Sélection nationale pour les Coupes du monde d'automne

Du 16 au 18 septembre 2008, se tient la sélection qui déterminera les participants aux 4 premières Coupes du monde de la saison. Quelques photos en avant goût...prises par les membres de l'équipe sur place.

Best on ice at Renfrew - Skating squads convene in Vancouver

Jim Jamieson, The Province - September 12th 2008
It would be hard to find a better sport than speed skating for the first event to be held at a 2010 Olympic Games venue.
At a media conference on Thursday, officials and athletes from the national speed skating and figure skating squads were on hand at the Pacific Coliseum to highlight upcoming training and selection camps at the Renfrew Street venue. (...)
Former 500-metres champion Francois-Louis Tremblay of Montreal said the ice at the Coliseum was slow in a July training camp, but looks good now.

"They had some trouble with the quickness, but it's been remade now," he said. "I'm quite excited to see how the arena is going to look for the World Cup. I think it's a great place to have it. I'm sure it's going to be lots of people and it's going to be loud."

The national speed-skating team will conduct trials from Tuesday to Thursday at the Coliseum to determine the makeup of the national team for next month's World Cup event. Six men and six women will be selected to the team.

National team program director Yves Hamelin said the sport has raised its profile in the last few Olympics and he expects attendance to be high in a Canadian city.

"We usually have good attendance in Canada with a lot of energy from the crowd," said Hamelin. "People will love it. When you see it on TV it's one thing, but when you're on-site it's completely different. We're hoping for between 3,000 and 4,000 people."

The ice is set at Pacific Coliseum

Ron Judd - Seattle Times - September 12th 2008
Looking for a pre-Games Winter Olympic fix? Tickets for the World Cup short-track speedskating event at Pacific Coliseum, Oct. 24-26, go on sale Saturday. Coliseum operators showed off the building's renovations -- chiefly, the changing of the ice sheet from NHL sized to international-sized, Thursday, saying the building's $20 million makeover will be complete well in advance of the October event, exptected to draw skaters from 25 nations.

We're still awaiting word on which U.S. skaters, such as Seattle's Apolo Ohno, might be competing. But it's likely much or most of the team will be there. The event is a week after the World Cup's first race, in Kearns, Utah.

The Pacific Coliseum ice, meanwhile, was declared fit by Canadian short track star Francois-Louis Tremblay of Montreal, who told the Vancouver Province that the surface, slow in a training camp in July, feels good now. (...)

Canadian skating officials say tickets for the short-track World Cup go on sale Saturday through www.ticketmaster.ca. (The Ticketmaster web site says they begin selling Oct. 13, but that would seem to be cutting it fairly close.) See the event web site here.

Skater already has a Vancouver plan

Des nouvelles de Ryan -

Bay City Times - Sunday, September 07, 2008

For years, Ryan Bedford has had his eyes on being a member of the U.S. Olympic Short Track men's speedskating team.

But now that the 21-year-old Midland skater has successfully dabbled in Long Track, his focus is on making both squads.[...]

''This summer I took the opportunity to change up my routine and give long track a shot,'' said Bedford. ''I am back and forth training with both teams.

''I plan on keeping my main focus on Short Track for the time being, but depending on how well Long Track goes, I just might focus more on that.'' [...]

'I'd heard from people that I would be good at long track over short track because of how tall I am and my endurance strength,'' said Bedford, who is ranked 10th in the World Short Track 1,500 meters. ''I started out wearing my short track skates.

Although switching blades of glory (from racing against other competitors in circles around a short track to racing on long track against the clock) is a difficult balance because there's not enough time to train for both speedskating sports, Bedford said he's got that 'feeling' that he can do it.

''I can switch back and forth from long track to short track with very little loss of 'feeling.' Some people have a hard time making the switch,'' he said.

Chinese short-track team in Kamloops

Percy Hébert - The Omega - Sep 03

The arena at McArthur Island Park was quiet except for the familiar sound that skate blades make with every stride. In the stands, a handful of spectators watched as coach Lin Yee put the Chinese short-track speed-skating team through its paces.

