, and the semi-finals of the women’s curling tournament—otherwise known as the Cheryl Bernard show. The Canadian skip/Internet sensation is finished her warm-ups and removed her earphones, and as soon as the bagpipers are done with their grand entrance, it’s game time. China vs. Sweden. Switzerland vs. Canada.

9:22 am — Much sweeping and yelling. After the first end, it’s 1-0 Team Bernard and 1-0 Team Sweden. I’m still not sure why they have to play both semi-final games at the same time. It’s like a bowling alley in here.

9:33 am — The cow bells mean Switzerland has tied it up, 1-1. On Sheet B, China has given up another point to Sweden, and now trail 2-0. Those 14 people watching back home in Beijing are surely devastated.

9:42 am — Time for a little segment I like to call: “Things You Might Not Know About Cheryl Bernard.” She co-wrote a book entitled: Between the Sheets: Creating Curling Champions. The 43-year-old also works closely with famed sports psychologist Penny Werthner, who has helped improve her focus and mental toughness. She sure looks focused today. Bernard just landed what I’ve been told is a “freeze,” which is good. Apparently.

9:50 am — Bernard hits and and sticks for two! 3-1 Canada.

10:02 am — Switzerland gets one back. 3-2 Canada. One lane over, the Chinese just got on the board. Their coach, by the way, is a Canadian named Dan Rafael. He does not generate as many Google hits as Cheryl.

10:09 am — When she isn’t curling (or being Googled) Bernard works as an insurance broker in Calgary. She owns her own company, Unigroup Western Insurance Brokers. The company home page says “Come back January 1, 2010 for the web site launch!!!” Bernard must be busy doing something else.

10:17 am — Big steal for the Swiss. 3-3 at halftime. On Sheet B, the Chinese are getting rocked. With three in the fifth end, Sweden now has a commanding 6-1 lead. The Canadians are snacking on mixed nuts and bananas.

10:36 am — Bernard just hit and stuck for another two. Canada 5, Switzerland 3. I credit the bananas.

10:51 am — No points in the seventh end. Switzerland keeps the hammer—and the crowd is waking up. I’ve never seen the wave this early in the morning (or so many beer cups). China, by the way, scored singles in the sixth and seventh, and now trail 6-3.

11:09 am — In the eighth end, Swiss skip Mirjam Ott had a chance for two and the tie, with one rock already in the button and the hammer in her hand. But she left it heavy, and had to settle for one. Canada 5, Switzerland 4. Whichever team wins, it doesn’t look like China will the opponent in the final. They’re down 9-3 to Sweden in the ninth.

11:20 am — It’s official. China’s done. And it only took nine ends. They’ll play for bronze tomorrow morning.

11:25 am — Bernard just made the shot of the morning, using her hammer in the ninth end to knock the Swiss rock out of the button and capture one. It was almost two, but the official measuring guy took out his stick and said the second Swiss rock was a smidgen closer. 6-4 Canada. On to the tenth we go…

11:38 am — Donald Sutherland and his bushy white beard are here. He looks very concerned. And homeless.

11:41 am — Swedish skip Mirjam Ott is very good. Down by two, she just squeezed her second-last rock through traffic, bumped out the Canadian stone, and left two in the house. We’re down to the wire.

11:44 am — Okay, maybe Ott isn’t that good. Down by one, she tried to hit and stick but couldn’t. Her rock slid out of the house, and that’s that. Bernard and her rink are off to the gold-medal game! Crowd is thrilled. Bernard is blowing kisses.

The Cheryl Bernard show

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 11:56 AM - 18 Comments

Welcome to the debut of live curling coverage here at Macleans.ca. I spent about 15 minutes last night asking a friend about the finer points of this great Canadian tradition and I think I’ve decided that it’s one of two things: chess on ice, or glorified shuffleboard. Over the next three hours we’ll endeavour to settle this age-old debate.

12:01pm CTV is hyping this as Super Sunday. Warning: higher-than-usual likelihood of disappointment ahead.

12:05pm You are looking live at Sheet C where the Canadians and Americans are about to settle once and for all which is the better country in North America. The stones are off and sliding.

12:12pm We’re apparently all here to see Cheryl Bernard, who my friend Michael Grange has likened to Courtney Cox’s character on Cougar Town. And apparently that was a compliment. The complicated nature of femininity at the Olympics is officially the most intriguing storyline of these Games.

12:15pm Ms. Bernard was on just now yelling “Hard!” quite forcefully. I take no position on the sexiness of this. In other news, we’re scoreless at the end of one.

12:24pm The crowd so far seems fairly well-behaved. Apparently we made a Danish curler cry last night. I’m generally of the opinion that if you can’t handle crowd noise, you shouldn’t be competing in any sport that takes place before an audience (which, I believe, is almost all of them) and that any sport that requires silence from its viewers is somehow less worthy of being called “sport.” But I’m open to being convinced otherwise.

12:30pm The U.S. slides the last one untouched through the House, but still gets a point. Americans leads 1-0 at the end of two.

12:33pm The U.S. skip is said to struggle with her draw weight. So that’s apparently what happened with that last shot.

12:42pm Ms. Bernard hits a perfect shot to take out an American stone and Canada has three in scoring position. I’m impressed. Even if I’m not entirely sure what’s going on.

12:44pm The American skip slides another one through, Bernard draws one perfectly and Canada leads 4-1.

