Heartbeat Highlights

Here are some of the Canadian highlights from the past week in sports:

New Canadian High Jump Record

Olympic bronze medallist, Derek Drouin broke the Canadian record in the high jump at the Prefontaine Classic. It's a shame that Canadian broadcasters weren't covering the Diamond League meet this past weekend. Although NBC showed a few of the jumpers, they didn't show Drouin's bronze medal performance (or I missed it).

Here's the video of his record-breaking jump:



Click here for his post event interview.

Sheila Reid posted a personal best time of 4:02.96 while coming in 6th in the 1500m final and reaching the A standard. It's her first time running faster than 4:07. Click here for the race video and here for an informative and entertaining post race interview.

In the 800m National final, Melissa Bishop finished 2nd reaching the B standard. Click here for the race video and here for the post-race interview.

CanoeKayak World Cup #3

The Canadian CanoeKayak team won thirteen medals this past weekend. It was wonderful to see the coverage on Sportsnet and see (in HD) our athletes who are on the road to Rio race against some of the best in the world.

You can watch the A Finals by clicking here, then choosing the individual races (or just let the videos play back to back). Unfortunately, women's canoe and 5000m races are not televised.

Gold:

• Ben Russell and Gabriel Beauchesne-Sévigny - Men's C2 1000m (race video)
• Mark de Jonge - Men's K1 200m (race video)
• Laurence Vincent-Lapointe - Women's C1 200m
• Laurence Vincent-Lapointe and Sara-Jane Caumartin - Women's C2 500m
• Gabriel Beauchesne-Sévigny - Men's C1 5000m

Silver:

• Geneviève Beauchesne-Sévigny and KC Fraser - K2 500m (race video)
• Adam van Koeverden and Brady Reardon - K2 1000m (race video)
• Gabriel Beauchesne-Sévigny and Pierre-Luc Laliberte - Men's C2 200m (race video)
• Émilie Fournel - Women's K1 5000m

Bronze:

• Étienne Beauchesne, Marshall Hughes, Philippe Duchesneau and Sam Roworth - Men's K4 1000m
• Adam van Koeverden & Brady Reardon - Men's K2 500m
• Geneviève Beauchesne-Sévigny, KC Fraser, Una Lounder and Émilie Fournel - Women's K4 500 (race video)
• Geneviève Beauchesne-Sévigny and KC Fraser - Women's K2 200m (race video)

The Canadian K2 200m teams shook things up this past weekend.

At the World Cup #2, London 2012 team Ryan Cochrane and Hugues Fournel came in 7th in the K2-200m, one and a half seconds back from the winners from Russia. Etienne Morneau and Richard Dober Jr. were 3rd in the B Final.

This weekend, Cochrane teamed up with Morneau and Fournel teamed up with Dober Jr. Both teams made the A Final this time with Cochrane and Morneau winning their heat to go straight to the final. Fournel and Dober were second in their heat to the Russians then second to the Argentinians in the semi-final.

In the final it was the team of Fournel and Dober who would be the top Canadian team finishing 4th just over one second behind the powerful Russian team in a very close finish for 3rd with 0.2 seconds separating 3rd from 6th. Cochrane and Morneau could not duplicate their heat performance finishing 9th in the final.

Full Canadian results can be found here for Day1 and here for Day 2. The Canadian team are now coming back to Canada in preparation for Team Trials #2 being held in Welland on June 21-23.

Swimming U.S. Grand Prix

It was great to see our Canadian swimmers performing well at the U.S. Grand Prix in Santa Clara televised on Sportsnet on the weekend.

Top results included:

Gold:

• Audrey Lacroix - women's 200m butterfly
• Ryan Cochrane, Alec Page, Keegan Zanatta and Jeremy Bagshaw - men's 4x200m freestyle relay
• Katerine Savard - women's 100m butterfly

Silver:

• Alexa Komarnycky - women's 800m freestyle
• Alexa Komarnycky - women's 400m freestyle
• Hannah Riordan, Victoria Poon, Sandrine Mainville and Barbara Jardin - women's 4x100m freestyle
• Hassaan Abdel-Khalik, Blake Worsley, Frank Despond, Aly Abdel-Khalik - men's 4x200m freestyle relay

Bronze:

• Paige Schultz, Bridget Coley, Kennedy Goss and Heather Maitland women's 4x200m freestyle relay
• Hiilary Caldwell - women's 200m backstroke
• Ryan Cochrane - men's 400m freestyle
• Ryan Cochrane - men's 800m freestyle

Full results can be found here.