[hi!hi! voyez-vous ce skin ... du Canada!!]

“The training facilities we use in Beijing were used for volleyball during the Olympics,” explained Shang Lixin, team doctor. [...] The team of 10 men and 10 women has been training in Kamloops since mid-July in preparation for the upcoming World Cup Championships held in Vancouver Oct. 24 to 26.

Les meilleurs juniors à Chicoutimi

Johanne St-Pierre - Le Progrès-Dimanche -
CHICOUTIMI - Les meilleurs patineurs juniors du pays se donnent rendez-vous au Centre Georges-Vézina, les 20 et 21 décembre, à l’occasion des essais nationaux de patinage de vitesse courte piste. [...]
Favoris
Parmi les favoris, on devrait normalement retrouver la Félicinoise Marianne Saint-Gelais, qui avait gagné la médaille de bronze au 500 m en janvier dernier, ainsi que la Baieriveraine Valérie Maltais, qui compte déjà deux par ticipations à ces mondiaux juniors (2006 et 2007) et Guillaume Blais-Dufour, fils du Baieriverain Gilles Dufour et double médaille des mondiaux junior 2008. À moins bien sûr qu’ils ne participent à d’autres compétitions au sein de l’équipe nationale. La Dolmissoise Laurie Marceau sera également à surveiller.

La Félicinoise Marianne Saint-Gelais devrait être au rendezvous,pour la sélection nationale junior de patinage de vitesse qui se tiendra au Centre Georges Vézina en décembre, dans le but de retourner au Championnat du monde junior qui, cette fois-ci,sera couru en sol québécois.

On thin ice

Selena Hinds - Winnipeg Free Press - Auguste 31th 2008
It'll be no walk in the park for Canada to 'own the podium' in Vancouver
This story is an extract from Selena Hinds' thesis toward her Masters degree in journalism from Carleton University. DR. Peter Davis has advised Olympic organizations in more than 20 countries and has a reputation for delivering results. He overhauled the system in his homeland, Australia, and watched his countrymen dominate the Games in Sydney in 2000. Now he's been hired to do for Canada, at Vancouver in 2010, what he did for Australia. And he is not sure he'll succeed. [...]

"Things are getting better every day, but whether they'll get better in time for 2010 Olympics, I struggle to see that. We'll certainly do better, but whether we'll hit the target? I don't know."

[...] The Canadian Olympic Committee put together a group of international sport experts led by Cathy Priestner Allinger, 1976 Olympic speed skating silver medallist turned sport administrator. Eight months later, it produced Own The Podium. Dr. Roger Jackson, a three-time Canadian Olympian, became CEO and lured Davis from Australia to drive the sport science, medicine and technology arm. [...]

The centre of Canada's efforts is Canada Olympic Park in northwest Calgary, where Jackson works. He's employed a team of enthusiastic high- performance advisers to keep watch over all the sports. Daniel Lefebvre, for example, left his coaching job at Biathlon Canada to manage OTP's relationships with alpine and freestyle skiing, short and long track speed skating, and hockey.
[...] As an outsider looking in, Lefebvre says he is able to see where sports require improvement and offers solutions. He is at the heart of a new sport culture that's pushing sport organizations, coaches and athletes to produce better results.
"I say let's not look at what you're doing good, let's look at what you can do better," Lefebvre said. "Speed skating's shooting for 15 medals. Great! How do we get to 20?"

[...] But beneath the fanfare, there are rumblings of concern and discontent. Critics say there are flaws in OTP's design and its execution has been far from problem free. [...]
Dr. Cal Botterill, one of Canada's top sports psychologists

"For me, the first mistake OTP made was making the projections unilaterally, without the input from athletes. If you run a company, if you're smart, you do your goal setting with your employees," Botterill said. "You don't come in here and say, here's what we're going to do - do this, do that. I think the athletes would have set pretty ambitious goals."

[...] Botterill also thinks OTP has too many athletes listed as medal prospects. He warns there are real risks to dubbing athletes medal contenders before they are ready. As soon as success becomes "have to", rather than "want to", athletes are prone to fear failure.

