The Olympics worst-dressed list (UPDATED)

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

Interview: Johann Olav Koss

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 8 Comments

Photograph by Simon Hayter

Johann Olav Koss is an Olympic speed skating legend: the winner of four golds, including three in front of his home crowd in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994. But to Canadians he’s perhaps better known as the CEO of Right To Play (or the former husband of Belinda Stronach).

He spoke to Maclean’s about how the charity, which focuses on improving the lives of children through sport, and is usually a fixture in the athletes’ village, is coping with its banishment from the Vancouver 2010 Games.

Q: Right To Play was born out of the Olympics, yet you are not officially allowed to be here. Did you ever get an explanation of why?
A: No. I got a letter saying they didn’t want to renew the contract. All the rest is speculation, but it clearly started with sponsorship confusion. [GM is an official Olympic sponsor; Mitsubishi is one of Right To Play’s backers.]

Continue…

Loud and Proud

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 7:00 AM - 1 Comment

She giggled. Standing on the infield at the Richmond Oval, waiting to take her place on the victory podium, Kristina Groves couldn’t help it. The roar when they announced her name as the winner of bronze in women’s 3,000-m speed skating was so loud, so sustained, so un-Canadian that she had to laugh. “It was wonderful. It was deafening,” she said. “I’ve never experienced a crowd that loud for Canada. I’ve raced in all sorts of places where it’s been that loud, but not for Canada. It gave me goosebumps.”

Forget the advance access to Olympic venues, or the extra millions poured into coaching, sports psychologists and “top secret” technologies, the true advantage of a home Games is just that—home. The stands are filled with friends and family, the crowds bedecked in red and white, and for the first time in a generation, Canada’s Olympians get to experience the full-throated support that fills the nation’s hockey rinks most Saturday nights, but never quite makes it to World Cup meets in far-off lands.

In the 3,000-m, the first medal event in what promises to be a hardware-filled two weeks for Canada’s female speed skaters, those waves of unconditional love seemed to lift Groves to the podium. The 33-year-old from Ottawa, twice a silver medallist in Turin, is a favourite in the 1,000-m and 1,500-m, but didn’t expect a top finish in the longer distance. Racing before the partisan throng, she covered the three kilometres in four minutes, 4.84 seconds. In third spot with one pairing left to skate—featuring the defending Olympic champion Irene Wust of the Netherlands—Groves had reconciled herself to fourth or fifth. But when the final times flashed on the scoreboard, she remained among the leaders, clinging to the bronze by just three-hundredths of a second. Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic took gold. Stephanie Beckert of Germany won the silver.

Continue…

PHOTO GALLERY: Clara Hughes, looking back

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 2:41 AM - 1 Comment

So long Clara

By Jason Kirby - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 7:32 PM - 6 Comments

In the last race of her career, speed skater Clara Hughes blasted around the Richmond oval to claim bronze in the ladies’ 5000m race. Which means tonight’s medal ceremony is going to be the mother of all retirement parties.

“I’m ecstatic, that was the best race of my life,” said the four-time Olympian. “Now I’m officially retired and know that I’ll never feel like this again.”

What a way to go out, though. Hughes took to the ice after four other pairs had already skated. But by the end of her third lap she was already enjoying a commanding lead. She finished the race in 6 minutes, 55.73 seconds, arms raised high in the air and that characteristic Hughes smile beaming out to the cheering crowd.

The Czech Republic’s Martina Sablikova took the gold with a time of 6:50:91, while Stephanie Beckert of Germany claimed second at 6:51:39.

Hughes’ third-place finish gave her her sixth Olympic medal, tying fellow speed skater Cindy Klassen for the most Canadian medals. (Klassen placed 12th with a time of 7:22:09.)

Hughes said racing in front of the boisterous hometown crowd made the moment even more special to her. “It fed me,” she said. “It was pure sugar out there and it sustained me.”

After the final race of the afternoon, Hughes jogged the entire way around the inside edge of the track, waving and blowing kisses to those in the stands. Halfway around someone gave her a Canadian flag, which she wrapped around her shoulders for the rest of her victory lap—the last one she will ever experience.

A Silver Lining on a Bad Weekend

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 9:54 PM - 0 Comments

In the end, she just couldn’t hang on.

Kristina Groves entered the final lap of the women’s 1500m speed skating race with the narrowest of leads—just 0.07 seconds.

But as she rounded the home stretch, she knew it didn’t feel like victory. With a 100 metres to go, and the home crowd rattling the rafters, the legs were burning too fiercely, the lungs gasping the tiniest bit too hard for air. And the speed dropping off faster than she hoped, or had come to expect.