Heartbeat Highlights

Here are some highlights from the past week in Canadian sports.

The SportCafé website is a great place to see posts from athletes about their personal experiences. The Latest News section also have news from Canadian sports organizations.

This week's highlight posts include:

• Andréanne Pichette at the Canada Cup mountain cycling (in French) with photos and video link. Click here.
• Alexandra McGee securing her spot on the Slalom kayak national team. Click here.
• Rob Watson planning on running the Ottawa 10K and ending up winning the National Championship (Ottawa) Marathon. Click here.

Canoe Kayak Piešt’any International Regatta U23

Canada will be hosting the World Junior and U23 Championships in Welland August 1-4. Canada's junior and U23 team including SportCafé co-founder Antoine Meunier represented Canada at the Piešt’any International Regatta in Slovakia this past weekend.

Here is the video for the C1 U23 200m. Antoine is in lane 8 (second from the bottom) and Ben Tardioli is in lane 5.


The strong Canadian team collected 19 medals including wins in:
U23 Women's K2 500 - Andreanne Langlois and Lissa Bissonnette
U23 Men's C1 1000 - Marc Tarling
U23 Women's K2 1000 - Madeleine Schmidt and Andreanne Langlois
U23 K2 Women 200 - Andreanne Langlois and Lissa Bissonnette
U23 C2 Men 200 - Antoine Meunier and Ben Tardioli

Full Canadian results
Full race results
YouTube Videos

Gymnastics

The Canadian Gymnastics Championships were held in Ottawa. Performance videos are available to view on Gymnastics Canada YouTube channel by clicking here.

Men's Gymnastics Champions:
Senior Floor - Robert Watson
Senior High Bar - René Cournoyer
Senior Parallel Bars - Jayd Lukenchuk
Senior Pommel Horse - Anderson Loran
Senior Rings - Kevin Lytwyn
Senior Vault - Brandon O'Neill
Senior All Around - Hugh Smith

Women's Gymnastics Champions:
Senior Floor - Gabriella Douglas
Senior Uneven Bars - Kaitlyn Hofland
Senior Beam - Ellie Black
Senior Vault - Megan Chant
Senior All Around - Ellie Black (video beam)

Senior Trampoline Champions:
Jason Burnett (video)
Samantha Sendel (video)

Judo World Masters in Russia

Antoine Valois-Fortier was disappointed with his 5th place finish but he was rewarded with the Ippon of the day. Click here to see it. His bronze medal match is at the 4:40 mark of this video.

Kelita Zupancic won the silver medal in the 70kg category. You can see her final match at the 1:26:00 mark by clicking here.

CanoeKayak Slalom Canada National Team

Team trials were held this past weekend in Minden, Ontario. More info and results.

Senior Men's K1
Five-time Olympian David Ford (Elite, National)
Ben Hayward (Elite, National, C2 Elite)
John Hastings (Elite, National)

Senior Women's K1
Jessica Groeneveld (Elite, National)
Thea Froehlich (National)

Senior Men's C1
Cameron Smedley (Elite, National, U23, C2 Elite)

Senior Women's C1
Haley Daniels (Elite, National and U23)
Alexandra McGee (National and U23)

The full list can be found here.

Heartbeat Highlights

Here are some highlights from the past week in Canadian sports.

The SportCafé website is a great place to see posts from athletes about their personal experiences. The Latest News section also have news from Canadian sports organizations.