12:50pm CTV is now showing us Skicross qualifications. Getting back to our discussion about femininity and the Olympics, that Danish curler apparently once posed topless.

12:58pm Back to curling. A scoreless fourth end, Canada holds its 4-1 advantage.

1:07pm Organizers are apparently urging fans to keep quiet. Russ Howard, doing colour commentary, seems noise-positive. Or at least noise-tolerant. Everybody seems to agree it’s better to have more fans with noise than less fans without noise. Strange to hear sensible sports commentary.

1:14pm Another nice shot by Bernard, another mistake by the Americans and it’s 6-1.

1:22pm Two other contributions to the femininity discussion: the Olympic stars portion of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition and Hanna Rosin’s essay on figure skating.

1:27pm And then there’s this: a male snowboarder has departed Vancouver, of his own accord or at official behest, after vaguely sexual pictures of him frolicking with his bronze medal were published by TMZ. Feel free to try to square that with all of the above.

1:33pm Bernard has apparently done “extreme hiking” in Brazil and kayaked in the Arctic. So basically, curling is the least athletic thing she does in her spare time.

1:36pm Bernard removes an American stone and Canada lies three, but the American skip curls one in to make it 6-2.

1:47pm Two American stones and two Canadian stones piled up above the button. Terribly complicated discussion ensues within Canadian team as to what they should do. This is fascinating. Even if, as noted, I don’t entirely understand what they’re saying.

1:51pm Canadians take out an American stone to the left of the pile. Americans try to break up the pile with marginal success. There’s not a lot of crude language in curling. This is why they can be hooked up to live microphones and athletes in other sports can’t.

1:54pm Bernard hits a nice shot and lies three. The process is outrageously complicated, even if the ultimate goal is very obvious and understandable. The appropriate analogy is possibly love or marriage or foreign aid.

1:58pm Canada takes three and apparently that’s it, 9-2. Canada is redeemed as the dominant force in North American curling and I have watched my first full curling match. That seemed spectacularly easy. Cheryl Bernard is like Courtney Cox crossed with Michael Jordan. Or something.

PHOTO GALLERY: Cheryl Bernard's Olympic curling rink

By macleans.ca - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 11:34 PM - 8 Comments

Canada's curling skip Cheryl Bernard on perspective, relaxation and age

By macleans.ca - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 6:30 PM - 0 Comments

It takes a village to raise an idiot, He did it for the kids and Bad times for burkas

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 12, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

It takes a village to raise an idiot
Jacques Rogge and the rest of the executive board of the International Olympic Committee have relented and will allow the Australian International Olympic Committee to fly its iconic “boxing kangaroo” flag from a balcony of the Vancouver Olympic Village. The flag was ordered removed because the IOC bans unauthorized commercial symbols, and the cartoon ’roo is trademarked, albeit only to the Australian Olympic Committee. The dispute fired up Aussies everywhere. Deputy PM Julia Gillard called it a “scandal.” Vancouver radio phone-in callers raged at the IOC’s bully tactics. IOC spokesman Mark Adams called the issue “a storm in a teacup.” Meantime, athletes are streaming to the Oz sector of the village for a photo with the giant ’roo.

He did it for the kids
It was death in the afternoon for any bull that Jairo Miguel Sànchez Alonso faced Saturday at an arena in southwest Spain. The 16-year-old killed six bulls without mussing his sparkly white suit of lights. He returned to Spain after several years apprenticing in Mexico, where there is no minimum age for fighters. He almost died there in 2007 when a bull gored him. Alonso holds no grudges. “I feel quite bad when the bull has been good and you see the expression on his face, the innocence,” he says. “He has given you his bravery.” The event, while bloody, had a softer side. It was a fundraiser for children with autism.

Bad times for burkas
French Prime Minister François Fillon announced this week he’ll deny citizenship to a Moroccan national who forces his French-born wife to wear a burka. “If this man does not want to change his attitude, he has no place in our country,” he said. Meantime, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call for a law banning full burkas is gaining steam. He has declared the full veil and body covering “not welcome” in France, and inconsistent with the country’s values. It’s certainly not welcome in Paris post offices. Two burka-clad robbers walked into a post office in the Paris suburb of Athis Mons, an area with a large immigrant Muslim population. They pulled out handguns and stole the equivalent of $6,000.

Blades of glory
Germany’s Katarina Witt and Canada’s Elizabeth Manley met on the ice in Vancouver Sunday, 22 years after the Teutonic bombshell and Canada’s sweetheart squared off in Calgary during the 1988 Olympics. Witt won gold but Manley, under enormous home-country pressure, pulled off the skate of her life to finish second. Both women are doing television colour commentary in Vancouver, but they took a turn on the Robson Square ice rink with young members of the Coquitlam Skating Club. “We’re not here for a rematch,” joked Manley, 44. “Not at our age, I’m 20—plus tax.” Replied a razor-sharp Witt: “Oh, my God! How much are taxes here?”

Tea time in Tennessee
Cranky country singer and musical comedian Ray Stevens’s flagging career was ready for a death panel. Then the 71-year-old singer of such novelty hits as Ahab the A-rab and Gitarzan wrote We the People, a lighthearted attack on President Barack Obama’s health care initiative. The video, which shows Stevens strumming a bathroom plunger and singing, “You vote Obamacare, we’re gonna vote you outta there,” is a YouTube hit and an unofficial anthem of the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement. Stevens sang at the group’s convention in Nashville on the weekend, where Sarah Palin raised eyebrows with her $100,000 fee for giving the keynote speech. “That’s a lot of damned tea,” grumbled one delegate.