At the finish, the 33-year-old from Ottawa looked up at the scoreboard and confirmed her suspicions—a silver medal-winning time of 1:57.14, a quarter-second behind Ireen Wurst of the Netherlands. Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic took bronze.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way,” said Groves, who came into the Games ranked first in the world after 1500 metres. “I just tied-up in the last 100 metres. It was tough, you can’t move. It’s sorts of like the wheels are falling off.”

The medal was Groves second of the Games, to go with a bonus bronze she captured for Canada in the 3000m last weekend. But it was not the colour she wanted, or the performance she expected of herself.

“We’re always looking for the perfect race, and I didn’t have it today,” said Groves.

She joked about looking better in silver anyway (Groves should know, she won one in the same race at the Turin Olympics, and added another in team pursuit.) But she couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“Overall I’m satisfied, but deep in my heart, I really wanted to win that race.”

Christine Nesbitt, who captured Canada’s only speed skating gold so far in Vancouver in Thursday’s 1000m, finished sixth, .37 seconds off the podium. Coming into the Games, Nesbitt was ranked second in the world, behind Groves, stoking hopes of a two medal performance for Canada.

She said her gold medal performance took more out of her than she expected.

“Usually, I have the fastest first lap in the 1500m, and often the faster second lap. Then I just hold on for dear life at the end,” she said. “Tonight I didn’t.”

But in sharp contrast to the 1000m, where Nesbitt was visibly angry at herself for winning by just .02 seconds, the defeat was leavened by Groves’ and her own success.

“I still won a gold medal, so I can’t be that disappointed,” she said.

Winnipeg’s Cindy Klassen, the defending Olympic champion, finished 21st with a time of 2:00.67. The double knee surgery she underwent in 2008, and long recovery, have clearly robbed the six-time Olympic medalist of once fearsome speed. Klassen still owns the world record for the 1500m — 1:51.79, set in 2005. Brittany Schussler, also of Winnipeg, battled equipment problems to finish a distant 35th.

Heading into the final week of competition, Groves, still has a chance to establish herself as Canada’s Queen of the Games. On Feb. 24th, she will compete in the 5000m, with teammate and defending Olympic champion Clara Hughes. Next Saturday, she will be part of Canada’s number-one ranked pursuit team, perhaps finally earning her gold.

But for now, Groves is relieved that her toughest skate of the Games is done.

“They’re all hard, but the 1500 is the worst. It’s a combination of speed and endurance.” she said. “Sometimes you can taste blood in your lungs.”

Ohno! Charles and François Hamelin miss the podium

By Ken MacQueen and Nancy Macdonald - Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 1:12 AM - 11 Comments

It was a parents’ dream: two sons, short track skaters Charles Hamelin and his younger brother François in the Olympic 1,000-metre medal final.

It was a parents’ nightmare: only one could possibility win Saturday night at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum.

It was a parents’ heartbreak: Charles, 25, took the lead, with François, 23, drafting behind him. They held that position for several laps; with François dueling with American superstar Apolo Anton Ohno for second place— the partisan home country crowd screaming support.

In the stands their father Yves Hamelin, national team program director, clutched a stopwatch and urged them on. How many times have these two brothers chased each other around the rink, for fun, for family, for personal pride? On Saturday there was so much more at stake.

Then, in a flash of blue, and in Olympic record time, it was over. Two Koreans, Jung-Su Lee and Ho-Suk Lee swept into the lead, followed by Ohno who had slipped to last place and then charged back to take bronze. Charles fell back to fourth just ahead of his brother.

For a crestfallen Charles, a medal favorite and the world record holder in this distance, it was his second disappointment. A week earlier he’d failed to advance to the finals in the 1,500 metres. “It’s one of the toughest races I’ve ever skated,” Charles said later. He said the raucous crowd gave him and his brother energy, but it also hampered their race strategy. “Since we’re not accustomed to that we had trouble hearing the people behind us.”

Charles said he and his brother had no plans to work together to block their opponents. “We don’t talk together about strategy,” he said. “But we talked to our coach and he makes sure our strategies will work together.” The plan, said François, was to break into the lead early. They knew five of the six best skaters in the world were in the final. “Maybe we went too fast at the beginning,” he said, “and it hurt us in the end.”

For Ohno, 27, the third place finish was a triumph. With that bronze he earned his seventh Olympic medal in three Olympic Games, breaking his tie with long-track speed skater Bonnie Blair, who was in the stands Saturday. “It feels amazing,” Ohno said later. “As an athlete you never really look back at past medals that I’ve won. I just remember the struggles and the sacrifices that I’ve made to get to this point.”

Ohno said he made some mistakes during the race but he is satisfied with a bronze. My goal was to come out here and pour my heart and soul into these Olympic Games and I have no regrets, I’m just happy to be here.” Ohno said in earlier interviews he is also pumped by what he predicts will be “one of the best American Games ever.” He gave a nod to Charles Hamelin, the world record holder in the 1,000m. “These Canadian guys prepare so hard and so well—Operation Gold or whatever they’re calling it . . . Own the Podium or something,” he said to a group of largely American journalists. Then, in what is becoming a well-worn American joke, he added: “They can own the podium, we just want to borrow it. Just for the month of February, and we’ll give it back.”

