Olympic Hearts: 2015

Saturday, December 5, 2015

My Pan Am Coverage Rant

I often have rants, but don't like to share them. My blog is called Olympic Hearts because I want to share what I love, but there are times when I get upset and need to rant.

I haven't blogged much in the past few months. I am trying to catch up on posts I started and posts I meant to write. Looking at my drafts, I found this post that I wrote on the first weekend of the Pan Am Games.

I understand why I didn't post it at the time. There was so much criticism of the Pan Am Games that I didn't want to add to it, but as the Games continued, the love of the Games really shone through which I was really happy about.

So now that the haters have hopefully left the building so to speak and the only people who would be reading this are the supporters, here's how I was feeling as the Pan Am Games began. An update also follows.

*******
written on Sunday July 12th

Have you been watching the Pan Am Games?

I am arguably one of the biggest fans of the Pan Am Games. I am so excited that they are in my city and that I get to see the Games in person. I would go every day if I could afford it, but I thought at least if I can't be there, I will watch it on television or on livestream.

The Pan Am Games is the "biggest multi-sport event" Canada has ever hosted so the coverage will match its size right?

Well, we're on Day 2 of competition and I have to admit that sometimes it's better to not expect too much. My expectations were very high for the Pan Am Games, and I have to admit that my expectations are not being met.

I had a list of things I wanted to see. Sometimes it fit my schedule or my budget to get a ticket, other times it didn't.

The problem presented itself quite quickly in the first competition of the Games. I wanted to go to the women's triathlon, but going to the Opening Ceremony the night before, I chose to get a ticket to the men's triathlon first and waited for the women's which sold out before I made a decision.

I was SO happy for the athletes that the event was sold out and thought, that's okay, I'll watch it from home.

What do you mean it's not livestreamed? Isn't there 750 hours of coverage? That sounds like a lot, but maybe it's not?

I wanted to see the rugby and was shocked to read this tweet.

You can read the article here.

Over the past few years, rugby is often livestreamed but this event had more meaning to me so I thought I would be even more interested in watching our women and men's teams. Luckily since this article, the decision has been made to add rugby to the livestream (or announce it if that was always the plan) so rugby fans are lucky but that's not the case for other sports.

I would love to see our rowing and canoe/kayak teams. I hesitated to get tickets because of the early starts (9am/10am) and locations (90-120 minutes from my home without traffic) worrying about traffic during the Games.

Familiar words - "no problem". I'll go see these events when the new venues host Canadian Championships or World Cups in the future (I had already seen canoe/kayak sprint competitions in Welland). I'll watch the Pan Am Games at home.

What do you mean I can't watch them from home?

Our women K-4 won the Games' first gold medal and all I saw was the last 10 seconds of their race. Will it be the same when our TORONTO 2015 flag bearer Mark Oldershaw races? Or our Olympic flag bearer and Olympic multi-medallist Adam van Koeverden?

I'll give the TORONTO 2015 and CBC the benefit of the doubt and hope they will have cameras for the last two days of canoe/kayak. There was only one final on the first day when we won our first gold medal.

I wanted to see as much as possible of the competitions. Saturday, I had plans to watch the livestream starting at 11am then switch to television at 1pm.

There were 20 sports in action on Saturday. I watched the synchronized duets on livestream and had hoped to see some of the other 20 sports on the television coverage. Imagine my disappointment when the television coverage replayed what had been livestreamed. First the diving preliminaries from the previous day (why? they would show the final that evening) and then the synchronized duet.

The women's K4 race lasted 1minute 36 seconds, yet they didn't show the full race.

I wasn't deterred, I went back to the livestream at 2:30pm for the men's gymnastics and the synchronized swimming team free routine and at 6pm for the diving finals. At 7pm, it's time for the prime time show and you guessed it. They're showing what I watched on the livestream.

They showed the end of Tory Nyhaug's BMX winning race (which wasn't livestreamed). I have seen the full race on another channel, so it's not because it wasn't televised.

I understand that there won't be much coverage of a shooting medal. There isn't during the Olympics but I believed that there would be coverage for the major Olympic sports (kayak, rowing, triathlon) and that they have coverage of the medal performances.