Do as I say, not as I…ahh-choo!
As deputy health minister for the Czech Republic, Michael Vit has the job of deciding whether to impose mandatory swine flu vaccinations on “all people indispensable for the functioning of the country.” The day after receiving the assignment, Vit came down with H1N1 himself. “I have muscle problems, a headache, simply all symptoms of the flu,” he said. The deputy health minister admitted he had yet to receive the vaccination. “As you see, I’m a living example.”

‘Funeral’ for friends, and strangers
Canadian orchestral rockers Arcade Fire made it to the Super Bowl last weekend, when the group’s stirring anthem Wake Up, from their hit CD Funeral, was used in a series of NFL promo ads. While the group is protective of licensing its music, they had their reasons in this case. They turned over the fat licensing fee to Partners in Health, an agency with deep roots in Haiti. Band member Régine Chassagne’s family came from the island. She expressed her grief in an article in Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “I am mourning people I know. People I don’t know. People who are still trapped under rubble and won’t be rescued in time.”

Broom versus stick
Icy, obsessed with winning and not above the occasional cheap shot. Yes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and hockey are a match made in heaven. Hockey is “deeply reflective of the character of the nation,” he explained in a pre-Olympic interview with Sports Illustrated. Harper, who has studied the origins of the sport, said it contributes to “a uniquely Canadian sense of belonging in a community across the country.” Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff waxes poetic about a different sport: curling. Naturally, he identifies with the skip. “It’s the leadership and the precision, and the quiet,” he told the Globe and Mail. Apparently he’s not the sort of skip who shouts unseemly commands like, “Hurry, hurry hard.”

Very, very teed off
A Kelowna, B.C., entrepreneur is cashing in on Tiger Woods’s extramarital mayhem. Mike Caldwell has produced the Mistress Collection, a boxed set of 12 golf balls, each bearing a portrait of one of Woods’s mistresses. “He likes to play a round with them…and now you can, too!” notes his website, tailofthetiger.com. Caldwell says he sold 1,500 sets at US$54.90 in the first six days. Less than impressed is Joslyn James, an adult film star and alleged Woods mistress. She called a news conference to denounce the balls as hurtful and in bad taste. “It bothered me to think that someone would be standing with a dangerous club in their hands hitting a ball with my photo on it,” she said. She then showed her sensitive side by releasing 100 tawdry text messages she said she received from Woods.

You don’t want a visit by Oscar
Oscar the cat has a near infallible ability to detect which of the patients in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, R.I., is next to die, says Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician. When Oscar curls up with a patient, staff know to phone the next of kin. “It’s like he’s on a vigil,” says Dosa. Such insight would come as no surprise to cat owners, who are themselves terribly smart. Certainly smarter than dog owners, according to a study by Dr. Jane Murray at the University of Bristol. Winston Churchill was a cat lover. Paris Hilton loves dogs. Want more proof? Cat owners (if anyone really owns a cat) are 1.36 times more likely than dog owners to hold a university degree. They’re also 100 per cent less likely to have to follow behind their pet and scoop droppings off the sidewalk.

Gay but not cheerful
The headline in the Seattle Weekly says it all: “Gay, mentally challenged biracial male cheerleader claims discrimination.” All that high school student Benjamin Grundy wants is to shake his pom-poms like the girls on the squad at Garfield-Palouse High School in tiny Palouse, Wash. Instead, the cheer coach suggested he’d make a great mascot. He was eventually given a cheerleader’s top but denied the rest of the uniform, pom-poms, and the right to join the dance routine. “I was reduced to standing there and moving my arms,” he says. The school board denies discrimination, but Benjamin’s mother, Suzanne Grundy, is pressing the case with the ACLU and her congressman. “The combination of a biracial, mentally challenged gay male may be too much for them,” she told the local TV station.

L’état c’est moi
Quebec’s Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Duchesne has revived a tradition that ended 44 years ago—awarding medals, in gold, silver and bronze, and bearing his coat of arms, to those making contributions to their communities. The practice of awarding such medals ended in 1966 after Quebec nationalists condemned the symbolic tie with the monarchy. Duchesne has no such qualms: he also invoked royal privilege to avoid testifying before a national assembly committee on how he spends some $1 million annually in taxpayer money. His refusal to testify was condemned by all sides of the legislature.

Disharmony in the house of Wang
It was Hong Kong feng shui master Tony Chan’s skills in arranging buildings to create a positive life force that drew Chan to the eccentric, pigtailed property magnate Nina Wang. He began a 15-year affair with Wang, 23 years his senior. Now, he’s accused of arranging her $4-billion fortune in a manner auspicious to himself. When she died at 69 in 2007, he claimed to be her sole heir. Her family contested the will, and he’s charged with forgery.

She also has a Ph.D. in thankless tasks
Leila Ghannam, a former Palestinian intelligence officer, is the first woman governor of Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the West Bank. Her challenge is to quash a resurgence by hard-liners in Hamas. “My intelligence experience, like my degree in psychology, helps me carry out my job,” she says.