In an earlier race, Tania Vicent, 34, and a 16-year veteran of the Canadian team, was the only Canadian to advance to the finals in the women’s 1,500-metres. She came out charging in a packed field of eight skaters but faded badly at the end, finishing last. Kalyna Roberge, considered the strongest skater on the women’s team fell in a crash-fest of a quarterfinal. Meng Wang, the prohibitive favourite to win, triggered a three-woman crash, and failed to qualify for the finals.

Denny Morrison and the Oval of Broken Dreams

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 11:13 PM - 6 Comments

Four years ago in Turin, it was Canada’s female speed skaters—and mostly just Cindy Klassen— that carried the team to historic heights. The men, came home with just one medal, a silver in the team pursuit.

And if Canada is to come anywhere close to its lofty goal of owning the podium at the Vancouver 2010 Games, it’s now clear that it will be up to the women again.

In the men’s 1500m race at the Richmond Oval this evening, Denny Morrison again failed to meet his own, and the country’s high expectations, finishing 9th, .80 seconds off the podium, with a time of 1:46.93. Mark Tuitert of the Netherlands—ranked fourth in the world at the distance—was the surprise victor, turning in a scorching 1:45.57, and beating world record holder Shani Davis of the United States by more than half a second. The bronze was taken by Havard Bokko of Norway in 1:46.13.

Morrison was Canada’s best hope for a men’s individual speed skating medal at these Games. In the 2007-08 season he won 11 medals in the 1000m and 1500m races on the World Cup circuit. In 2008, he won the world championship in the 1500m, and 2009 took the bronze. By this season has had far more downs than ups for the 24-year-old from Fort St. Jean, British Columbia. And his dream home Olympics have descended into a nightmare of frustration.

Tonight, sitting in second place with just 400 metres to go, Morrison wasn’t able to keep a medal in his grasp, fading badly down the final stretch and visibly labouring to the finish.

“In the last lap, I just lost all my speed and basically exploded,” he told reporters afterwards.  “It wasn’t that I gave up, or wasn’t trying. I just wasn’t putting it technically into the ice the way I should have been.”

His poor Olympic performances, including a 13th in the 1000m, have left him searching for answers, and lashing out in all directions, including his coaches and Speed Skating Canada.

“I don’t know if it’s something with the program or what,” he said. “It’s been kind of frustrating to know that I was getting closer and closer to the Olympics and skating poorer and poorer when I get tired.”

Morrison also took aim at a decision that saw his close friend and former training buddy Davis banned from Calgary’s Olympic Oval after the Turin Games. His greatest improvements, and best seasons, came during and immediately after that partnership.

“I just think it would be nice to train with Shani to have him push me or pull me,” said Morrison. “I feel like that was something I miss…Now I basically have to do these programs by myself.”

It was a slap that visibly angered his coach Marcel Lacroix.

“The program was giving him what he needed for the last three years,” he retorted. “He got a world record with the program. He was a silver medalist at the World Championships in the 1000m, and bronze medalist in the 1500m. So, what? It was working, and now it’s not? I can’t support that.”

Lacroix also took umbrage at the implicit criticism of Morrison’s teammates.

“Denny has a team,” he said.  “They may not be as good as Shani, but he doesn’t train on his own. To me as a coach, that’s not an excuse.”

The question now is whether Morrison will be able to put the disappointment behind him and prepare for next weekend’s team pursuit—an event where Canada retains a legitimate medal shot.

Tonight, the signs were hardly encouraging.

“I can give you the answer my sports psychologist would like me to tell you, or I can give you the answer I really feel,” Morrison said when asked about his readiness. “It may take me a while to get over it. But I will still be able to skate it with a good attitude.”

Lacroix, who described his charge as being “lost in a fog” at the moment, said Morrison has a choice.

“Denny is disappointed that he didn’t get an individual medal, but right now his only shot is the team pursuit,” he said.

“You can sit and cry, or you get out there again. A medal is a medal.”

Christine Nesbitt: Canada's self-critical sweetheart

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 8:13 PM - 2 Comments

In Christine Nesbitt’s world, you don’t win gold, you lose platinum.

And the mere fact that such an honour doesn’t actually exist at the Olympics didn’t stop her from beating herself up over her clutch win in the women’s 1,000m today. Skating in front of a raucous home crowd, the 24-year-old from London, Ont. topped the podium with a time of 1-minute, 16.56 seconds, edging out Annette Gerritsen of the Netherlands by just two one-hundredths of a second. Laurine van Riessen, also of the Netherlands, took the bronze.

