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

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

After almost two months of reporting on what amateur sports events are coming up in The Heartbeat, it's time to expand to include what happened in the world of amateur sports.

Biathlon World Cup Win

Jean-Philippe Le Guellec became the first Canadian male to win a World Cup Biathlon race on Saturday when he won the 10km Sprint. His best previous finish was 6th at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

You can watch the full race here. The race starts at the 10 minute mark of the video. There is not much coverage of Jean-Philippe until he takes the lead after the second shooting.  I believe the first glimpse of him is at the 45 minute mark and the award ceremony is at 1:36.

Watch the post race interview here. Jean-Philippe's part of the interview starts at the 6:55 mark. It's so great to see his reaction and to put a face to the name (for those who have not been watching biathlon).

The following day, Jean-Philippe would wear number 1 as the other racers chase him in the 12.5km pursuit. You can watch that race here.  The race starts at 19:30 mark of the video.

You can follow him on Twitter at @JeeP_LeGuellec and check out his very cool shooting-themed blog here.

Beach Volleyball World Cup Trials

The Hangar at Downsview Park in Toronto was the venue where four new pairings were vying for a chance to represent Canada at the World Cup Final in Brazil in January. This tournament was announced only a month ago. With the 2012 teams splitting up, Canada decided to have the top four teams compete for the lone Canadian men's spot.

In the semi-finals on Friday night, our 2012 Olympians Josh Binstock and Martin Reader with new partners lost their respective semi-finals.

In the first semi, Christian Redmann and Matt Zbyszewski won their match against Binstock and Maverick Hatch 2-1 (21-18, 19-21, 15-12).

In the second semi-final, Chaim Schalk and Ben Saxton defeated Reader and Sam Schachter 2-0 (21-16, 21-14)

You can watch the semi-finals here.

I couldn't make it to the semi-finals but did attend the finals on Saturday night. There were quite a few friends/family/fans in attendance. Most of the crowd were behind the video camera so the video doesn't show the support that the players had.

Redmann and Saxton had a very successful pairing in the past which included competing at the Pan Am Games in 2011. They also qualified for the 2012 Olympics but with Canada only having one spot, they had a playoff that they lost to Binstock and Reader. This time, Redmann and Saxton were on opposite sides of the net.

It was a very close and exciting match. Schalk and Saxton had a 3 point lead half-way through the first set only to have Redmann and Zbyszewski win four points in a row to take the lead. The match then see-sawed until Redmann and Zbyszewski had set point leading 20-18. They couldn't convert however and Schalk and Saxton won the first set 24-22.

The second set was just as close but in the end, Schalk and Saxton pulled off the match win with a 21-18 finish in the second set.

You can watch the final here.

I had a great talk with Christian Redmann the next day. Although he was understandably disappointed, he seemed satisfied with his team's effort. He and Matt had only practiced together half a dozen times since this World Cup trial was announced. He also explained that they are not normally match fit at this time of year. Their performance should give them a lot of confidence for the upcoming season once they get more practice together.

Schalk and Saxton were more match ready having played a Norceca tournament in September that they won winning the five matches they played.

Good luck to Chaim Schalk and Ben Saxton at the FIVB World Cup Final January 9-13.

Speed Skating

Christine Nesbitt won gold in the 1500m at the Long Track Speed Skating World Cup in Kazakhstan. Teaming up with Ivanie Blondin and Brittany Schussler, they won the team pursuit.

Charles Hamelin won the silver medal in the 500m Short Track Speed Skating World Cup in Japan. He has been on the podium for all six of his races this fall, but has yet to reach the top spot.

Canada Cup #1 was held in Québec City over the weekend with national team and development team members competing. The following were the race winners:

Tamara Oudenaarden - 500m (2 races)
Kate Hanly - 1000m (2 races)
Josie Spence 1500m, 3000m and 5000m

Laurent Dubreuil - 500m and 1000m.
Guillaume Blais-Dufour - 1000m and 1500m
Alec Janssens -  5000m and 10000m
Kyle Parrot - 500m (tied) (second 500m race)
Muncef Ouardi - 500m (tied) (second 500m race)

You can read more news and results about all of these speed skating events at the Speed Skating Canada website here.

FIS World Cup in Lake Louise

Larisa Yurkiw and Marie-Michelle Gagnon gave the home crowd something to cheer about when they finished in the points in 25th and 28th respectively in the Super-G on Sunday.

You can watch Larisa's run here and Marie-Michelle's here. CBC also have interviews with them on the site.

I can't talk about the Lake Louise event without mentioning Lindsey Vonn who dominated the whole weekend winning all three races. I have watched her second downhill run a few times now in awe that she actually won after a scary moment that looked like she would crash. She was skidding towards the safety nets and off balance on one ski but she managed to stay on her feet and make up the lost speed and time. She still won by over half a second. You can watch that race here. Sunday's Super G win was the seventh win in a row for Vonn at Lake Louise and 14th overall.

FIS World Cup at Beaver Creek

Canada had four men in the points in the downhill race on Friday. Erik Guay was 15th, Benjamin Thomsen 16th, Jan Hudec 24th and Manuel Osborne-Paradis 28th.

On Saturday Jan Hudec was the top Canadian in 10th followed closely by Erik Guay in 11th.