Dans les journaux - Coupe du monde - Vancouver 2008

'Anything can happen' in short-track
Bob Makin - 24 HOURS
"My mom's working the meet," Hewitt said with anticipation. "I have a couple grandmas, aunts and uncles and a bunch of friends coming."

World Cup speed-skating race about more than athletics
Samsung ISU World Cup will prepare staff, volunteers and others for 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Games
Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun October 24, 2008
"It's a big event for us," Tim Gayda, Vanoc's vice-president of sport, said in an interview Wednesday.
"We've all been working and planning, but it's really the crunch time when you get into an event."

Successful speed skaters master art of deception
World's best combine physical strength with a cat-and-mouse game
Gary Kingston, Vancouver Sun October 24, 2008
They call it speed skating for a reason. Long track sprinters have been clocked at 50 kilometres an hour.
Even on the tight-cornered, 111-metre oval of the short track arena, skaters routinely hit 40 kilometres an hour.

Apolo Anton Ohno (right) of the U.S. trains with team mates while preparing for the ISU World Cup short track speed skating at the Pacific Coliseum.
Andy Clark/Reuters




"When she was 18, she went to her first World Cup," Randy Gregg said Tuesday, from his sports medicine clinic in Edmonton, "and before she left, I said, 'Jess, what would happen if you were on the line against Meng Wang, the world champion and Olympic gold medalist?' And she looked up and said, 'Well, I'm going to try to beat her.' And she did end up on the line against Meng Wang and [Canada's] Kalyna Roberge and won a bronze medal. Lu sur Canada.com




Short track brigade has a message
Pacific Coliseum, site of 2010 Olympics, is Canadian team's territory
Terry Bell, The Province October 23, 2008
Why wait until 2010?

Canada's short track speed skating team wants to give the world a message at the Samsung ISU World Cup this weekend: The Pacific Coliseum, home of the 2010 Olympic short track event, is their turf.

"It's the third time we've been here, and it's like it's our ice," Charles Hamelin, a nine-time visitor to the World Cup podium last season, said Wednesday.

Speedskaters have yet to warm up to Pacific Coliseum's ice
Cam Cole, Vancouver Sun - October 23, 2008

"I think the facility's . . . pretty good," said Jessica Hewitt of Kamloops, the lone B.C. athlete on the Canadian squad that will compete in this weekend's Samsung ISU World Cup, beginning Friday morning. "We were here at the training camp in July and the ice wasn't the best, but it seems to be getting better. And the place has been cleaned up quite a bit, so I think it will be a good place to call home."

Racer from Yellowknife looks to make his mark
Marc Weber, The Province - October 23, 2008
Canadian short track speed skater Michael Gilday is hoping to stand out on the ice as much as he does in his team's media guide.

"I get phenomenal support in Yellowknife and across the Territories and I'm grateful for that," said Gilday, who was born in Iqaluit (now the capital of Nunavut) but moved to Yellowknife at age two. "The government has a great program for amateur-athlete support and I'm really proud to be representing the NWT as well as Canada."

Korean speedskaters a happy family
Team coming off 13 medals at world cup
Gary Kingston, Vancouver Sun October 23, 2008
VANCOUVER - South Korean speedskating coach Jae-Mok Jeon, whose English seems good enough not to require the help of a translator, grins and turns to the earnest woman in front of him.

"In Korea, the way they train, it's more like figure skating here or tennis," said Olivier Jean. "They have private coaches. Parents pay a lot of money, and coaches for athletes at a young age are better than us in Canada, where we skate in clubs and it's more for fun.

Volunteers warm up for 2010 duties
John Colebourn, The Province - October 23, 2008
Like some of the international athletes now in Vancouver, Mykle Ludvigsen is a little nervous about this weekend's pre-Olympic short-track speed-skating competition at the Pacific Coliseum.

Speedskating icon Ohno aims to dance into 2010 GamesNo short track to catch speedskating South Koreans
By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY

"I'd like to be known as one of the greatest speedskaters who have ever skated, as an American. In short track, that's a very hard task, because our sport is volatile."

"I would say he's probably the best he's been," Guy Thibault, high-performance director for US Speedskating, says of Ohno. "And he needs to be."

Ohno returned to the ice full time last season after winning Dancing with the Stars in 2007 and achieved a career first, an overall world title. He also won the 500-meter title at worlds.

"He's the most hard worker I've ever seen before, the most focused skater," says US Speedskating head short-track coach Jae Su Chun, who has coached South Korean and Canadian teams.

No short track to catch speedskating South Koreans
Cam Cole - Vancouver Sun - October 22, 2008
All the sports psychologists will tell you it's important to dream big dreams. Even if they're in Technicolour.
So never mind that South Korea's powerhouse short-track speedskating team won 10 medals to Canada's four at the 2006 Turin Olympics, including 6-0 in golds. Or that 21/2 years later, in last weekend's first Samsung ISU World Cup meet of the season at the Utah Olympic Oval near Salt Lake City, the count was South Korea 13 medals, Canada 6 ... and 6-0 in the gold column.

"What do you have to do between now and 2010 to reach Korea's level?" a reporter asks.
The skaters, the coaches, the team media attache all look vaguely insulted.
"No, but the numbers ...," the reporter begins anew.
They don't want to hear 'em. "We think we're there," says national team coach Derrick Campbell. "For us, our plan is to get stronger throughout the season and be ready for the world championships this year, which will simulate the Olympic Games timing. We really want to nail down that template this year so that next year we're just making small adjustments.

B.C. rookie on skating at home: 'It's been kind of crazy'
Gary Kingston, Vancouver October 22, 2008
There were no boards, padded or otherwise, or little red cones to round when speed skater Jessica Hewitt first started to slip, slide and glide across the ice.
When the temperatures dropped at her grandmother's cabin on remote Pavilion Lake -- "it's in between Cache Creek and Lillooet; not many people would know about it, but it's beautiful" -- mom or dad would lace up a pair of skates and off she'd go on the frozen body of water.
"Figure skates. I couldn't skate on hockey skates," she adds with a smile and a giggle. "I still kind of, like, tip over."