You see, on the World Cup circuit this season, Nesbitt never lost a race. Indeed, she won most of them in a walk. And to say she is a perfectionist at heart is a gross understatement.

So, just squeaking out a victory, no matter how exciting, amazing and inspiring it was for the rest of the country, wasn’t quite good enough for her. And pretty much the moment she stepped down from the victory podium, Nesbitt started providing chapter and verse on why her gold medal performance was one of the worst races of her career.

“As much as I was fortunate enough to win Olympic gold, this was probably my worst 1,000m race of the year,” she said. “I’m really lucky.”

From the starting gun, Nesbitt said she never felt right. She slipped on about her third stride. Coming out of the first corner, she found herself ahead of the other skater in her pairing, Monique Angermuller of Germany, and started to relax—then saw her time, 18.36 over the first 200m, putting her in 15th place.

“I was panicking,” she said. “I was definitely fighting demons.”

“I didn’t feel technically good. I was, ‘Oh, no!’ I’m not having a good race. I’m not even going to be on the podium.”

At the next split, the 600m mark, she was in 9th place, and sweating it even more.

“I knew I wasn’t skating very well. I almost felt like with a lap to go the crowd fell silent when they saw how far behind I was.” (If that was indeed true, Nesbitt was the only one to notice. It was so loud inside the Richmond Oval that you could barely hear yourself think.)

So, faced with certain doom—or an acute sense of pickiness—Nesbitt turned on the jets over the last 400m. At the lane change on the final curve, she chased down Angermuller, and blew right past her. Then, she burned rubber down the final straightaway, crossing the finish line with an awkward toe kick.

Nesbitt looked peeved after the race. She said she was certain the time wasn’t going to be enough to win. And all through the final pairing of the day—her teammate Kristina Groves and Margot Boer of the Netherlands—she stewed in the infield. But Groves’ time of 1:16.78 was only good enough for fourth. Boer came sixth. And Nesbitt was the country’s newest golden girl.

Ugly? Perhaps, but Canada will take it.

And lest you worry that Nesbitt might be taking this winning thing a little hard, she did allow some measure of satisfaction at the accomplishment.

“I’ve been working really hard, not just physically, but mentally, and that’s what carried me through,” she said. “I’m really proud of myself. A year ago, two years ago, there’s no way—I wouldn’t have had that same drive.”

On Sunday, the new Olympic champion gets to go through it all again, squaring off against the world number-one ranked Groves in the 1,500m.

Another chance at glory, and another chance to find fault.

“I love criticizing myself,” Nesbitt allows.

Keep it up, it appears to be working.

Stephen Colbert: Fair-weather friend?

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 7:09 PM - 10 Comments

American funnyman Stephen Colbert has been creating a buzz at the Games.

Thousands turned out in a muddy field near Vancouver’s Science World (temporarily serving as the Sochi 2014 pavilion) this morning and yesterday, to witness tapings of his popular Colbert Report TV show.

And in keeping with his jingoistic persona, the jokes were mostly at the host country’s expense. Under bright sunny skies on a 10-degree morning, he riffed from a stage piled high with fake snow, a giant stuffed moose and a totem pole. “It’s 11:30 at night and the sun’s still shining — and they wonder why there’s no snow here,” he began.

Later at the Richmond Oval, Colbert showed up to cheer on U.S. favourite, and the runaway winner of the men’s 1000m, Shani Davis. Sitting in seats reserved for NBC (Colbert is accredited to do “color” commentary for them) and wearing a red team fleece, with “Assistant Sports Psychologist” emblazoned across the back, he was fairly reserved. (Although he did tape a segment for the show before things got underway, featuring him giving faux encouragement to his U.S. charges, and using one of their skates to cut a sandwich.) Still, when Davis did his victory lap, Colbert did clasp his own hands in triumph.

He does deserves a share. When the U.S. Speed Skating team’s major cash-sponsor, Dutch bank DSB went belly-up last fall, Colbert stepped in and launched a campaign that raised close to US $350,000 for the team.

He of course has been paid back. His “feud” with Davis (real or invented) was comedy gold. And harnessing the power of the Olympics has hardly hurt his ratings and profile.

In interviews Colbert, who was born in D.C., but grew up in South Carolina, claims that he is a speed skating fan from way back, first falling in love with the sport watching the great Eric Heiden win five individual golds in Lake Placid in 1980.

But is that as phony as his right-wing faux-Fox pundit schtick?

The comedian doesn’t leave town until tomorrow. But he was nowhere in sight at the Oval today as Canada’s Christine Nesbitt took the gold.

Maybe he only turns out when the Americans have a prohibitive favourite racing.