Winning form: The game plan

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Can the opening ceremonies beat Beijing’s?
Céline Dion, Bryan Adams, or (God forbid) both? The Internet is abuzz with rumours about what may be in store for the 60,000 lucky souls who will attend the Vancouver 2010 opening ceremonies at B.C. Place, and billions more around the world who will tune in on TV. But verifiable details about the Feb. 12 spectacular are few and far between, despite the participation of close to 4,000 volunteers and months of rehearsals.

David Atkins, the executive producer of the show, will only allow that Canada’s two official languages and many First Nations will be reflected in the content. And that it won’t be as clichéd as the ice floes, Ski-Doos and hockey players that were Canada’s contribution to the closing ceremonies in Turin in 2006. “What we’ve aimed to do here is try and create something which is more reflective of Canada and hopefully a little more perhaps emotionally engaging,” he told the media last month.

Organizers have been actively dampening expectations since Beijing’s never-to-be-duplicated 20,000-person extravaganza in 2008. But surprises are surely in store. Atkins used horses to make the Olympic rings in the show he produced for his native Australia at the 2000 Games. At the Asian Games in Doha in 2006, he used elephants. B.C. Place underwent $8.3 million in renovations for the Games, including, it has been reported, the installation of a cauldron in the floor. The budget for the opening and closing ceremonies in Vancouver is $40 million. That could buy a lot of dancing bears.
—Jonathon Gatehouse

No more playing Mr. Nice guy
If it’s true that nice guys finish last, Canada, in the run-up to Vancouver, is looking golden. In fall, when speed skaters from several countries were denied access to the Richmond Oval, comedian Stephen Colbert called on “Saskatchewhiners” to “unclench their frosty sphincters and let Americans onto their oval.” Colbert isn’t the only one claiming we’re being total iceholes. We’ve been taken to task the world over for abusing our status as Olympic host by “playing nasty,” and “zealously” restricting access to Games venues by foreign athletes.

Shelley Rudman, who won Britain’s lone medal in Turin (a silver) in the skeleton, told the BBC that while Canadian athletes have logged a “phenomenal” number of runs on the sliding track at Whistler (widely considered the world’s most treacherous and technical course), she’s barely had a crack at it.

Brit curlers have made similar noises. And at the unfamiliar Whistler downhill track, which was built at a cost of more than $100,000, several foreign medal contenders were recently left huddling along the safety fencing, watching a rote training session by the Canucks—who have used it for two seasons. Indeed, Ron Rossi, the executive director of U.S.A Luge, told the New York Times that Canada’s “lack of sportsmanship” has even undone a decades-old, open-access agreement between the Canadian and U.S. luge teams; most Canadian sliders, the U.S. noted, took 60 to 100 practice runs ahead of Salt Lake.

But will Canada’s podium-at-any-cost approach make it rain gold? It just might. The hundreds of runs Canuck sliders have logged at Whistler will attune them to every inch of the difficult track. Same goes for skiers, who’ve deployed GPS to track the optimal route to the bottom at the Whistler downhill. Speed skaters have had 16 months to acclimatize to the new oval in Richmond, where they live and train: they’ve learned, for example, that the Olympic surface is neither as hard nor as fast as in Calgary, favouring strong, technical skaters—but shh: don’t tell the foreigners!

Canada has never won a gold at home, never heard O Canada sung at a medals ceremony, and taxpayers have dumped more than $100 million to see the Maple Leaf tower above the flags of other countries in Vancouver. The race for the Lady Byng this is not. The Canadian team has set a target of 35 medals for Vancouver, 11 more than in Turin, its best finish ever. If what the Wall Street Journal calls our “aggressive, new attitude” seems un-Canadian, perhaps it’s just not one we’ve so brashly displayed before.
—Nancy Macdonald

Retailers are all geared up
Despite the fact that the Hudson’s Bay Co. paid $100 million to be the official merchandiser of the Vancouver Games (and the next three Olympics), many other Canadian businesses are capitalizing on the event by issuing their own products. So far the retailers have gotten away with it by avoiding the O-word. Lululemon is selling “Cheer Gear!”—its line includes hockey-helmet-like toques and “Cheer Me On” mitts and scarves—under the coy banner: “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011.” And Roots, previously an official Olympic outfitter, has its “International Collection” of hoodies, T-shirts, scarves, toques and leather items, featuring the flags of many countries vying for gold this month.

Angered by the brazen merchandising campaigns, Olympic organizers have reportedly sent letters to retailers, calling for “better sportsmanship.” But even with all the added competition, the official Olympic merchandise has hardly been overlooked: as of mid-January, 1.5 million pairs of red mittens had been sold; organizers boasted that they were more than halfway toward their $500-million goal in revenue.
—Cathy Gulli

Even Volunteers are hitting the gym
The process of picking volunteers for the Games has been quintessentially Canadian in the level of diplomatic decorum used: the 25,000 volunteers selected for the Olympics and Paralympics represent more then 60 ethnicities and languages. There are roughly equal numbers of senior citizens and young and middle-aged people. And volunteers come from every part of Canada, as well as many of the countries competing for medals. Thirty-one per cent of volunteers speak French, demonstrating a “commitment to both official languages,” says Erin Sills, spokesperson for the Games.

Volunteers share an earnest reverence for the Olympics. Diane from Toronto—she won’t share her last name or age for fear of jeopardizing her position on the alpine ski crew—has spent months preparing. “I’ve been training hard, and going to the gym several times a week,” she says. “You have to be pretty athletic to withstand these conditions.” She’s right: volunteers must commit to 13 shifts, which last up to 10 hours each. They also have homework: Diane has to read a 60-page manual that details “the venues, safety, jobs, what to do and what not to do,” she says. But she doesn’t mind.