I was wrong.

I'm seeing more coverage on CBC Newsworld than the CBC Pan Am coverage. I had CBC Newsworld on TV in the background while I watched the livestream. They would switch to events as medals were won.

Scott Russell is a champion of amateur sports. He loves our athletes. How does he feel about the coverage that we are giving to our athletes, their families and their fans? He just said (on CBC Newsworld), tonight we'll see roller speed skating...but will we? or does he mean the people at the venue will see?

Sunday we won 16 medals. There was 2.5 hours of coverage on CBC. Here's what they showed:

60 minutes diving preliminaries (to determine order for evening final)
80 minutes artistic gymnastics (no Canada - they were in the group that would perform in the evening)
4 minutes triathlon (two 2 minute segments - basically same coverage)
2 minutes mountain bike (two 1 minute segments - last 4 seconds of the race where Canada won gold and silver - no mountain or trees shown in the coverage)
2 minutes rugby (two 1 minute segments)
3 minutes basketball interview
less than 1 minute - kayak

Why show diving preliminaries and non-Canada gymnastics for over two hours when the coverage is only two and a half hours? Why not show a variety of sports and get people excited to go see them? There are so many sports that I haven't seen any coverage of.

If I had been in charge of the Pan Am Games coverage, you would have seen coverage of all the sports, especially the ones we medalled in. You wouldn't have seen hours of preliminaries of what CBC decided were "popular" sports. I was going to add that I would have gotten a lot of complaints if I had shown archery or badminton (that aren't as popular) but I can't imagine that the viewers were that thrilled to be watching Diving Preliminaries or Artistic Gymnastics where Canada wasn't participating.

******end of July rant

I now have to add that the coverage did improve which is possibly another reason that I didn't post this rant.

Now that a few months have passed, I have to admit that there were only so many hours in the day. I was recording hours upon hours of coverage that I didn't have time to watch with the livestream I was watching and events I was attending. My PVR was at capacity.

I made the mistake of not recording events I was interested in because the livestream events were also available on demand. I didn't expect them to disappear from the website as early as they did.

In the end, I think I learned this summer that my interest for Olympic and Pan Am sports exceeds the number of hours that I can devote to them. Livestream takes a lot longer to watch than highlight shows like CBC Sports Weekend (now called Road to the Olympic Games). Growing up, I could have watch CBC on Saturday afternoon and in a few hours gotten the content of a dozen hours of livestream. The only difference was that when I was growing up, we didn't have the internet to tell us the results so it was like watching it live.

This afternoon I watched CBC Road to the Olympic Games and luckily had the remote handy to fast forward (and close my eyes) when they started talking about the men's Super-G that was going to be shown a couple of hours later on Sportsnet 360. I understand that they want to cover all the sports highlights of the day but to spoil the result of a program that will be televised?

I have to admit that this is one of the things I love about my website. No I don't have live coverage, but I do acknowledge coverage from various sources.

Athlete Fundraisers: Ben Hayward aka VanStarter

I wish I could financially support all athletes who need it but I can't. One way I can help is to share their campaigns on the OHCanada Sports website. You can check out the various campaigns I have come across here: www.ohcanadasports.ca/supportathletes. Feel free to email/tweet to me those I have missed.

I couldn't resist Ben Hayward's vanstarter.com campaign though. How resourceful of him to build a "hobbit van" in order to better control his travel costs and use the skills he was learning while studying architecture at university. My only regret is that I didn't donate the first time I saw it, but I've been following his story since.

His words are much better than mine, so watch this original video when Ben started VanStarter over a year ago with the original dream explaining the reasons for building the hobbit van and how he did it (with the help of a friend).

Some items on the original list mentioned in this video may no longer be available. Initially I was drawn to the names on the maple leaf. I love the maple leaf, from our flag to our fall colours. The number on my house has a maple leaf design with it, so I would have loved to have my name added to the maple leaf.