Shani Davis comes through in 1,000m race

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 10:49 PM - 1 Comment

The Olympics are all about pressure. The pressure athletes put on themselves. The expectations of their friends, families, and financial supporters. The prognostications of medal-hungry media. And, perhaps above all, the weight of national aspirations.

In the sport of speed skating, at least, it’s hard to argue that any athlete at these Vancouver 2010 Games came in with more of that baggage than Shani Davis of the United States. Four years ago in Turin, he took the men’s 1,000m race and became the first black man to ever win an individual Winter Olympics gold. Then he added a silver in the 1,500m. And still he managed to emerge as the great villain of the Games—putatively because he was adjudged to have let his teammates down by not skating in the pursuit event, but more truthfully, because he regularly blew off the people who were eager to tell what should have been his natural, feel-good story.

He’s a prickly guy (as witnessed by his pre-Olympics spat with comedian Stephen Colbert) and as a consequence he has spent four prime years of his skating career being put on trail in the media for his perceived sins.

But now, that’s all over. Davis’ gold medal winning performance in the men’s 1,000m race this evening, earns him the right to be as nice, or as nasty as he wishes. The winner of every single World Cup race at that distance this season, the 27-year-old was the prohibitive favourite coming into Vancouver. The American hype machine was again cranked up to the max, and his every decision—to again skip the team event, to drop out half-way through Monday’s 500m race—was dissected and critiqued. The pressure must have been skull crushing. And his answer to it all was to go out and blow away the competition with a time of one-minute, 8.94 seconds, .18 seconds ahead of his nearest rival. Tae-Bum Mo of South Korea added a silver to the gold he won in the 500m. And Davis’ teammate/one-time enemy Chad Hedrick took the bronze.

Speaking to the media after the race (something that happens about as often as an eclipse), Davis came as close to ebullient as he gets.

“It’s my moment. It’s my party. I can celebrate, I can dance, I can do whatever I want—I earned it,” he deadpanned.

“In 2006, I was on the offensive. I was attacking. This time I was on the defensive. I just had to weather the storm.”

But how did he cope with all that pressure? Davis just shrugged.

“The only pressure on me is the pressure I allow to be on me.”

Hedrick, the winner of three medals in Turin, including gold in the 5,000m, talked tonight about how he uses pressure to help him perform.

“Nobody expected me to leave here with a medal today—nobody but me. I put that pressure on myself. You’ve gotta do it,” he said. “I don’t come here for sixth place. I don’t wake up every morning for sixth place. I gotta expect big things of myself and put the pressure on myself.”

His prior Olympic experience was a detriment, said Hedrick, making him a little too calm.

“I had to force the pressure on myself to get that adrenaline going to make myself excited about these races.”

It’s a different mindset. Perhaps, even a uniquely American one.

But on a disappointing night for Canada’s speed skaters—Denny Morrison finished 13th; Jeremy Wotherspoon, in the final race of his Olympic career came 14th—it’s an interesting contrast.

Morrison who was considered a legitimate medal threat in the 1,000m—he won a silver at the world single distance championships in 2009, and the season before won 11 World Cup medals—is certainly meditating on the issue.

“I’m usually the kind of guy that performs well under pressure, but not on this occasion,” he said afterwards.

He didn’t offer excuses, the way pro athletes so often do. “I’m the one who had to perform and I didn’t do it.”

But his anger was palpable and heart-wrenching.

“It’s just frustrating,” he said.  “Four years I spent getting myself psyched up, getting my confidence up, my technique perfected, my equipment honed, and I just don’t know.”

Morrison races again in the 1,500m Saturday. His plan between now and then? To get angry, he said.

Hopefully, it will make a difference.

Great Moments in Ambush Marketing

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 6:49 PM - 5 Comments

For spectators, the best (and pretty much only) way to get to speed skating at the Richmond Oval, is via Vancouver’s spiffy new Canada Line train.

But the nearest station is about 1.5 km away from the venue, necessitating a 15-20 minute walk. It’s a pretty stroll—along the banks of the Fraser River with views of the Coast Range in the distance—but it can be a chilly one, especially when the wind in blowing.

Thankfully, just outside the station today, there was a crew of young people handing out free hot chocolate from a catering truck.

An example of Vancouver’s Olympic spirit? Not exactly.

Visa is a world-wide Olympic sponsor, and its corporate logo is everywhere at the Games.

This hot chocolate came in styrofoam cups emblazoned with the logo of a rival credit card company.

Your Daily Ice-Resurfacing Update

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 4:40 PM - 1 Comment

The much-maligned ice-resurfacing machines at the Richmond Oval have actually completed their task without incident.

The Dutch coach, let without anything to complain long and hard about, is skating the track with his hands in his pocket, during a break in the women’s 500m.

Still, organizers aren’t exactly betting on the Olympia-brand machines that have been causing such problems. Last night, they announced plans to truck in a Zamboni from the Olympic Oval in Calgary. It should arrive later today.