This week's highlight posts include:

• Lex Albrecht with a post that includes a behind-the-scenes video at the Chrono Gatineau this past weekend. Click here (will be added to SportCafé website shortly).
• Rachel Siemens competed at the Canadian Weightlifting Championships where she finished 3rd. I love her enthusiasm and insight in her post. She also shared great photos. Click here.
• Sport Climbing isn't in the Olympics yet, but it is in the running to be included in 2020. Sean McColl was 4th this past weekend at the Innsbruck World Cup. He wrote a great photo blog that gives us an appreciation for sport climbing. Click here. If you prefer to read the post from his World Cup victory the week before in Log-Dragomer, Slovenia, click here. If Sean's posts have piqued your curiosity, check out the IFSC Climbing channel with videos from the Innsbruck and Log-Dragomer World Cups. You can also see him compete at the World Cup being held in Hamilton on June 1st and 2nd. Click here for more detail.

Canoe-Kayak Sprint World Cup #2

Canada's Canoe/Kayak team competed in Racice, Czech Republic this past weekend.

If you missed Sportsnet telecast on the weekend, you can view race videos by clicking here.

You can view full race results here including A finals, B finals, semi-finals and heats.

Result highlights include three gold medals for Canada, although in non-Olympic events. Unfortunately these events were not televised on Sportsnet (and videos are not available on ICF's website).

Laurence Vincent-Lapointe won gold in the C1 200m and partnered with Sara-Jane Caumartin to win the C2 500m. You can view an interview with Laurence here. Last fall the International Canoe Federation decided to not include women's canoe at the 2016 Olympics however it will be at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.

Paul Bryant won gold in the C1 5000. He was 5th in the C1 500.

Other medallists included Genevieve Beauchesne-Sevigny and KC Fraser winning bronze in the K2 Women 500m (view race video here) and Gabriel Beauchesne-Sevigny and Roland Varga in C2 Men 500m (no race video).

Diving

Jennifer Abel and Pamela Ware won the silver in the 3m synchro event at a World Series event in Guadalajara, Mexico. Click here to watch the event video.

Jennifer Abel won the bronze in the 3m springboard event. Click here for the video.

In the 10m platform event, Roseline Filion won the bronze. Click here for the video.

Maxim Bouchard and Philippe Gagné were the silver medallists at a Grand Prix event in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the 10m platform event. Philippe Gagné also won the silver in the 10m platform event. At the same competition, Emma Friesen won the silver in the 3m springboard.

The Canadian diving team will be competing at the Summer Senior National Championships in Québec City this weekend to earn spots for the World Championships. The live feed will be available here starting Thursday.

Women's Sevens World Series

Rugby Sevens has been added for the 2016 Olympics.

Canada were finalists at the Cup Event held in Netherlands on the weekend.

Click here to watch video from the event.

They played the USA in the Quarter Finals (at the 1:15:15 mark on the video)

Canada met England in the semi-final (at the 4:16:30 mark)

The finals consisted of Canada and New Zealand. (at the 7:18:41 mark - although I wasn't able to get the video to work at this point. Hopefully it's an issue with my computer rather than with the video).

Here's a great article about Olympic champion Heather Moyse (bobsleigh) who played five of the six games at the event and is hoping to be chosen for the World Cup team.

Track and Field

Athletics Canada have posted Canadian results here.

Off the track, Olympian sprinters Nikkita Holder and Justyn Warner announced that they're expecting their first child on October 29th. You can read a great article about them here. Perfect timing to still be ready for Rio 2016.

Here's Justin's tweet from last week:

Justyn Warner ‏@justynwarner15 May

Look what I made #4months #October #JusKita http://instagram.com/p/ZVo4UHE8Qg/ 

Heartbeat Highlights - 11 Olympic Qualifications

The figure skating World Championships were held last week in London, Ontario. It was THE event to determine the number of athletes each country can send to next year's Olympic Games.

Canada earned 11 total entries (of a possible 12) for Sochi 2014. At the 2010 Olympics, we had 8. The actual athletes chosen will be announced next season.

Entries for 2014 Olympics are determined according to the results of the World Championships. An event with one participant at the Worlds would require that participant to finish in the top 2 in order to send three competitors to the Olympics. If that participant finished in the top 10, 2 competitors qualify for Sochi 2014.

For events where a country had two or three participants, the total placements of the top two skaters/teams is used. If they add up to less or equal to thirteen - the country qualifies three entries for 2014. If they add up to less or equal to 28, the country qualifies two entries.

Here are the results with video links to their performances. The CBC website also have full competition videos if you're interested in seeing everyone. Click any of the links below and choose from the various videos offered.