Here's a recent video of the ongoing project showing the original names on the maple leafs (you can't actually read them on the video, but I have seen photos of the names, I imagine on Ben's Facebook page - hence my regret at not being on there).

To be honest, I didn't know if there would even be space left on the maple leaf for names, t-shirts or recipe books left when I donated recently, but my decision to support VanStarter was more to help him than to get something back. At first I thought of emailing him to ask, but then realized, it didn't matter. I wanted to help and as long as the funds reached him, that's all I cared about.

When I received the beaver/paddle t-shirt that he designed, I was thrilled and especially surprised with the creative label (though I guess if someone knows Ben, they wouldn't be surprised). He seems like a person who pays attention to detail which will serve him well in his training as well as in architecture career that will follow.

Have you seen anything like it? I haven't.

If his creativity and hard work isn't reason enough to support Ben, how about adding a little humour (coupled with advertising for one of his sponsors)? Thanks to Ben's mum for sharing some videos in our communications when she was mailing the t-shirt to me.

Having a brother-in-law who is a talented carpenter (click here for his website), I especially love the following video showing how Ben built the side window to the van.

Click here for the video. Here's the intro to the video:

"The space in my van was badly in need of some natural light so in the last week of April 2015, I decided to take on the project of installing a new side window. I designed and built every component in the window, trying to make it as interesting and intricate as possible. The window is made up of a complicated pattern of openings that is designed to be both beautiful but also to serve as heat deflection and as a visual screen to give me privacy indoors. Thanks so much to Edern, Carole, Yann, Ken, Bastien, Thibaud, and Marion for letting me decimate your basement for the duration of this project."

I wish I had thousands of dollars to donate to his campaign, maybe some day, OHCanada Sports will have the ability and finances to sponsor him (at least in my dreams it does) but for now, my next bucket list item is to see him compete and even more difficult or geographically challenging, to see the hobbit van in person.

I wish I had seen him at the Pan Am Games. There are various reasons why one of the dozen events I attended wasn't canoe kayak slalom, some of which were location, schedule and ticket availability. I will follow up this topic on a different post that I should have written months ago. For now let me say that if I was to do it again my ticket purchases would be different (and even more numerous), but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

[As I am writing those posts that I said should have been written long ago, I am looking at my photos and remembering that I did see Ben at the Pan Am Games, just not when he was competing. I was very happy to see the Canoe Kayak Slalom team at the medal ceremony at Nathan Phillips Square]

So GO Ben GO. Look forward to following your Road To Rio!!

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Short Track Speed Skating in Toronto

For the first time, Toronto was host to a World Cup Speed Skating event at the Mastercard Centre in Etobicoke. I attended the Friday heats session and the Saturday session with the 500m/1500m finals as well as the semi-finals of the relays. I had a ticket for Sunday as well, but my daughter was in a soccer tournament with two games on Sunday so I chose to see her team win the tournament rather than seeing Canada's best short track speed skaters.

The highlights of the World Cup for me included seeing Vancouver 2010 medallists and sweethearts Marianne St-Gelais and Charles Hamelin.

Marianne wins the bronze medal in the 1500m
Photo credit: Phil Sewell

Photo credit: Phil Sewell

Another highlight was seeing the excitement of winning a World Cup medal at home.

Samuel Girard is thrilled to win his first World Cup gold medal.
Sasha Fathoullin is happy to join him on the podium with the silver in the 500m
Photo credit: Phil Sewell

François Hamelin celebrates a bronze medal in the 1500m
Photo credit: Phil Sewell

It was great to see the athletes receiving their medals (no national anthems though).

Photo credit: Phil Sewell

Another highlight for me was seeing the relays in person. It is even more chaotic than it seems on television. When watching it in person, you really get to see all the athletes - not only the ones that the cameras are focused on. You also get to see how hard the volunteers work to get the black markers back in their places when they are knocked off their spots while trying to avoid the racers. If I thought it was a tough job during single racing, it was four times more difficult with four times the athletes on the track at one time.

