23 octobre 2005

A primer on the Canadian Olympic team
and its chances at the 2006 Winter Olympics,
where a top-three overall medal finish
is the publicly stated goal

Consider it Canadian sport's equivalent of the witness protection program.

For a brief period of time every four years, these athletes are more visible than they could ever imagine. Then, poof, they disappear.

Well, this country's Olympians are ready to resurface from oblivion.

Their exploits since the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games have mostly been confined to one-paragraph digest items at the back of the Sports section or a single line on the scoreboard page.

But it's almost that time again, that long-awaited opportunity when Canada's Olympic athletes get the chance to vault themselves from obscurity to household name for the 17 days that are the Winter Games.

Don't worry about laying heavy expectations on the athletes who will don Canada's colours for the Feb. 10-26 event in Turin, Italy. Their national Olympic body has already taken care of that.

The Canadian Olympic Committee has set a goal of a top-three finish in the overall medal count. They reckon it will take 25 medals to achieve the objective, a big jump from the fifth-place finish with 17 medals in Salt Lake City.

But they're quick to point out that the country ranked third last season in both overall medals and world championship medals. Where Canada has struggled for some time now is turning that potential into Olympic medals.

Canada has several athletes who are bona fide stars in their sport and a large group of serious medal contenders — Steve Omischl, Cindy Klassen, Jeff Pain, Jennifer Heil, Mathieu Turcotte, to name a few.

You're probably thinking : Who ?

That's the point of this exercise. A busy World Cup season is about to get underway in all the sports and you're going to need a program to acquaint yourself with the players.

Consider this your intial primer for the upcoming Olympics. Let's call it : Turin 101.

A is for Alimzan. Who can forget the behind the scenes star of the Salt Lake Games, Alimzan Tokhtakhounov ? The reputed mobster was alleged to have rigged the pairs event to deny Jamie Salé and David Pelletier the gold medal. One can only imagine what kind of skulduggery might be in store for Turin. Stay tuned.

B is for Botterill. One of the highlights for Canada in Salt Lake was the thrilling victory by the women's hockey team over the U.S. — in spite of some horrid officiating. Most of the same cast is back including sniper Jennifer Botterill, Cassie Campbell and Hayley Wickenheiser (she of the fiery post-game interview in which she accused the Americans of stomping the Canadian flag in their dressing room). You can bet on a gold-medal rematch.

C is for coraggio. The Canadians will need courage and heart to overcome an admittedly poor conversion rate when it comes to turning World Cup and world championship success into Olympic medals. They're looking at various ways to deal with the problem — including setting up a high performance centre in Turin where athletes can get a good night's sleep away from the village before their event — but the bottom line is it takes a special athlete to cope with the incredible hype and pressure.

D is for disgrazia. It seems some Canadian tests positive at every Olympics. This could be a very bad thing in Italy, where doping offences are penalized by prison time. Attempts to get the tough laws suspended during the Olympics have so far failed.

E is for extras. The Canadian team is catching up to its chief competition in terms of the resources at its disposal as a result of the Own The Podium created for the 2010 Whistler/Vancouver Olympics. Among the beneficiaries — the bobsled team has new sleds, the alpine ski team has cutting edge video technology, and the speed skating team travels with a full support staff.

F is for firefighter. When he's not rocketing face-first down an icy skeleton course, Duff Gibson uses his athletic talents with the Calgary Fire Department. Gibson, who tried just about every sport in his drive to become an Olympian, has found his niche. He was the world champion in 2004 and won the World Cup race on the Olympic course in Cesana last season.

G is for Grandi. When Italians are uttering the word grande in Turin during the Games, it may have little to do with the size of their latte, and everything to do with the Italian-born skier who proudly races for Canada. With two World Cup giant slalom wins under his belt last season, Thomas Grandi is a bona fide contender. Cooks a mean bowl of pasta, too.

H is for hip bone. That's part of what's holding freestyle aerials skier Deidra Dionne's neck together after she broke it at a World Cup in Australia in September. Put back together with a titanium plate and a piece of her hip bone, the Olympic bronze medallist from Salt Lake has every intention of jumping for gold in Turin.

I is for IOC. You can bet it will be business as usual in Turin for the International Olympic Committee. They'll stay in the best hotels, scoff the best chow and generally screw up whatever they can. Count on Dick Pound finding a way to put himself front and centre.

J is for Jasey Jay Anderson, who's won everything but an Olympic medal in his remarkable snowboard career. The reigning world champion in parallel giant slalom, Anderson has been pouring a lot of energy into technology as he believes that in the end, the boards can make the difference.