Men's event:
Patrick Chan: 1st Click here for short programme and here for long programme.
Kevin Reynolds: 5th Click link for short programme and long.

Total 6 = 3 entries
(Andrei Rogozine finished 13th).

Women's event:
Kaetlyn Osmond: 8th = 2 entries (4th in short)
Click link to view short and free programmes.

Pair's event:
Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford: 3rd Click here for short programme and here for long.
Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch: 4th Click here for short and here for free.

Total 7 = 3 entries

Dance event:
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir: 2nd Click link for short and free.
Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje: 5th Click here or here for short and here for the free program.

Total 7 = 3 entries
(Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier were 18th)

Heartbeat Highlights

Here are the highlights in amateur sports during the past week.

Track & Field

Special shout-out to Olympic bronze medallist Derek Drouin who broke the Canadian indoor record while winning the Division 1 NCAA high jump with a jump of 2.35m (he won bronze with a jump of 2.29m). Read more here and see interview here. click here for other Canadian results.

Videos for the CIS Indoor Track & Field Championships are here and results list here.

Freestyle Skiing World Championships

Click here for Saturday's rebroadcast of CBC Sportsweekend's coverage of freestyle skiing and here for Sunday's.

The Freestyle Skiing World Championships wrapped up yesterday with Canada winning 10 medals.

Yesterday, on the 1 year anniversary of Nik Zoricic's death in a ski-cross race, Marielle Thompson won the silver medal in ski-cross dedicating her result to Nik. Click here for the video. The men did not fare as well perhaps affected by the memory, especially with Brady Leman's semi-final race being delayed by a crash.

Kaya Turski won the gold medal in Slopestyle followed by Dara Howell for a Canada 1-2. Click here for the video.

The men's moguls competitions saw Canada win gold and silver twice. Mikaël Kingsbury won gold in moguls and silver in dual moguls. Alex Bilodeau won gold in dual moguls and silver in moguls. His podium performance in the moguls assured him a spot on the 2014 Olympic team (Mikaël had previously qualified). Click here for the Men's moguls and here for the dual moguls.

Chloe Dufour-Lapointe won gold in the dual moguls while sister Justine won the bronze in the women's moguls. Click here for dual moguls and here for ladies' moguls.

Travis Gerrits punched his ticket to Sochi 2014 by winning the silver medal in the aerials event. Click here for video highlights.

Click here to browse CBC Sports's ski videos.

Snowboard World Cup

Dominique Maltais won the Snowboard Cross event in Arosa, Switzerland with Maelle Ricker joining her on the podium. Click here to see the race.

Matthew Morison won the silver in Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom in Arosa. He started the second run 0.38 seconds behind but made the final very exciting. Click here for the video. Caroline Calvé captured the bronze in the same event. Click here for the video.

Short Track Speed Skating World Championships

Click here for rebroadcast of CBC Sportsweekend's Saturday coverage of short track and here for Sunday's.

Canada's short track speed skating relay team of Charles Hamelin, Michael Gilday, Olivier Jean and Charles Cournoyer won gold in the 5000m relay in Debrecen, Hungary. Gilday had the "save of the century" just before the 5:30 mark of the race. There is no replay at the end, so you may want to rewind during the race to see it again. Click here for the video.

The women's relay of Marianne St-Gelais, Marie-Ève Drolet, Valérie Maltais and Jessica Hewitt won the bronze in the 3000m relay. Click here for the video.

Marianne St-Gelais won silver in the 3000m final. Click here for the video.

Charles Hamelin won bronze in the men's 3000m (video) and 1000m races (video).

Long Track Speed Skating World Cup

I have not found videos of the long track speed skating. Christine Nesbitt won the gold in the 1000m and bronze in the 1500m. Ivanie Blondin won the silver in the mass start.

Curling

Northern Ontario's team of Brad Jacobs, Ryan Fry, E.J. Harden and Ryan Harden won the Brier and will represent Canada at the World Championships in Victoria March 30th-April 7th.

Finally, Objectif Sotchi's weekend broadcast can be watched here.

Heartbeat Highlights

Here are some of the highlights from the past week in amateur sports.

