The Heartbeat

This week's edition of The Heartbeat include events in Whistler, Val Saint-Côme, Big White (BC), Sun Peaks, Victoria, Vancouver and Ottawa.

Sports being televised or streamed include Men's World Curling Championships, women's Ice Hockey World Championships, beach volleyball and triathlon.

The Heartbeat

This week's edition of The Heartbeat include events in Whistler, Calgary, Le Relais Ski Centre (QC), Val Saint-Côme, Big White (BC) and Fredericton.

Sports being televised or streamed include World Speed Skating Championships, Women's World Curling Championships, freestyle skiing, snowboard, cross-country skiing, beach volleyball and diving.

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)

The Heartbeat

This week's edition of The Heartbeat include events in Whistler, Panorama, Nakiska, Calgary, London and Fredericton.

Sports being televised or streamed include World Figure Skating Championships, Women's World Curling Championships, freestyle skiing, alpine skiing, snowboard, speed skating, biathlon, cross-country skiing and diving.

Events to meet/see/support athletes are being held in Collingwood.

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.

The Heartbeat

This week's edition of The Heartbeat include events in Montréal, Nakiska, Calgary, London and Edmonton.

Sports being televised or streamed include World Figure Skating Championships, Freestyle World Ski Championships, World Junior Curling Championships, alpine skiing, The Brier, speed skating, biathlon.

Events to meet/see/support athletes are being held in Collingwood and Toronto.

Professional Sports at the Olympics

A few weeks ago, I asked whether it was a sad day for Olympic sports when the IOC voted to remove wrestling from the 2020 Olympics. You can read that post here.

In my opinion, keeping wrestling is a no-brainer.

Including "professional" sports is a complicated issue for me. In some ways I love it and in other ways I don't.

Although this blog is dedicated to Olympic sports, that does not mean that I don't also love professional sports.  I love the Toronto Raptors, Maple Leafs, Blue Jays and TFC. I love tennis and golf.

Loving the Olympics like I do, I love to see my favourite athletes whether they are amateur or professional to get to experience the Games but I fear that the professional athletes that we see on television year round will take the attention away from the amateur athletes we only get to see during Olympic years.

I also have an issue with professional athletes who covet their own championships more than an Olympic medal. Ask a basketball player if he would rather win an NBA Championship or an Olympic gold medal and most will answer the NBA Championship. Although, perhaps that is only an issue for American basketball players because winning an Olympic gold medal isn't really a challenge for the "dream team". Ask a Canadian, Spanish or French basketball player and the answer would probably be different.

Tennis and golf were in the Olympics in the early 1900's. Winning a gold medal for those athletes was probably very important, but to tennis players and golfers today, an Olympic gold medal can be a side benefit. Most would rather win a major or a Grand Slam.

The other problem with golf is that the best players are not all represented at the Olympics. This issue occurs with amateur sports as well but it's more glaring with famous professional athletes. There are mogul skiers or cross-country skiers for example who are in the top 10 in the world who will not qualify for the 2014 Olympics because each country only have so many entries. Would you recognize their names?

The top 15 players in the world automatically qualify for golf. The next 45 players whose countries don't already have two players qualified would get invitations. Looking at the 2012 year end World Rankings, four players would qualify who are out of the top 300 but number 16 ranked Phil Mickelson wouldn't (and many other players who could win on any given day). It could be good news for Canada with David Hearn ranked 224. He would have qualified. Of course things will change on the road to Rio.

In tennis, only three players outside the top 100 competed at the 2012 Olympics. Their qualification method seems better (or more diverse in countries represented in the top 100). Tennis allows for four players from one country compared to two for golf. This selection process wouldn't help Phil Mickelson though.

