Friday, February 14, 2014

Sochi 2014 - Eh to Zed


(This story originally appeared at http://foreveryoungnews.com/)


Albertville was the site of the 1992 Olympics where Kerrin Lee Gartner took the downhill skiing event.  While lee-Gartner was a consistent performer, with 46 top ten finishes in her carer she won only one other international race in her career.
Bandy, an 11 player a side sport played on ice on a Canadian football sized field, is a demonstration sport in Sochi. 

Clara Hughes, Canadian skater and cyclist, won four winter and two summer medals in her career.

Dineen, Kevin, pointless as a player in the 84 Olympics, is now the women’s team coach.

Eisler, Lloyd, a four time Olympian skater, twice won bronze with partner Isabelle Braseur. 

Fifty-two gold medals have been won by Canadian athletes since the first Winter Olympics held in Chamonix France in 1924.

Greene, Senator Nancy took gold in the Giant Slalom in Grenoble games in 1968.

Hurd, Alexander captured silver and bronze medals in Lake Placid in 1932, our only individual medal in those Olympics. 

Ice Hockey is the official name of the sport we like to call our own. In his book Memories of a Man Who Couldn’t Play (Doubleday, 1996.)  author David Adams Richards says “hockey is greater than ice hockey - the latter being a European invention.”

Jeremy Wotherspoon was second in the 500-metre speed skating event in Ngano in 1998.  Now 37, Wotherspoon failed to make the team in a comeback attempt earlier this season.  

Klassen, Cindy won a record five speed skating medals at Turin, Italy in 2006.

Lascelles Brown, Canadian bobsledder and medalist in 2006, competed for Jamaica in Salt Lake City, is back in the fold after pushing Monaco’s two-man sled for a time.

Military Patrol was a sport in the ’24 Games.  It evolved into the sport of Biathlon. Marian Bedard’s Lillehamer (94) medals in this sport are fondly remembered.

Nordic Combined puts ski jumping and cross-country together.  It has been an event in every Winter Olympics. 

Oslo hosted the ‘52 games where we won nothing but hockey.

Podivinsky, Ed’s downhill bronze in Lillehammer was well received after the lean years in Alpine Skiing that followed funding cuts after the Calgary Olympics.

Quinn, Pat coached 2002 Team Canada to their first Olympic gold medal since 1952 

Rover.  Seven a side hockey featured the rover position in 1920 when the Falcons, a Winnipeg team made up of players of Icelandic heritage, won the first ever Ice Hockey gold in the Summer Olympics.   

Skeleton was included in the 1924 Olympics but disappeared from the games until 1948, disappeared again until 02. In Turin (06) Vaughan Ontario’s Duff Gibson, at 39 years, became our oldest Gold medalist ever.

Toller Cranston, artist and skater, took a bronze in the second Innsbruck Olympics (76)  

Underdog Ross Rebagliati, who briefly had his Nagano snowboard gold taken away for testing positive for marijuana use, announced plans to open up a medical marijuana franchise last year.

Vancouver Olympics were expensive at $7 billion.  Would you believe Sochi14 will cost $51 billion according to latest estimates?

Vogt, Kathy speed skated in Lake Placid in 1980 as now husband Randy Gregg skated on defence for Team Canada.  Their kids, Jamie in Long Track and Jessica in Short Track skating both donned Canadian colours in 2010.  Jamie is back this year.  

Winter Pentathlon comprised of cross-country and downhill skiing, shooting, fencing and horse riding was contested in 1948 for the first and last time.

XIII or thirteenth winter Olympics were hosted by Lake Placid, New York. Skater Gaeten Boucher burst onto the scene here with a second place finish in the men’s 1,000 metres.

Yurkiw, Larisa downhill skier, qualified on January 11th and has been raising her own funds.   Read her blog at http://larisayurkiw.blogspot.ca/ at 

Zero medals. Our output in luge, ski jumping and Nordic combined. 

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