Caroline Calvé won the Ladies' Snowboard Parallel Slalom World Cup race in Moscow. Click here for the race video. She posted a photo on Twitter of herself and the pilot on her way home with the very large trophy she won. That's quite the carry-on!

Canada's moguls team dominated this past weekend with 4 of the 6 podium spots. Mikaël Kingsbury and Audrey Robichaud won the men's and women's moguls competitions in Japan. Alexandre Bilodeau and Chloé Dufour-Lapointe joined them on the podiums, both in third place. Click here for the men's highlights and here for the women's.

Canada didn't fare as well in the dual moguls the next day with one podium performance. Alexandre Bilodeau finished second. Click here for the race video.

Alex Harvey made Canadian history by winning the bronze medal in the 1.5km sprint at the Nordic Skiing World Championships. It was the first podium ever for a Canadian in an individual event. Click here to watch the final, semi and quarter final. Cliquez ici pour lire un reportage en français avec une entrevue avec Alex. In the relay, Alex and Devon Kershaw were 0.03 seconds from the podium in the relay.


Canada's Luge team comprising of Alex Gough, Sam Edney and doubles Tristan Walker and Justin Snith won bronze in the team relay event at the Sochi World Cup finishing a successful season that is showing great promise leading into the Olympics next year.

After being 26th in the downhill portion of the Super Combined, Marie-Michelle Gagnon was second in the slalom to finish a personal best 5th overall.

It wasn't a stellar performance by our Men's Alpine Ski team at Garmish, but if you love to watch skiing, CBC have full race videos on their website. Click here.

If you love speed skating, click here to watch CBC's coverage of the World All-Round Championships.

Chris Williamson with guide Robin Féry won the first gold medal for Canada at the IPC Alpine World Skiing Championships in Molina, Italy by winning the Super Combined Visually Impaired. You can view the highlights here. Canada has nine medals so far at the Championships with two days to go.

The Para-Nordic World Championships are starting today and is being streamed live online here with race videos also available on the YouTube Channel.  Brian McKeever and guide Eric Carleton started the championships strongly for Canada by winning the Visually Impaired Cross-Country Classic Sprints. Click here for the race video.

With spring around the corner, many winter sports are ending while summer sports have started their seasons. Bobsleigh and skeleton finished their seasons last week. Click here to read Team Spring's season review and click here to read Melissa Hollingsworth's thoughts on her season.

At the FINA Diving Grand Prix in Germany, sisters Carol-Ann and Pamela Ware won the bronze medal in the 10m synchronized event.

The women's team pursuit won the bronze medal at the UCI World Track Cycling Championships. 2012 Olympic bronze medallists Gillian Carleton and Jasmin Glaesser teamed up with Olympic alternate Laura Brown to repeat their 3rd place finish.

Antoine Valois-Fortier won another bronze medal at the Judo Düsseldorf Grand Prix. For fans of judo, you can watch Day 1 coverage here and Day 2 here. I looked on the videos for Antoine's match but didn't find it. The other bronze medal match in his weight category is at the beginning of the Day 2 video.

Finally, click here to watch Objectif Sotchi, Radio Canada's weekly show in french featuring Canadians on the road to Sochi. This week's episode includes Erik Guay, Chris Del Bosco (English interview with subtitles) and Sochi World Cup highlights, a bobsleigh recruitment test for Winnipeg Blue Bomber Pierre-Luc Labbé and a look back at Olympic gold and silver medallist in alpine skiing, Nancy Green.

Heartbeat Highlights

Here are some of our top results and video links in Olympic sports this past week.

The bobsleigh and skeleton season came to an end and what a season it was for Kaillie Humphries and Chelsea Valois who were third this week and finished the season with a podium in every race culminating with them winning the crystal globe for the overall World Cup title. Click here for a beautiful photo that Kaillie posted with the crystal globes.

Lyndon Rush and Jesse Lumsden finished their season with the crystal globe as well after a 4th place finish at the Sochi test event. Read more about their feat here.

Click here for bobsleigh and skeleton race videos.

Finishing the season so successfully at the Sochi track, hopefully they take this energy to the Olympics next year.

Speaking of the 2014 Olympics, two athletes punched their ticket to the Games with their podiums on the weekend in Sochi.