“Even though I’ll never be an Olympic athlete,” she says, “I get to experience the Olympics in a different way.”
—Cathy Gulli

Good business for First Nations
The Olympics are an appetizing target for groups seeking international attention, and few causes in Canada draw the global gaze like unresolved Aboriginal land claims. Why, then, aren’t native groups making the most of their opportunity? Because organizers in Vancouver and Whistler wisely brought them into the fold, declaring the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people to be the “Four Host First Nations” of the 17-day celebration, and sharing in the promotional and financial spoils. About $54 million in construction contracts has gone to Aboriginal-owned businesses, while visitors will find a $3.5-million First Nations pavilion at the centre of Vancouver, spotlighting Aboriginal artworks, businesses and culture. Native leaders and artists have played a part in everything from the design of the medals to the torch relay.

The deal has its critics—even within the four participating nations. One organization calling itself the Olympic Resistance Network has criticized the Games as a waste of money better spent on housing and health care for Aboriginals, attracting limited attention in the international media. But on the whole, natives in British Columbia seem upbeat about the Games, hoping their prominent role in the event will help break the stereotype that one leader describes as “the dime-store Indian, just beads and feathers.”
—Charlie Gillis

The big Olympic concerns

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 11:30 AM - 4 Comments

What if it rains for two weeks?
Let’s be honest, Vancouver doesn’t really have winter. Even light snowfalls paralyze the place. It rains all the time. So the international hand-wringing about the city’s warmest January on record should be put in proper context: they won the Olympics despite—not because of—the weather.

And really, the only problem spot is Cypress Mountain on the North Shore, site of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events. Whistler has been under a heavy blanket of the white stuff since early December, and 10 more metres of it fell this past month. All of the sports in the city—speed skating, hockey, curling, figure skating—will be held indoors, on artificial rinks.

Games organizers hoped for Mother Nature’s help on the slopes just outside of town, but have hardly been taken by surprise by the thaw. Cypress was closed to the public on Jan. 13—two weeks ahead of schedule—in an effort to preserve the courses. When things continued to melt, they moved to plan B: putting down straw bales, then layering on tonnes of snow pushed and trucked down from higher elevations. The spectators might have to wade through the muck in the parking lots, but for the TV cameras the mountain will look like a winter wonderland.
—Jonathon Gatehouse

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International Olympians: Party crashers

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 1 Comment

Shani Davis, Speed Skating – U.S.
Looking out for number one, always
To hear his competitors tell it, Shani Davis is a fun-loving free spirit; the veritable life of the party. That may well be true, but it’s not a part of his personality the U.S. speed skater shows much interest in sharing with the press, public, or even his teammates. A two-time Olympic medallist, holder of three world records, and a favourite to capture gold in the ­1,000-m and ­1,500-m—and perhaps hit the podium in two other races at the Richmond Oval—the 27-year-old will be a major story at the 2010 Games. The question is whether it will be for how he skates, or how he behaves.

Raised by a single mother on Chicago’s poor South Side, Davis has the kind of inspiring, made-for-TV backstory that should guarantee him a spot on Oprah’s couch, or a Barbara Walters special. But his accomplishments four years ago in Turin, a gold in the ­1,000-m, and silver in the ­1,500-m—the first individual Winter Olympic medals ever won by an African-American—were largely overshadowed by controversy. When Davis declined to race in the team pursuit, choosing to save his strength for the individual events, teammate Chad Hedrick all but accused him of costing the Americans gold.

(The U.S. ended up coming in sixth. Canada won silver.) Their ill-concealed animosity dominated the headlines, and Davis was labelled a selfish traitor—never mind the fact that he had informed U.S. Speed Skating of his decision well in advance of the Games.

It was the kind of bad news story that Davis seems to find himself at the centre of all too often. When he made the short-track speed skating team as an alternate for the Salt Lake City Games in 2002, there were charges from rivals that Davis’s friends Apolo Ohno and Rusty Smith threw a qualifying race to give him a spot on the squad. (The allegations were dismissed after an acrimonious hearing, but Davis left the team after the opening ceremonies and competed in Europe instead.) And this past December, Davis again found himself in the soup when he called faux-talk show host Stephen Colbert—the main sponsor of the U.S. speed skating team—“a jerk” after the comedian took Canada to task for not allowing American skaters easy access to the Richmond Oval. (Davis trained in Calgary for a number of years and remains very close to several members of the Canadian team.)

In the run-up to Vancouver, Davis has been trying to make nice. He and Colbert buried the hatchet with a mock ­500-m race—Davis won by 13 minutes—that went to air in late January. And he and Hedrick have been conspicuously friendly—shaking hands before races, raising each other’s arms on the podium, praising each other in the press—on the World Cup circuit this season.

But Davis’s decision to again skip the team pursuit in Vancouver, and the recent announcement that he will not race the ­10,000-m—robbing NBC of a Davis-seeks-to-equal-Eric-Heiden’s-five-medals-in-one-Games storyline—are already drawing fire. “I would love to enjoy an Olympics,” Davis wistfully told the Chicago Tribune back in October. “One out of my three would be nice.” He might want to start making plans for Sochi 2014. —Jonathon Gatehouse

Bode Miller, Alpine Skiing – U.S.
Will the bad boy behave himself?
Every sport needs a bad boy, and Bode Miller has long filled that role in the world of alpine ski racing. The hulking New Hampshire native has rightfully earned his iconoclast status. In 2003, while courting sponsors, he sped down the slopes with a “For Rent” sign stuck to his helmet. At the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, he skipped the athletes’ village dorms for his personal motorhome. After he failed to reach the podium—despite hype that he’d rack up more medals than any American—Miller was unapologetic, boasting on 60 Minutes that he had partied “at an Olympic level.”