Photo credit: Phil Sewell

The event was almost sold out on Saturday and Sunday when the athletes would be racing for medals. It was not on Friday for the heats, but there was a school who brought a large group of students in matching World Cup toques to see this sport in person. That's a field trip I would have loved as a child. They had hand made signs and enjoyed cheering the athletes. It definitely added some excitement to the heats day.

Photo credit: Suzanne Sewell

We were reminded that short track speed skating is a dangerous sport when Kim Hanwool of Korea fell and got seriously injured as he slid into the boards with Great Britain's Paul Stanley.

Photo credit: Suzanne Sewell

With space in the stands, I took the chance to see the racing from another view point near the finish line which doubled for the start line for the 1000m races. No opportunity to do that on the Saturday when the stands were almost full.

Valerie Maltais - ready to go
Photo credit: Suzanne Sewell

Photo credit: Suzanne Sewell

I did prefer the view from the end of the track where we had a great view of the athletes coming around the bend.

Photo credit: Suzanne Sewell

Hopefully the event will be held again in Toronto. I would definitely return to see the world's best speed skaters in action. Seeing it live gives you such a greater appreciation for the sport and the speed at which the skaters go around the track.

Friday, October 23, 2015

It's not about OHCanada Sports but about the athletes

I recently had an a-ha moment with regards to my website OHCanada Sports.

I love OHCanada Sports, every time I see an amazing article and post it, I'm so happy with the content.

I didn't feel comfortable that I was sharing amazing articles on OHCanada Sports. They weren't my articles. I was mostly an aggregator website and although I credited the original source of the articles, I didn't feel that it was right for me to direct someone to the specific articles on my website.

This is when my a-ha moment arrived. Why did I found OHCanada Sports? Was it so I could get multiple clicks on my website? Was it for the number of views it would get?

No, it was to share the athletes' stories and articles written about them.

I want the athletes to be supported. I want the media's articles on Olympic sports and the sports organizations to be supported. How can I best help that? The answer is by linking the articles directly to the source instead of reproducing them on OHCanada Sports.

I don't care about clicks and views but the athletes, sports organizations and media maybe do. Let them get the views for their work.

Why hadn't I thought of this sooner?

Most website owners will tell you that views and traffic are the most important thing, that's how many of them get paid. The fact is that I'm not your typical website owner. I'm not doing this for me to be recognized with website traffic. I'm doing this so that athletes are recognized and so that events where they're competing at are watched.

So this morning, I revamped OHCanada Sports.

The first section highlights "Must See Upcoming Events" that will feature where we can see Canada's athletes compete whether in person or on television. Those thumbnails don't link directly to the source, because often times, there are multiple sources for information so I will summarize the information like television listings, ticket information and schedule as well as link to original sources.

I also decided that rather than try to include all events in a calendar like I used to, I would focus on events held in Canada, World Championships, World Cups and events that are televised or livestreamed. There will be less content but higher quality content.

The second section offer thumbnails to original OHCanada Sports content and specific topics.

The third section is now simplified with all articles together in a "Most Recent Articles" section. The articles can also be viewed by category like it used to be (athlete posts, media articles, sports organizations) in the navigation bar but by visiting OHCanada Sports' homepage, you immediately see if there are new articles no matter what category they fall in.

As the changes are complete, I see that CBC Sports have revamped their website today as well. You can read their launch article here. Coincidence?

How exciting to see them have an even greater focus on Olympic Sports with their new Road To The Olympics website and weekly television program (previously named CBC Sports Weekend).

With the announcement that CBC/Radio-Canada will have the broadcast rights for the Olympics up to 2024, plus be broadcast partners for the IOC's new global digital Olympic Channel, coverage for our Olympic athletes will be greater than ever in the years to come.

This is adding excitement for me to continue the work I am doing with OHCanada Sports. I love that I share from various websites and sources. The Heartbeat includes television listings from all channels and various livestreams.

I will continue to share my favourite articles from various sites like the Canadian Olympic Committee, CBC, sports organizations, newspapers, other media and most importantly, the athletes.

Because in the end, it's all about the athletes.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Win Canada Win!

[This article was originally written in September. October edits are italicized.]

Recently I have been remembering a blog post I wrote back in 2009 entitled "Lose Canada Lose". You can read the post here.