On the upside for Olympia, their machines certainly are doing their part to keep Vancouver 2010 “green.” Zero emissions when parked.

The Ice-Resurfacing Follies

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:23 PM - 8 Comments

The Aussies are mad at us for winning gold in men’s moguls. They say the judges gave unfairly high marks to Alexandre Bilodeau. Skiers are mad at us about the cross-country course. They say it has too many turns and hills and whatever. And everyone is mad at us for the Muppet movie unfolding down at the speedskating oval, where competition has been marred by resurfacing delays and inconsistencies.

At the Whistler Media Centre, there are high-def TVs providing live feeds from all the competition venues here and in Vancouver. There’s no sound – just the images. I sat down to watch a little bit of the men’s 500-metre sprint, and instead I got a weird silent movie entitled Let Us Now Point at the Ice and Shake Our Heads in Dismay.

4:45 p.m. PT A coach from the Netherlands is gesturing at the ice. He looks angry. He theatrically musses his long floppy hair. His hair looks even angrier.

4:46 Closeup on the ice. It looks as smooth as Ray Liotta’s face.

4:47 Someone pulls out a walkie-talkie. This is getting serious.

4:49 Uh oh. Up until now it’s been team officials and Continue…

Fast race, slow machines: Correction

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, February 15, 2010 at 8:45 PM - 3 Comments

[Correction: The Olympia machines, which seem to be working fine today, are built by Resurfice Corp. of Elmira, Ont. Their standard machine are built on a GM truck platform. These are electric ones.]

The men’s 500m is usually the drag race of speed skating.

Tonight, however it’s been more like watching paint dry.

For the second straight day, a problem with the ice resurfacing machine has delayed competition. Yesterday, one of the Olympia’s (made by worldwide Olympic sponsor GM) broke down during the women’s 5000m. That resulted in a 15 minute delay.

But this evening’s meltdown (literally) delayed proceedings for more than an hour, just before Canadians Kyle Parrot and Jeremy Wotherspoon were to begin their first of two races, with millions watching in North American prime time.

You can’t buy advertising like that.

Cheers and Tears

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 10:44 PM - 0 Comments

Forget Olympic fever; Canada appears to have something closer to Olympic Ebola. Highly contagious and all-consuming, but in a nice, non-fatal flesh-melting way.

The overnight ratings from Friday’s opening ceremonies suggest that more than 26 million of the country’s 33 million people tuned in to view at least part of the three-and-a-half hour show.

The line-up to buy the “official” red mittens at the Bay’s Olympic super store in downtown Vancouver stretches more than a block at all hours of the day, and late into the evening.

And the excitement just keeps building, spilling over in the most unlikely places

Within minutes of tonight’s gold medal-winning performance by Alex Bilodeau in the men’s moguls, orange electronic highway notice signs around Vancouver were flashing a message of congratulations along with “Go Canada Go!”

And rest assured the athletes are feeling all that love.

The cheers that greeted Cindy Klassen when she stepped to the line for the women’s 3000 metre speed skating race were so deafening that she momentarily lost her game face, tearing up.

Even recalling the moment after the race caused tears to come to her eyes.

” I never expected the crowd to be so energetic. You couldn’t hear anything. It was incredible,” she told reporters.
“I’m so thankful for the support, that they’ve given us. All the athletes that are representing Canada here, we can feel the support and we’re so grateful for that.”

Three medals in the first two days? Consider yourself thanked.

A bonus bronze

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 8:55 PM - 0 Comments

Do you want to know what home advantage sounds and feels like? It starts with a low rumble like an approaching subway train. Then it builds to a roof-shaking roar, like a jet breaking free of the runway. And even when it recedes, the imprint lingers, like a wave pulling back from the beach.

This afternoon at the Richmond Oval, Canada’s speed skaters got their first taste of what such unconditional love and support could mean to them. And the country got its first gift in return—an unexpected bronze in the women’s 3,000-metre from Ottawa’s Kristina Groves.

The 33-year-old is racing in five events at these 2010 Winter Games. She is a legitimate medal favourite in the 1,000m and 1,500m. Her role in the pursuit event should bring her and her teammates another piece of hardware. But few—and probably not even Kristina herself—really believed that she was going to find the podium in the 3,000m.

“I knew it was going to be a really strong field,” Groves said as she stood clutching her victory bouquet in the bowels of the stadium.  “There were 6, or 7, or 8 girls that could have been on the podium today. I had the best race I could have today and this is more than I expected.”

Not that it was easy. By the time Groves hit the track, Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic had laid down a blistering 4:02.53 performance on Richmond’s sticky ice, which as it turned out, was the gold medal-winning skate. Paired with Germany’s Stephanie Beckert in the second-to-last race of the day, Groves gamely tried to match that pace, and was sitting in the silver position heading into the last 400m lap. But in the back-stretch she faded, dropping to third with a time of 4:04.84, .22 seconds behind Beckert.