But Miller isn’t just a circus act. He won the FIS Alpine World Cup overall title in 2005 and 2008­, and, with more than 30 wins, has more victories than any American alpine skier in history. The 32-year-old considered retirement last spring, but by the fall had decided that he wasn’t done with the sport just yet. He then qualified for the U.S. Olympic team, reassuring coaches that this time would be free of antics. Miller is currently ranked 14th in the World Cup standings. And though he suffered a sprained ankle while playing volleyball in December, he hasn’t lost any of his trademark confidence, describing Vancouver as “an opportunity to have the best runs of my life.”—Cathy Gulli

Lindsey Vonn, Alpine Skiing – U.S.
The Michael Phelps of the slopes
Western Canada has always been a lucky place for American alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn. Every time she has competed in Lake Louise, Alta., she’s won—and that’s happened more than half a dozen times since 2004. Now, the 25-year-old is headed to the Winter Games to race in all five downhill and slalom disciplines, and many people are predicting that her lucky streak will continue in British Columbia. Vonn’s optimistic too: “I’ve been working toward this event for the last nine years,” she said last May. “And ever since then I’ve been working on improving every year.”

Vonn’s race results show why this native of Minnesota, a place known more for its prairie landscapes than snowcapped hills, is expected to be the Michael Phelps of the 2010 Olympics. Her first big win was at age 14 in Italy, when she became the only female American to take the prestigious Trofeo Topolino contest. Since then, she’s become one of the most decorated alpine racers in history—Vonn earned back-to-back overall FIS Alpine World Cup titles in 2008 and 2009. Already this season Vonn has triumphed in every downhill event on the World Cup circuit, and she’s ranked number one overall again.

A big part of Vonn’s success lies in her toughness. Last February she had thumb surgery to repair a tendon severed on a broken champagne bottle while celebrating a big win. A few days later, her injured hand was duct-taped to her ski pole, and she competed at the World Cup in France. In early December, while racing in Lake Louise, Vonn’s knee bumped her jaw, causing her to chomp on her tongue. Vonn didn’t miss a beat—she sped through to victory. The post-race shots featured Vonn, smiling, mouth agape as blood gushed down her chin. A few weeks later, she badly bruised her left wrist after a nasty crash on the giant slalom at the World Cup Austria. Vonn strapped on a chic cheetah-print brace and took to the hills again. Her take on the injury: “Hurting my arm is way better than hurting one of my legs.”

he one psychological barrier that may be haunting Vonn? Her past Olympic performances in Salt Lake City in 2002, and then Turin in 2006: both times, she failed to make the podium. She plans on changing that in Vancouver: “One [medal] of any colour will be just fine for me,” she said recently, “and I’m going to work harder than ever to put myself in a position to make that happen.” —Cathy Gulli

The ‘Wang gang’, Curling – China 
How China could rock the house
For every Olympic gold medallist, there is another athlete who finishes last. Dead last. But only a select few from that set have what it takes to be lovable losers—competitors who are so embarrassingly awful that you can’t help but cheer. Jamaican bobsledders. Kenyan cross-country skiers. Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards. Eric “the Eel” Moussambani. (For those who don’t remember “the Eel,” he was “the swimmer” from Equatorial Guinea whose first laps in an Olympic-sized pool occurred at the 2000 Summer Olympics.)

Who will be Vancouver’s version of the Eel? Well, believe it or not, it won’t be the Chinese women’s curling team. In a country with 1.3 billion people—including 1.299999999 billion who have absolutely no idea what curling is—four women with brooms have emerged as a bona fide threat to capture gold in 2010. Not bad, considering that six years ago the same team (all former gymnasts) lost a practice match to a group of senior citizens in Alberta. “We are not as skilled as others,” Bingyu Wang, the Chinese skip, said after that loss. “So we must redouble our efforts.”

They did much more than that. Funded in full by the Communist state—and led by a Canadian coach, Quebecer Dan Rafael—the so-called “Wang Gang” (Wang, Qingshuang Yue, Yin Liu and Yan Zhou) soon became famous for 10-hour practices and late-night strategy sessions. When most curlers were at the bar ordering another pint, the Chinese squad was still on the sheet, plotting a curling coup. In 2005, the team quietly qualified for its first world championship. Three years later, they captured their first medal, a silver. And last year—less than a decade after the team was assembled from scratch—China won its first world title in women’s curling.

If the Wang Gang reaches the highest podium in Vancouver, it will be the next closest thing to a victory by the host country. The Chinese team spends up to eight months of the year in Canada, training and playing in bonspiels. “Of course we miss home,” Wang, 25, said recently. “But this is our job. We have a dream of winning gold at the Olympics so more Chinese people not only learn about, but learn to love, curling.”