Mikaël Kingsbury won the moguls event at the Sochi test event. This win combined with his season's results have confirmed his place on Team Canada for 2014. It was also a great day for Philippe Marquis who joined him on the podium in 3rd.  Click here for video highlights. Click here for Philippe's French blog post describing his experience.

Roz Groenewoud also cemented her spot on the Olympic team with a second place finish in the ski superpipe. Click here for video highlights. Keltie Hansen got her first podium of the season finishing third just behind Roz.  Mike Riddle also earned a podium finishing 3rd in the men's ski superpipe edging him one step closer to making the Olympic team. Here's the video highlights.

With training days cancelled in Sochi due to fog and too much snow, ski cross finally got under way with Kelsey Serwa and Marielle Thompson finishing 1-2 for Canada. Click here for the race video. The cancelled days made for pretty photos posted by Kelsey (click here) and Chris Del Bosco (click here).

Chris also added a podium for Canada with a 2nd place finish. Click here for the race video.

Ariane Lavigne earned her first ever World Cup podium finishing 3rd in snowboard parallel giant slalom. Click here for the race video. The snowboard parallel slalom was cancelled due to warm weather.

In Judo, Kelita Zupancic won the gold medal at a World Cup in Budapest. Click here for the video. Antoine Valois-Fortier took the bronze. You can read more here.

Heartbeat Highlights

Here are the highlights in the amateur sporting world this past weekend.

Luge World Cup from Lake Placid
3rd Women's: Alex Gough

Speed Skating - Short Track
2nd Charles Cournoyer 1000m
2nd Marianne St. Gelais 500m
3rd Marie-Eve Drolet 1500m
3rd Guillaume Bastille1500m
2nd Women relay 3000m Valérie Maltais, Marianne St-Gelais, Marie-Ève Drolet and Jessica Hewitt

Snowboard
Caroline Calvé was fourth in Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom in Rogla, Slovenia, in so doing becoming the points leader in the World Cup standings.

Sochi Test Events
Snowboard and Ski Slopestyle Sochi test events were cancelled this week due to lack of snow, rain and warm weather.

Bobsleigh and skeleton training have been cancelled due to poor track conditions.

Sochi is quite far south and has warm climate, similar to Vancouver. Organizers have built vast underground vaults in order to store snow for the Olympics so hopefully lack of snow will not be a problem next year.

Judo Grand Slam - Paris
Kelita Zupancic - 2nd 70kg
Catherine Roberge - 3rd 78kg

Read Judo Canada's report here.

Click here for video. Final 70kg starts at 1:13:30 mark.

Click here for video of Can vs Can bronze medal match 78kg. It starts at 32:00 mark.

Olympic bronze medallist Antoine Valois-Fortier shared the video of his fight being confused and frustrated at his disqualification according to the new rules that were implemented this weekend. Click here for video.

Figure Skating - Four Continents
This event will be televised starting on February 23 on CBC.

Pairs
1st Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford
2nd Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch

Ice Dancing
2nd Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir

Men's
1st Ryan Reynolds

Objectif Sotchi 

Animé par Marc Durand, Objectif Sotchi est diffusé chaque samedi à 14 h 00 à Radio-Canada. Regardez l'émission du 9 février ici.

En Route Vers Les Olympiques Avec 1 an avant les Olympiques 2014, Marie-José Turcotte anime En Route Vers Les Olympiques, qui nous introduit à Sotchi, qui parle de nos espoirs pour les Jeux et inclue les invités Charles Hamelin, Caroline Ouellette, Dominique Maltais, Alex Bilodeau, et les trois soeurs qui espèrent tous être sur l'équipe de bosses, Maxime, Chloé et Justine Dufour-Lapointe.
Regardez l'émission spéciale ici.

News

Women's C1 will be at Pan-Am Games in Toronto.
It was announced last week that C1 Sprint and C1 Slalom will be part of the Pan-Am Games in 2015 in Toronto. More info.

Women's C1 is not an Olympic sport. Last fall the International Canoe Federation decided to not include women's canoe in the 2016 Olympics. There was quite a discussion about this issue with the media, athletes and fans voicing opinions on whether it should be included or not. It's a complicated issue that includes a Catch-22. Without funding, it's difficult to grow the sport to a level that gets it included. Without it being included in the Olympics, it's difficult to get funding and sponsors. What comes first? Funding/growth or inclusion?