The final pairing featured Ireen Wust of the Netherlands, the defending Olympic 3,000m champion, and Daniela Anschutz-Thoms of Germany, another podium threat. Groves and her teammate Clara Hughes, who finished fifth with a time of 4:06.01, sat together on a bench in the infield, intently watching the lap times on the giant scoreboard, and dying a thousand deaths.

“Going down the last straightaway I saw Daniela and I thought, oh she’s going to get me for sure,” said Groves. “I thought I was going to be fourth or fifth. I was so shocked when my time held up. It was just such a cool feeling to go from fourth or fifth to bronze.”

When Anschutz-Thoms time flashed on the board—4:04.87—Groves screamed, through her hands in the air and then grasped her head in disbelief.

The difference between a bronze medal, complete with a downtown victory celebration tonight at BC Place Stadium, and what would have been a heart-breaking fourth-place finish was just three-hundredths of a second.

Afterward, the always-smiling Hughes was certain the roar of the home crowd was worth at least that much time, if not more.

“It was incredible,” she said. “On the corners it just made me want to dance on my blades. In the straightaways it propelled me forward. It was beautiful…I can’t even express what it felt like being in that tunnel of energy.”

(Hughes is also convinced that the home field will tilt things her way in the 5,000m—the race she won gold in four years ago in Turin—on Feb. 24. “I couldn’t have gone faster today. That is my ability at this distance. But give me five more laps.”)

Both Groves and Hughes were warming up when the first Canadian racer of the day—Cindy Klassen—was introduced. The shower of affection for Canada’s greatest-ever Olympian, and the winner of five medals in Turin, was impossible to ignore. (Klassen had a promising start, but faded badly in the final laps, finishing 14th in a time of 4:15.53.)

“When I was sitting putting on my skates I heard them announce Cindy,” said Groves. “It gave me goose bumps just listening to the crowd. I’ve never experienced a crowd that loud for Canada. I’ve raced in all sorts of places where it’s been that loud, but not for Canada. It was wonderful. It was deafening.”

She’s right. Now, just imagine what it will sound like when Canada wins gold.

Even after the 1,500m short track race, gold remains elusive

By Jason Kirby - Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 1:50 PM - 0 Comments

In the end, the men’s 1,500m short track speed skating competition, the first great hope for a Canadian gold at the Olympics, came down to energy—there was an abundance of it in the crowd, but just not enough of it on the ice where it counted.

In an evening of racing that started off incredibly strong for Canada, Olivier Jean ended up placing 4th while Charles Hamelin, who was heavily favoured to take the gold, came in 7th.

The disappointment was obvious on Hamelin’s face and in his voice after the race. “I didn’t do as good as I can do,” said the resident of Montreal, who came into the Olympics the reigning World Cup champion. As he spoke a TV monitor behind him showed the medal ceremony taking place out on the ice, with Korean Lee Jung Su atop the podium followed by American skater and Dancing with the Stars champ Apolo Ohno and his team mate J.R. Celski. “It’s just a matter of using the energy in a bad moment.”

Jean was far more upbeat about his defeat, smiling even as he described what went wrong in the final race of the night. “It was a problem of strategy,” he said. “I spent a little bit too much time outside, I should have went to the front. It cost me some energy toward the end of the race.”

Whatever the reasons both skaters offered up, there’s no question the evening was a shocking disappointment to many Canadians. But the thing is, you wouldn’t have known it if you were in Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum tonight.

From the start the crowd was electric. Even though many seats were still empty during the first heat, the roar that erupted when Jean came in first exploded even louder when it was announced the Montreal resident had just set a new Olympic record at 2 minutes and 14.24 seconds. (It was a short-lived reign. Six minutes later Korea’s Lee shaved another couple of seconds off Jean’s record.)

But even when Hamelin raced for the last time with no hope whatsoever of a medal, the crowd was completely behind him. As he skated before the race, his eyes were downcast. Then when his name and country was announced, the stadium erupted once more. The moment seemed to catch Hamelin off guard. He lifted his head and smiled. For most of that race he trailed the pack, but with six laps to go he passed everyone. The deafening cheers as he crossed the finish line were by far the loudest of the night, even though it still meant seventh place for him. “You’d think he just won the gold,” a bemused American reporter said, shouting.

Hamelin knew the eyes of a nation were watching him. Was it unfair, he was asked at one point, for us to pile such immense hopes on his shoulders for this race? “No, I was one of the hopes for Canada,” he said. And he vowed to shake off his performance ahead of the 500m event, his strongest distance, in eleven days.

As for the crowd, Hamelin said they were incredible. “It doesn’t happen all that often for us to have a crowd cheering like this. It gives us some energy to make it.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.