Golf unlike tennis, is a sport where anyone can win on any given day. In the 20 golf majors between 2008-2012, there have been 18 different winners. In the 28 tennis Grand Slams between 2006-2012, there have been 5 winners (with 3 players winning 26 of those). What is best, having an Olympic champion who is "worthy" because he is already in the top of his sport or having a surprise winner? There are definitely Olympic sports like tennis where the same people win, but is there a sport where someone outside the top 50 could win a medal? Between 2009 and 2012, there were 6 golf major champions who were ranked outside the top 50 (and only 2 who were ranked in the top 10). There are many golfers ranked between 15-50 who could win but won't compete because of the selection criteria. The American dream team (think Ryder Cup/President's Cup) in golf is definitely not guaranteed a gold medal like the basketball dream team.

Another issue for me is the amount of time needed for some of these sports. Golf will increase coverage by approximately 5 hours for each of 4 rounds if they show the full round for the leaders (double when we include the women). It would probably be even more than that if they show every player's full rounds. That is coverage potentially taken away from sports that only get coverage every four years.

As a spectator, I was annoyed during the London 2012 Olympics when CTV was showing tennis matches on the main network during the early rounds. I felt that players that I could see week in and week out throughout the year was taking broadcast time away from Olympians that we only get to see every four years. I wouldn't have had a problem if they had showed the tennis online or on another network.

For me, early round matches were not very important. Roger Federer playing a first round match that he has a 99% chance of winning shouldn't be televised in Canada (on our main network) ahead of our amateur athletes (as much as I love Roger).

Ironically, I was driving my kids to camp up in Muskoka when the men's final was going on. We stopped at McDonald's in Huntsville and we were excited that the match was being televised. We sat at a bar-type table all facing the television. As the match is nearing the end, an employee comes up and changes the channel. A table of women move closer and cheer as Canada's women's basketball team is playing a match. All I could do was laugh at the irony. I believe the basketball game was a quarter final while a British (Scottish) man who hasn't won a major is about to win gold in his home "country" (I'm married to an English man, so don't get me started on the Scottish-English-Welsh-Northern Irish-Great British-UK thing).

Although, speaking of that "thing", Rory McIlroy, the #1 ranked player at the end of 2012 from Northern Ireland, has already said that he may not want to compete at the Olympics because he doesn't want to choose whether to compete for Great Britain or Ireland (in so doing potentially alienating a portion of his fans). Being from Northern Ireland, he can choose which one he wants to represent. Does that not say something about whether the Olympics are important or not to (some) professional golfers?

In the end, my biggest problem with professional athletes competing at the Olympics is the attention that multi-millionaire household names who we see compete year round will take away from the amateur Olympians we only get to see every four years. The news programs, the headlines, the sports highlights will feature the professional household names instead of introducing the mainstream to our amateur athletes.

The IOC are trying to get big name athletes into the Games along with big sponsors. They are thinking about the money and the viewership but I fear that in doing so, the Olympics will lose their tradition and history and will just become another competition on the calendar.

Best Olympics Games

The 1988 Olympic Games ended 25 years ago tonight.

Last week, Scott Russell of CBC Sports wondered if it was the greatest game ever. You can read the article here.

My first reaction was "what"? Seriously? Vancouver was the best!!!!

But the more I thought about it, it did have an innocence that today's Games don't have.

Canada won 5 medals at the 1988 Olympic Games.  Total! (and no gold medals) At the 2010 Olympics, we won 14 Gold! But the "greatest games" can't be just about Canada's success.

The 1988 Games was about the stories not only who won the medals.

A Twitter account was set up with tweets posted daily by Calgary Herald writer Jason Markusoff reliving the 1988 Olympic Games. It was wonderful to relive the Battle of the Brians and Battle of the Carmens, La Bomba Tomba and 3 time gold medallist Matti Nykanen.

If you missed it, you can relive it in its entirety here. There were other stories as well.

Eddie the Eagle captured our imagination. Canada even invited him to run in the Olympic relay for the 2010 Olympics - 23 years later.

The Jamaican Bobsleigh team has not been forgotten. I was thrilled to see the bobsleigh on display at the airport in Jamaica last year. There is also a tourist attraction that I didn't have time to visit.



These were stories about participation. They were athletes with a dream but without the means to become the best.

Although the Olympic Committee has turned towards including professional athletes to get television ratings and sponsorship, in 1988 these athletes from small countries with little or no snow captured our imagination.