Perhaps Pan-Am inclusion is a step towards being included in the Olympics.

This is great news for Canada. Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, a 20-year old from Trois-Rivières, has won the past two World Championships in the C1 200m event. I was lucky to see her in action a couple of years ago.

2014 Olympics tickets 
Even if you don't qualify to compete in Sochi, you can buy your ticket to attend the Games.

Tickets are on sale today at www.cosport.ca

Heartbeat Highlights

The Heartbeat is my weekly newsletter detailing which upcoming events are being held in Canada and which events are being televised or streamed on the internet.

Heartbeat Highlights is a review of those events which will include outstanding results and links to videos of those great performances for those who may not have been able to see the events live.

It was another stellar weekend for our Canadian athletes.

Davis Cup Tennis - Vancouver

Canada's Davis Cup tennis team made history on the weekend beating #1 Seeded Spain to reach the Elite 8 in the Davis Cup for the first time. If you missed it, you can view the highlights from day 1 by clicking here, the doubles highlights here and the day 3 video highlights is here.

Canada will host Italy in the quarter finals April 5-7th. City to be determined.

Summary: Canada 3 - 2 Spain
Milos Raonic def. Albert Ramos 6-7(5) 6-4 6-4 6-4
Frank Dancevic def.  Marcel Granollers 6-1 6-2 6-2
Marc Lopez/Marcel Granollers def. Daniel Nestor/Vasek Pospisil 4-6 6-4 6-7(4) 6-3 6-2
Milos Raonic def. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3 6-4 6-2
Albert Ramos def. Frank Dancevic 7-5 6-4

Luge World Championships - Whistler

You can view competitions by clicking here and then clicking on the link in the schedule for each event.

Summary:
3rd Women's Event:  Alex Gough
2nd Team Event: Alex Gough, Sam Edney, Justin Snith, Tristan Walker
1st U23 Doubles: Justin Snith, Tristan Walker (4th overall)
5th Men's Event: Sam Edney

To read Luge Canada's summary report, click here. To read Eric MacKenzie's Canadian Press report, click here.

Bobsleigh Skeleton World Championships

The World Championships for Bobsleigh and Skeleton have been held during the past two weekends. Click here for the Bobsleigh Skeleton TV YouTube channel where they have every heat from each event posted. Last weekend, Kaillie Humphries repeated as World Champion with new partner Chelsea Valois.

This weekend was the skeleton and 4 man-bobsleigh competitions.

The highlight for Canada was Sarah Reid who won bronze in the women's skeleton. Click the links for heat 1, heat 2, heat 3 and heat 4 and highlights.

Snowboard Cross World Cup

Blue Mountain Resort in Collingwood was host to the Snowboard Cross World Cup this past weekend. Thanks to CBC Sportsweekend for the telecast.

Men's: 1st Chris Robanske
Click here to view the exciting men's final.

Women's: 2nd Dominique Maltais
Click here to view the women's final that also included Maëlle Ricker.

Short Track Speed Skating

Charles Hamelin has shown that he will be the one to beat next year with a double win at the Sochi test event.

1st Charles Hamelin 500m (Click here for video)
1st Charles Hamelin 1000m
2nd Women's 3000mRelay

FIS World Cup - Deer Valley

Moguls
1st Mikaël Kingsbury (19th consecutive podium)
2nd Alex Bilodeau
Click here for video.

As a sidenote, Sportsnet is televising last weekend's Calgary World Cup today and tomorrow. Check your local listing here.

Dual Moguls

1st Alex Bilodeau
Click here for video of men's final.

2nd Justine Dufour-Lapointe
Click here for video of women's final.

Aerials

2nd Travis Gerrits
Click here or here for video.

FIS Cross-Country World Cup

Just over one year to the 2014 Olympics, the cross-country World Cup was held in the host city, Sochi.

Click here for video highlight. Click here for Haywood Race Report.

Women's relay 3rd Dasha Gaizova and Perianne Jones

FIS Ski-Cross World Cup

2nd: Tristan Tafel
Click here for race video with a very exciting finish.