K is for kickstart. If anyone can get Canada off to a flying start in Turin, it's freestyle moguls skier Jennifer Heil, who goes for gold on opening day. An impressive fourth in Salt Lake, she's coming off winning her second straight World Cup overall moguls title.

L is for luging Lauscher. Regan Lauscher made a breakthrough last season when she recorded Canada's best finish ever in the 28-year history of the World Cup, capturing a silver medal at a race in Lake Placid. The journalism graduate chronicled the feat herself in a diary she wrote for the CBC website.

M is for meltdown. Expect bobsled pilot Pierre Lueders to have one if speedy brakeman Lascelles Brown doesn't get his citizenship in time for the Games. The other brakeman with whom he's had great success, Giulio Zardo, quit because he couldn't stand the mercurial driver. Lueders is a legitimate threat to win a second Olympic title if he has the right people pushing him.

N is for nervoso. Fans back home get awfully anxious if the medals don't start rolling in right away. Within three or four days, some journalist will write a scathing piece, labelling the whole team chokers. Relax. Save the judgements until the end of the Games.

O is for Ohno. Apolo Anton Ohno went into Salt Lake with star billing, but was eclipsed by Canada's Marc Gagnon, who's since retired. Look for the current group of Canadian short track skaters to once again steal a lot of thunder in Turin, including Mathieu Turcotte, Francois-Louis Tremblay and Charles Hamelin. They're well coached by former Olympian Guy Thibault.

P is for Pinerolo, home to curling for the Turin Olympics. One wonders that the 35,000 villagers in the town dubbed "the temple of curling" on the official Olympic website will make of a sport they know nothing about. The Canadian teams won't be decided until the Olympic trials in December, but they'll be favourites. Only the late Sandra Schmirler has met those heavy expectations since curling entered the Games in 1998.

Q is for quad. Super talented Jeffrey Buttle will need one of these to capture Olympic gold. The technically demanding jump has eluded him so far, but chief rivals like Evgeni Plushenko, Stephane Lambiel and Brian Joubert all have at least one in their arsenal. A silver medallist at last year's worlds, Buttle is Canada's lone figure skating hope for the podium in Turin.

R is for redhead. As the first Canadian and only fourth athlete in history to win medals in both the Winter and Summer Games, Clara Hughes knows all about delivering under pressure. She's dropped cycling in favour of concentrating on long track speed skating. She skates in the gruelling longer distances, and has a pain threshold worthy of a champion.

S is for Simard. With world downhill champion Melanie Turgeon retired due to back woes, the Canadian alpine team is looking for one or more of its women to make a breakthrough this season. Genevieve Simard, ninth in a World Cup GS yesterday in Soelden, Austria, seems poised to do just that and oft-injured Emily Brydon is right behind her.

T is for team pursuit, a new event added to long track speed skating. Canada usually fares well in new Olympic disciplines. And this one — featuring two teams of three skaters start on opposite sides of the track and skate six laps against the clock — should be no different. Watch for a great duel in the women's event between Canada and powerhouse Germany. The Canadian squad's one advantage over the combative Germans — they actually like each other.

U is for underdog. One of the exciting things about the Olympics is seeing some unheralded athlete rise to the occasion on the big day — skiers Kathy Kreiner and Kerrin Lee-Gartner come to mind. This time around, watch out for youngsters such as long track speed skater Shannon Rempel and alpine skier Francois Bourque among others.

V is Vermilion, the tiny Albertan hometown of Olympic cross-country skiing gold medalist Beckie Scott, who hung in until she finally got the honour she deserved after the two Russians who finished in front of her in Salt Lake were caught cheating. Scott returned to the sport after a break last season and looks stronger than ever. Teammate Sara Renner, who is married to skier Thomas Grandi, made it a great season for the family by winning a bronze at last year's worlds.

W is for Wotherspoon. The memory many hold from Salt Lake is pre-race favourite Jeremy Wotherspoon sprawling onto the ice four steps into his speed skating race. Life did go on for Wotherspoon, who won the world championships a year later. He is still among the best long track sprinters in the world, but not the dominant force he was four years ago.

X is for X Games. The Olympics will have that flavour with the new event of snowboard cross, where four boarders race down the hill at the same time, setting up the possibility for all kinds of mayhem. The sections on the course have names like whoops, waves, spine, kickers.

Y is for yes. As in, yes, we know men's hockey is in the Olympics and all the NHL stars will be there, but the point of this is to help educate you about the rest of the team.

Z is for zona. Canadian athletes are aiming to be in the zona at the Olympics. That's what they train four hard years to do. In most cases they'll have to perform on the edge and not be afraid to move beyond their zona di benessere (comfort zone).

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