"When you put people up as favourites before they are ready, it's often problematic because they haven't learned to be favourites. Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods, have learned to be a favourites," Botterill said. "If we put all of our young amateur athletes in the same circumstances without the experience of being a favourite and learning to do that, we're doing a disservice to them."

---

In its early days, Own the Podium staff estimated Canada would need to win 35 medals to become the top medal winning country in Vancouver. In 2007, the Canadian Olympic Committee backed off on the target, suggesting the goal was simply to finish first in overall medal count, not to achieve a specific medal count. But the initial breakdown is indicative of where expectations lie:
Predicted medals
Tier One "must win"
Long track speed skating 8
Short track speed skating 7
Ice hockey 2
Curling 2
Figure skating 3
Tier Two "high priority"
Alpine skiing 3
Freestyle skiing 3
Snowboarding 2
Cross-country skiing 1
Tier Three "targeted athletes"
Biathlon 1
Bobsleigh 1
Skeleton 1
Luge 1
Ski jumping 0
Nordic combined 0
TOTAL 35
Source: Own the Podium 2010 -- Final Report. Sept. 2004

What's a Canadian Olympian Worth?

JAMES DEACON, AOL Sports - August 28th 2008

You can go and vote :
Do you think Canada's athletes should receive more funding?
How would you rate Canada's performance at the Olympics?


What value should Canadians place on the women and men who wear the country’s colours in Beijing? There’s no easy answer. Some people claim too much is spent on elite athletes who compete at major international competitions for Canada.




[...] We set aside our differences and cheered Henderson’s goal in 1972, Gretzky’s drop pass and Lemieux’s wrister in 1991, Bailey’s 100 metres and the relay team in 1996, and Catriona Le May Doan’s Games-changing 500-m gold medal in 2002, which then was soon buried under the ecstasy of the men’s gold-medal hockey game at Salt Lake City.

[...] There are stories like that at every Games.

And here’s another: At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, the final event in which Canada had an entrant was the men’s short-track speed-skating relay. Short-track is more popular in Quebec than in the rest of Canada, and its four members reflected that — the team was composed of three Quebeckers (Éric Bédard, Marc Gagnon, François Drolet) and an Ontarian (Derrick Campbell).
The Canadians were underdogs and therefore surprise finalists, but it’s impossible to handicap a sport that can play out like a demolition derby. And sure enough, the Canadians — led by the fierce veteran Marc Gagnon — captured a thrilling gold.
Since it was the last event on Canada’s agenda, many of the skaters Olympic teammates from other sports had the night off and were there to watch. There were skiers, sledders and even a few millionaire hockey players, and they all went completely nuts when the race was won, joyfully lavishing cheers and hugs on the unlikely champions. You should have seen it. The skaters were so happy, and wrapped themselves in one huge Canadian flag for their lap of honour around the track. It didn’t matter at that moment that, back home, their province and country were going through a particularly dicey, pre-referendum time. It didn’t matter that three of the guys were from parts of Quebec that, in the eventual referendum, heavily supported separation.

It wasn’t important. What mattered, and what was shown on TV sets a world away, was that four scrappy, underdog speed-skaters had just won a completely unexpected gold medal for Canada. They were happy, and so were the folks back home. It was a feel-good moment of Olympic proportions. Millions get spent every year on programs designed to help keep the country whole. But none of those programs compare to the spontaneous joy and nation-building impact of the short-trackers late that Saturday night in Nagano.

So what’s an Olympian worth? In Canada, quite a lot.

With Beijing in the rear-view mirror, here are athletes to watch for 2010, 2012

Amy Rosewater - ESPN - August 31 2008
[...] In 536 days, on Feb. 12, 2010, the Winter Olympics begin in Vancouver. [...]