Sportsnet is replaying the Ski-Cross action today. Click here for local listings.

Water-Polo World Championships Qualifying

Canada's men's and women's teams competed in Calgary this past weekend in the hopes of qualifying for the World Championships. Both teams were successful. Click here to read more.

Objectif Sochi 

Whether you speak french or not, Objectif Sochi which airs on the french CBC network on Saturday afternoons is worth watching. There are some bilingual features and lots of Olympic sport action. Click here to view past episodes.

Road To The Olympics

CBC have launched their Olympic website in anticipation to the 1 year to go to Sochi on Thursday.  Click here for athlete profiles, videos and news.

En Route Vers Les Olympiques 

Radio Canada a aussi lancé leur site Olympique. Plus infos.

Heartbeat Highlights

It has been an incredible weekend of podiums for Canada in Olympic sports on the world stage. I am counting 19 (apologies if I am missing any). With 375 days before the 2014 Sochi Olympics, these are some of our men and women who will be going for gold for Canada.


Snowboard Cross World Championships
1st Maëlle Ricker
2nd Dominique Maltais


FIS World Cup Moguls - Women
1st - Justine Dufour-Lapointe
2nd - Chloé Dufour-Lapointe

FIS World Cup Moguls - Men
1st - Mikaël Kingsbury


Bobsleigh World Championships
1st Kaillie Humphries and Chelsea Valois
(although not an Olympic event, Canada was 3rd in the Bobsleigh Team Event)

Speed Skating Sprint World Championships
Although the Canadians did not medal in the overall competition (combining times for two1000m races and two 500m races), they were in the top 3 in single races.
Women 1000m (Sat) 1st - Christine Nesbitt (5th overall)
Women 1000m (Sun) 2nd - Christine Nesbitt
Men 500m (Sat) - 2nd Jamie Gregg (4th overall)
Men 500m (Sun) - 2nd Jamie Gregg
Men 500m (Sun) - 3rd Gilmore Junio

FIS Kitzbühel Downhill - Men
2nd - Erik Guay

X Games Snowboard Slopestyle - Men
1st Mark McMorris
2nd Max Parrot
(Mark was also 2nd in Snowboard Big Air which is not an Olympic event)

X Games Ski Superpipe - Women
2nd Roz Groenewoud
3rd Megan Gunning

X Games Ski Slopestyle - Women
2nd Kaya Turski
3rd Dara Howell

X Games Snowboard Slopestyle - Women
3rd Spencer O'Brien

How many of these did you see on television this weekend? There was a lot of sports coverage but not enough to cover everything. The Snowboard World Championships held in Stoneham, Québec were not televised on English television (thanks to TVA Sports for broadcasting it live in French). What an opportunity wasted to not have shown this World Championship event being held in Canada.

The World Cup Moguls being held in Calgary and the Speed Skating Sprint World Championships being held in Utah are being televised next weekend. I was also surprised that the Bobsleigh World Championships weren't shown in a timely fashion (like World Cups often are). The World Championships were shown on Monday morning (except for the women who were shown on Saturday).

Sports are so much better when they're live. Part of the appeal is the anticipation and the excitement of the results. As much as I love to see our Canadians perform, it's not the same when the results are known. It's so much more exciting when we are on the edge of our seat watching it live.

A decade ago, it may have been acceptable to show sports on tape delayed. We weren't as likely to hear the results then. In today's world of social media and instant news, I wish our sports channels would make a stronger effort to show sports live or at least in a more timely fashion. Live online feeds is a step in the right direction but with some events being held in the middle of the night, it's the minority who will stay up or get up to see it live.

Some sports do it right. Bobsleigh/Skeleton have a YouTube channel that show live events and go the extra mile by keeping the videos available for later viewing. The International Biathlon Union offer the same benefits on their website. The sports federations may need to take matters into their own hands in order to publicize and grow their respective sports.

Our athletes are winning world championships. I don't think it's too much to ask to see it live (or at least be able to PVR live coverage).

I look forward to the day when we have a dedicated Canadian amateur sports television station who will do it right and help fans support our athletes year round.

"The Olympics isn't every four years, it's every single day".