The Boys in the Band

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 3:08 PM - 0 Comments

One of the things that VANOC has spent a lot of time thinking about is the atmosphere at its competition venues. Not just the look, but the feel. And the first impression at the Richmond Oval is that they’ve nailed it.

Speed skating is to the Netherlands what hockey is to Canada. And the crowd assembled here today to watch the first race of the Games—the men’s 5000m—is overwhelmingly Dutch. (Sven Kramer is the favourite to top the podium which would be the Netherlands 25th speed skating gold. In their Winter Olympic history 75 of the country’s 78 medals have come in this one sport.) The stands are awash with orange. It looks like a chain gang convention.

So how do you entertain a crowd of cowbell thumping, Heineken-fueled Dutchmen and women? With these guys.

Wooden shoes and brass band versions of “Windy” and “Proud Mary.” Win.

Canada's Olympians: Cindy Klassen, Speed Skating

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 11:30 AM - 2 Comments

Forget the eponymous rec centre in her hometown of Winnipeg, or the 15-foot-high snow sculpture a local sponsor once built of Cindy Klassen speed skating with a herd of bison. Disregard the long-distance calling cards with her picture, the ubiquitous print ads, and the nationally televised McDonald’s commercials. The argument about who is Canada’s most famous Olympian begins and ends with a simple proposition. If the Royal Canadian Mint strikes 22 million coins with your likeness, and your name is not Queen Elizabeth II, you win.

Klassen’s five medals at the 2006 Torino Games—a gold, two silver and two bronze—were the most ever won by any Canadian at an Olympics. Add in the bronze she won four years before in Salt Lake City, and she is the country’s most successful Olympian ever. (Her teammate Clara Hughes owns a total of five Olympic medals—two cycling bronzes from the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, a speed skating bronze in Salt Lake City, and a gold and silver in Turin.) She holds five world records. Yet for all the visibility, accolades and past successes, the 30-year-old finds herself heading into the Vancouver 2010 Olympics as a distinct underdog. An athlete whose greatest victory may lie in simply having made these Games at all.

In the summer of 2008, Calgary orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Nick Mohtadi operated on both of Klassen’s knees, removing cartilage and tendons that had been worn almost into oblivion by a decade of workouts, training and racing. Everyone knew going in that the injuries couldn’t be repaired, only ameliorated. But the healing process turned out to be a lot tougher than the speed skater and her coaches had imagined. Originally scheduled to return to the ice that fall, Klassen didn’t manage to strap on the blades until January 2009. “It was such a big deal that we actually videotaped it,” she told Maclean’s. “But when I looked at the tape, I couldn’t believe how I looked.” Plans to return to competition that season were scrubbed, and Klassen didn’t find her way back to the World Cup circuit until this past November, just three months before the start of the Vancouver Games. Even then, the pain was constant.
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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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Olympic secrets: Athletes bank on a lotus leaf

By Ken MacQueen - Monday, January 11, 2010 at 5:43 PM - 6 Comments

The lotus leaf has a curious property, it doesn’t get wet. Water drops bead into perfect spheres, suspended by the air trapped in billions of nano-sized hairs. What’s that have to do with Olympic athletes? Well, water equals friction and friction is the enemy of speed, and speed is the stuff of Olympic glory. And so it was that a team of University of British Columbia engineers signed on to the Top Secret Program with a mandate both simple and complicated: make Canada’s athletes go faster.

If the “hydrophobia” (water repellency) of the lotus could be applied to sled runners, skates and ski bottoms, athletes could achieve higher speeds with less energy. “The idea was to mimic Mother Nature,” says engineering professor Savvas Hatzikiriakos. Researcher Anne Kietzig, who specializes in metals, began treating alloys with a laser from the university’s physics department. “You get different structures depending on the speed and the energy used by the laser,” she says. The result, viewed under an electron microscope, was a series of micro-level bumps covered in even smaller ripples measuring 500 billionths of a metre—a metallic lotus leaf.

The plan was to send this metal out to be coated with a water repellant surface, but a strange thing happened: the metal blades coated themselves. “What I initially did was just leave my samples lying around in the lab, not really paying attention to them for three weeks and all of a sudden they were hydrophobic, which we didn’t expect” says Kietzig. The treated blades bonded with carbon from the air, creating an ultra-water repellant surface, one that can reduce drag on ice by as much as 30-60 per cent.

So far, the governing bodies for bobsled, luge and skeleton won’t allow the treated runners to be used in competition. The break-through also came too late to be incorporated by Canada’s speed skaters at the 2010 Winter Games. But insiders say treated blades are likely to be used by Canadian skaters in the future. Meantime, Kietzig is happily slipping out of the lab in February to volunteer at the Olympic speed skating oval in Richmond.