We were introduced to athletes we had never heard of, got familiar with their struggles to compete at the Olympics and although they came in last place, we cheered for them.

Today's Olympics offer multi-millionaire athletes who view the Olympics as secondary to their major or Grand Slam titles. Athletes we see on television week in and week out. I'm still working on a blog post about professional athletes at the Olympics so will not dwell on this topic now. Suffice to say that I struggle with their inclusion. On the one hand I want the best athletes representing their countries. On the other I want the athletes and sports to value Olympic tradition and values.

It's sad to say that perhaps this is what the world has come to. Attention spans aren't long enough to listen to the stories of athletes they haven't heard of yet.

The Heartbeat

This week's edition of The Heartbeat include events in Montréal, Calgary, Winnipeg, Gatineau, London and Edmonton.

Sports being televised or streamed include Freestyle World Ski Championships, Nordic Skiing World Championships, Paralympic Alpine Skiing World Championships, World Junior Figure Skating Championships, World Junior Curling Championships, alpine skiing, The Brier, speed skating, biathlon, gymnastics and diving.

Events to meet/see/support athletes are being held in Winnipeg and Toronto.

Haven't you run before, Mo?

I don't know why I find this so funny, because I don't normally like people being embarrassed but I watched this interview today laughing out loud (maybe because I love Mo and thought he handled it so well).

Mo Farah won the half-marathon in New Orleans on Sunday. He was interviewed by a local television anchor. Her enthusiasm and amazement at his win and course record is contagious even when we realize that she doesn't really understand the situation. I don't have an issue with people not knowing Mo (one of my favourite Olympians from the 2012 Olympics). However, I have an issue with a television station having a presenter interview him without letting her know that he is the reigning 5000m and 10000m Olympic champion. I think the station is more to blame than the presenter.

Had she known this, she wouldn't have asked "Haven't you run before? This isn't your first time." or told him that he is "off to a great start and what is next for you. Do you have any other races coming up".


I think you have to be British or a track or Olympic fan to know him - or have seen the viral Tumblr account showing Mo Running Away From Things where they took photos of him from the Olympics and photoshopped them into other scenes like this one that includes my favourite British cyclist (photo credit to Mo Running Away From Things - click on the link to see other hilarious photos).

There was a huge reaction on Twitter and in the British papers, many attacking the interviewer for not knowing who Mo is.  I really think this was an overreaction.

I even saw some British saying if it had been American Galen Rupp, who finished second and trained with Mo, Brits would have known who Rupp was. Really? Would they know Kenenisa Bekele? He won the 5000m and 10000m in 2008 (and gold and silver in 2004). I had to look that up. Would they have known Rupp only because he raced and trained with a Brit (that's the reason I remember Rupp because I was already a Farah fan so I loved this story)?

I also don't agree that this is a typical American issue. Many blamed the Americans for not knowing non-American heroes. I think most countries are like that. We know and support our own. I don't think Brits, French, Spanish, Australian or Canadian fans would know the American Olympians (besides the dominating ones in major events).

The problem isn't that this presenter doesn't know who Mo is. I think this conversation happening at a party isn't a problem.  She doesn't work for a sports channel or even in the sports department I would guess.

I can only imagine how she felt when she found out she interviewed a double gold medallist. Taking a moment to check the internet could have prevented the embarrassment for her and her station but there's no need to attack the presenter.

On the bright side, a lot more people know who Mo Farah is today (and I was given an excuse to write a blog post about him).

Later edit:

I love what Mo had to say on Twitter:  Just wanna say to everyone being nasty to LaTonya Norton please stop!! She made a mistake like we all do!! She didn't mean anything by it!

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.

The Heartbeat

This week's edition of The Heartbeat include events in Québec, Calgary and Kingston, ON.

Sports being televised or streamed include freestyle skiing, snowboarding, alpine skiing, luge, curling, speed skating, figure skating, road cycling, judo, diving, UCI World Track Cycling World Championships, Nordic Skiing World Championships and Paralympic Alpine Skiing World Championships.

Events to meet/see athletes are being held in Montreal and Toronto.