Which means that the world’s traditional curling powerhouses—Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and, yes, Canada—should get used to the idea of being lovable losers. —Michael Friscolanti

Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, Biathlon – Norway 
Taking a clean shot at history
Just because you’ve never heard of him doesn’t mean he’s not a legend. Norway’s Ole Einar Bjoerndalen—“der Meister” to his fans and opponents—is the undisputed king of the biathlon. He has 91 World Cup victories and counting on his resumé. He owns 14 world titles in the skiing and sharpshooting combo sport, and nine Olympic medals, including five golds. And heading into Vancouver—his fifth Games—the 36-year-old has set his sights on matching, or perhaps even surpassing, the record 12 Winter Olympic podiums that his now-retired countryman Bjorn Daehlie attained in cross-country skiing. Would you want to bet against him?

Bjoerndalen’s greatest Olympic moments to date came in Salt Lake City, where he took gold in all four men’s biathlon events. But in 2006 in Turin, coming off a bout of the flu, he was eclipsed by a three-gold performance by Germany’s Michael Greis, managing “only” two silvers and a bronze.

Perhaps that helps explain why the Norwegian is now almost as well-known on the biathlon circuit for his germaphobia as his competitive skills. An avowed teetotaller, he gargles with cognac every morning to kill bacteria. During the season, he limits contact with his wife, and frequently forgoes crowded family Christmas celebrations in favour of solitary training high in the mountains. And he applies hand sanitizer after every shake. Purell may finally have found its Olympic poster boy.—Jonathon Gatehouse

Armin Zöggeler, Luge – Italy 
‘Il cannIbale’ remains the No. 1 threat
When he isn’t barrelling down an icy track at terrifying speeds, Armin Zöggeler works as a police officer. Which is funny, considering that his dominance in luge is borderline criminal. The 36-year-old Italian slider has racked up so many victories and ripped apart so many opponents that he’s earned the nickname “il Cannibale”—“the Cannibal.” (Which is also kinda funny, because he’s a paid pitchman for fruit.) Born in the northern town of Merano, Zöggeler won his first junior title at the age of 14, earned a spot on the Italian national team at 19, and has never looked back. At last count, “the Iceblood Champion” (that’s his other nickname) has captured a record 42 wins on the World Cup luge circuit and a medal in four consecutive Winter Games, including gold in the past two. If he wins a third-straight in Vancouver, he will become just the second luger to ever accomplish that feat. The other, Germany’s legendary Georg Hackl, had his streak snapped in 2002, when Zöggeler won his first gold in Salt Lake City. Another German, Felix Loch, is considered the reigning champ’s closest threat in 2010. But if il Cannibale proves he is still hungry, the young challenger will have to settle for silver. —Michael Friscolanti

Kim Yu-Na, Figure Skating – South Korea
Giving Orser a second chance
Two decades after a crushing defeat at Calgary ’88, Brian Orser is getting a second shot at Olympic gold—this time as coach. He’s a bit thicker, and yes, a bit greyer than the night at the Saddledome. Many consider the “Battle of the Brians” (Boitano and Orser) figure skating’s greatest competition. Just one-tenth of a mark knocked gold from Orser’s hands. Afterwards, he retreated to the dressing room, eyes glazed, and curled up by the showers in his skates, according to gold medallist Boitano. The loss, famously, took him 10 years to get over.

But after all these years, he’s getting a shot at a do-over in Vancouver. There’s just one problem. The brilliant protege he’s pushing to gold at this Olympics is not Canada’s national champion Joannie Rochette, but Kim Yu-Na, a pint-sized phenom skating for South Korea. Kim, who trains in Toronto and, like Orser, enters the Olympics as the reigning world champion, may also take the home ice advantage in Lotusland.

At last year’s Four Continents Cup in Vancouver, Kim shocked media by getting a louder ovation than even Rochette, five-time national champ. Vancouver is a “very international city,” Rochette, who took silver, told Maclean’s at the time. It was “the reality,” no more, no less—though one, Rochette added, she was glad to have the year to prepare for. Kim, who took gold, enters the Games, like her coach before her, the gold medal favourite. —Nancy Macdonald

Dale Begg-Smith, Moguls – Australia
The lost son returns and wants gold
By the standards of sports fandom, Olympic crowds tend to be a civilized lot. But if a smattering of boos rises from the spectators during the freestyle moguls competition at Cypress Bowl next week, there’s a good chance that wayward-but-wealthy homeboy Dale Begg-Smith will be on the receiving end. He’s the closest thing the hometown crowd has to a villain.

Not that he plays the part. The 25-year-old from Vancouver has scarcely uttered a discouraging word about Canada or its ski program since he took leave from both as a teenager, matter-of-factly noting that our sports bureaucrats didn’t like the amount of time he was putting into a start-up Internet company. Australia, which was just planting the seeds of a winter sports team, was more willing to accommodate Begg-Smith’s divided attention. And in 2006, he paid them back in full by winning the gold medal in Turin.

By then, however, Begg-Smith’s Internet start-up had grown into a $40-million enterprise with 100 employees and an office in New York, and it was a matter of time before someone asked how a lad just out of his teens gets rich enough to buy a Lamborghini and flit between international ski destinations. Days after he won in Italy, a Sydney newspaper reported that Begg-Smith had built his fortune by dealing in Internet “spyware,” specialized software that permits the capture of personal data without a computer user’s knowledge. Though Begg-Smith denied involvement in anything more sinister than providing technology that allows companies to monitor the effect of ad campaigns, the revelation cut into his popularity in his adopted country. He has avoided answering questions about it ever since.