At the time, the media was being especially harsh on our athletes who were not performing up to par at World Championship competitions.

At the time, I thought no problem. Here's what I wrote:

For me, I remember too many teams and athletes arriving at the Olympics as World Champions only to lose at the Olympics. Brian Orser won the Worlds in 1987...and won silver at the Olympics in 1988. Kurt Browning won the Worlds in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993 but did not medal at two Olympic Games in 1992 and 1994 while defending champion. Elvis Stojko won the Worlds in 1997 and did not win the Olympics in 1998. Adam van Koeverden although well decorated, inexplicably faded in the 1000m in 2008. Perdita Felicien hit the first hurdle and fell in 2004. Jeremy Wotherspoon fell at the start of his race in 2002.

"Earlier in the winter, it seemed like our athletes could do no wrong. The "Own the Podium" funding seemed to have given us many great results (exceeding our expectations) going into the Olympics, but secretly I was worried about the expectations on our athletes would be too much for them."

Looking back at these memories, I wasn't following athletes year round like I am now. I didn't see athletes winning World Cups and then not winning at the World Championships. All I was seeing, which was what mainstream media was showing me were athletes who were World Champions not winning at the Olympics.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Watching World Championships, World Cups and even National Championships nowadays (televised or more often livestreamed), I appreciate those World Championships a lot more than I did then.

How many people can win a World Championship who doesn't and then also don't win the Olympics? Wouldn't they love to be known at least as World Champion?

I was SO excited to see Derek Drouin and Shawn Barber win the World Championships in high jump and pole vault. No Canadian had achieved those feats. In my mind at the time, Olympic glory is not guaranteed so how cool is it that they are World Champions?

The other side of the coin are World Championships recently where Olympic qualifying was on the line. A top 6 or 8 at the Canoe Kayak Worlds guaranteed the country a spot in Rio 2016. Canada qualified one spot in the K1 200m with Mark De Jonge winning gold at the World Championships. Mark Oldershaw inexplicably (sorry haven't seen media article to explain it) wasn't in the top 6 to qualify a spot. I imagine he was ill. There is no way that was a regular race for him.

[edit: this article explains Mark's performance at Worlds which was a few weeks after his baby was born 3 months premature]

Adam van Koeverden didn't race the 1000m. Again, regular media/Canoe Kayak Canada (in my opinion) should be explaining his absence and whether missing this early Olympic qualifying is normal.

Another example is the rowing qualifying. Many of our teams qualified (4 women and 2 men), but there were some disappointments and I'm hoping those Olympic spots are earned in 2016.

The media and Basketball Canada were very hopeful for Canada's basketball team making it to the Rio Olympics. Two teams would qualify at the Olympic qualifying tournament. They looked poised to get one spot going into the semi final against a team they had beaten by 20 points the previous week but the team did not play the way they did in previous games. They will get one more chance in July to qualify but this tournament had been their best chance.

With all these disappointments recently, I remembered my previous post and felt the need to amend or at least better explain. Lose Canada Lose was only meant for athletes and teams who would not live up to expectations once they arrived at the Olympics. It wasn't meant to prevent athletes from actually qualifying for the Olympics.

Win Canada Win!

Monday, July 27, 2015

Closing Ceremony in Photos

Arriving at the Closing Ceremony was a bit emotional, realizing this would be the last time I would see the cauldron lit.

Showing the outside cauldron on the screen and then the flame is extinguished.

But the party continues.

Pitbull

Many of you qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games here in Toronto.

"You can imagine and dream of one day hosting the Olympic Games"

Hamilton Children's Choir perform

Transfer of the flag to the next host nation Peru

Serena Ryder

Kanye West

Crowds enter the reflecting pool after watching the closing ceremony at City Hall.

Track and Field at the Pan Am Games

The Track and Field competition was very exciting on the two evenings I attended. I was lucky to see some of Canada's top athletics competitors including past and future Olympians.

My seat wasn't ideal for the medal ceremonies, finish line or some field events but was perfect for the second turn of track events, high jump and start of victory laps.