The host countries usually make an extra push for the medal podium, and Canada and Great Britain are no exceptions to this rule. Canada ranked third overall with 24 medals in 2006 (seven gold, 10 silver, seven bronze), an improvement from 17 in 2002. Back in 1988, when Canada previously played host to the Winter Games in Calgary, the home country didn't bring home any gold (two silvers and three bronze). [...]
Although predicting Olympic futures is hardly an exact science -- wasn't Tyson Gay supposed to be a headliner in Beijing? And wasn't Bode Miller predicted to be the king of Torino? -- we've tried to compile a list of athletes who should figure prominently in the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver ...

2010 Vancouver Games
Apolo Anton Ohno: When he's not dancing with the stars, he's quite a short-track speedskater. Ohno, who has won five Olympic medals (two gold) in two trips to the Winter Olympics, could be back on the medal stand in 2010.
Shani Davis: Competing in Canada shouldn't be too problematic for U.S. speed skater Shani Davis considering he's trained in Calgary since 2002. The gold and silver medalist at the 2006 Olympics, Davis could find himself a champion again in Vancouver. For his sake, however, he hopes that controversy won't find him there. In 2002, there was talk that Ohno threw a race to help Davis make the Olympic team. And in 2006, Davis was criticized roundly for not participating in the team pursuit, an event he hadn't planned on entering, but one many thought the United States could win with him in the lineup.
Cindy Klassen: Klassen always dreamed about competing in the Olympics, but she thought that dream would be in ice hockey. When she didn't make Canada's team in 1998, so she decided to switch to speedskating. It proved to be a wise choice. Four years later, in Salt Lake City, she won a bronze medal. In Torino, she became Canada's most decorated Olympian, winning five medals (one gold). Now, she could win even more.

More -
Spreading our wings - Cam Cole - Vancouver Sun August 27th 2008
Memories of a gold drought in Calgary will be banished by our expanding skill set
Excitement for 2010 Olympics builds on both sides of border - Herald Net - August 27th 2008
With the close of the Beijing Games on Sunday, attention is now turning to the Eastern edge of the Pacific Rim, to ­Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., where the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in just 18 months.

Une période importante attend Laurie Marceau

MÉLANIE CÔTÉ - Le Quotidien - 28 août 2008
CHICOUTIMI - Les prochaines semaines seront très importantes pour la patineuse de vitesse Laurie Marceau. Elle devra consacrer plusieurs heures à son entraînement puisqu’elle prendra part aux essais nationaux prévus du 16 au 18 septembre prochain, à Vancouver, en Colombie-Britannique. [...]
«Je suis très contente de me retrouver avec l’équipe de développement. C’est une belle surprise. Pour les essais nationaux, je n’ai pas vraiment d’attente. Je vais donner le meilleur de moi-même sans trop me stresser. Je vais essayer de bien performer et surtout d’acquérir beaucoup d’expérience», mentionne la patineuse native de Dolbeau-Mistassini qui habite aujourd’hui à La Baie. [...]
«Cette année, nous visons surtout les championnats juniors mondiaux qui auront lieu du 9 au 11 janvier, à Sherbrooke. C’est un objectif réaliste que nous avons fixé. Laurie a beaucoup de potentiel, nous voulons qu’elle y aille étape par étape», mentionne Christian Simard.

Le Quotidien, Rocket Lavoie
Plusieurs régionaux

Les équipes nationales et de développement de patinage de vitesse courte piste regorgent de patineurs du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. La Félicinoise Marianne Saint-Gelais fait partie de l’équipe nationale féminine, tandis que Charles et François Hamelin (petits-fils de Gilbert Goulet, préfet de la MRC Maria-Chapdelaine) et François-Louis Tremblay (natif d’Alma) sont membres de l’équipe masculine. En plus de Laurie Marceau, Valérie Maltais (La Baie) fait partie de l’équipe de développement féminine. Rémi Beaulieu (natif d’Alma) et Guillaume Blais-Dufour (son père est originaire de La Baie) sont avec l’équipe masculine.«C’est exceptionnel pour la région d’avoir produit de tels patineurs. Le Centre d’excellence Marc Gagnon constitue un apport important pour le développement des patineurs», conclut Christian Simard.