No matter, because non-reaction has long been Begg-Smith’s default position, if not his defining trait. When asked once where his primary allegiance lies—Canada or Australia—he answered: “I was happy growing up in Canada, and I was happy to go to Australia.” Good runs, like his second-place finish at last week’s World Cup event in Lake Placid, N.Y., seldom elicit anything more from him than a fist-pump or two, in a sport that quite literally rewards hot-dogging and showboating. And no one should expect a catcall or two from the fans here to faze him, as Begg-Smith’s ability to shut out the distractions has been described by his former coach as “inhuman.” “He never, absolutely ever shows weakness,” his long-time coach Steve Desovich told a reporter following Begg-Smith’s big win in Turin. “He’s absolutely impenetrable.”—Charlie Gillis

Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin, Ice Dancing – Russia 
Will the judges be offended?
Vancouver’s blackface moment will arrive Feb. 21. That’s when reigning ice dancing world champs Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia take the ice at the Pacific National Exhibition to perform their now-infamous Aborigine-inspired dance routine. Last month in Estonia, the duo donned dark-skinned bodysuits, loincloths and “tribal” markings for a 2½ minute dance that felt more like a minstrel show. The number, which saw them stomp their skates to a musical mash-up of chanting and didgeridoos, was roundly trounced as distasteful, offensive and cringe-inducing. The skate world, however—which has come to expect awful and inappropriate costumes from the Russians—barely blinked.

Believe it or not, figure skating has actually entered a newly outlandish phase, with lilac vinyl jumpsuits, sheer tops, off-the-shoulder necklines, corsets, tassels, feathers and fur now all the rage, explains one commentator. “And then,” he adds, “there are the women.” Most blame the Russians, famously fond of fluttery, scanty, studded unitards. (Their ice dancers were also the first to try shredding their uniforms—a change that has inspired yet more tatter and fringe in a sport hardly suffering from a deficit of rips and ruffles.)

Domnina and Shabalin—who, according to media reports, appeared doe-eyed and genuinely astonished by the uproar they ignited at the European Championships—have said their wardrobes will not change ahead of the Games. If nothing else, give ’em the gold for godawful. —Nancy Macdonald

Gregor Schlierenzauer, Ski Jumping – Austria 
Austria’s high-flying eagle
How do you become a heartthrob in ski jumping? Lanky good looks, a touch of hipsterism and a $725,000 tour bus for you and your teammates is a good start. Add a sideline in abstract photography and 31 World Cup victories and you have Gregor Schlierenzauer, a 20-year-old Austrian who has supplanted the alpine skiing legend Hermann Maier as his country’s hottest Olympic commodity. Not long ago, Schlierenzauer was best known as the nephew of Markus Prock, a three-time Olympic luge medallist who now serves as Schlierenzauer’s manager. That changed in 2008-09, when the high-flier won a record 13 events to claim the World Cup title, plus two medals at the world championship in Liberec, Czech Republic.

But Schlierenzauer will be in tough at Whistler, as he currently ranks second in World Cup standings to his Swiss rival Simon Ammann, while his countryman Thomas Morgenstern runs a distant third. With all that competition, perhaps the slogan painted on the side of the Austrians’ gussied-up bus best sums up the event’s potential entertainment value: “Die adler kommen,” or in English, “The eagles are coming.”­—Charlie Gillis

Olympic secrets revealed

By Ken Macqueen and Nicholas Köhler - Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 21 Comments

In early December, Bob Joncas, the high-performance manager for the Canadian Snowboard Federation, boarded a jet for Switzerland. In the cargo hold, rolled into a heavy bag, was the result of three years of hush-hush research, development and testing. Joncas was bound for a mountainside factory in Braunwald to deliver a secret weapon of sorts, one of dozens of clandestine products and tactics that Canadian athletes will deploy in February at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.

Joncas presented the bag’s contents to Hansjürg Kessler, considered by many elite athletes as the world’s best custom snowboard maker. Kessler was at work on a special Olympic order for the Canadian national team—tailored-to-measure boards with at least two significant modifications from any he has ever made. One was a super low-friction base, to be applied to the bottom of the boards from a 30-m roll of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene that Joncas carried from Canada. The other is a composite plate for bindings that is so revolutionary Canada’s boarders have hidden it under duct tape and MACtac during their frequent appearances on World Cup podiums this winter.

The base, which alpine boarders won’t use until Games time, cuts friction by 15 to 20 per cent compared to commercially available products, its creators say. “Small differences can be huge,” says Christos Stamboulides, the University of British Columbia researcher who formulated the product. Less friction equals more speed, and perhaps a podium finish, says project supervisor Savvas Hatzikiriakos, a specialist in fluid mechanics and friction. “In the last Olympics, Canada won a lot of fourth places,” he says. “Nobody remembers the fourth-place athletes.”

That quest for those small differences is what drives the aptly named Top Secret project—a five-year, $8-million technological arms race unprecedented in Canadian sport history. Researchers across the country have been breaking down the science of winter sport, looking for any edge in training, human performance and equipment. “To date, we’ve completed 55 projects, using 17 different universities and institutions,” says Todd Allinger, the Vancouver-based biomechanist who manages the program. “I think it’s been very successful.” Now, a month from the Olympic opening ceremonies, Maclean’s takes an exclusive inside look.

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Photo gallery: Canada's Olympic technology

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 7:52 PM - 1 Comment