Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games: A Great Success For Canada.

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games held in Vancouver are now part of the history books and Canadians all over the country can feel the sense of pride and accomplishment.

The Canadian athletes won a total of 26 medals, 14 of them in Gold, a new record for the Winter Games. The quality and the depth of the Canadian team was so impressive.

In a perfect scenario, the Canadian athletes would have brought home at least another 3 or 4 Gold Medals. For example, the Canadian womens' curling team dropped their Gold Medal to Sweden's profit while acrobatic skier Jennifer Heil was edged by the very last competitor and settled for Silver.

But I am not saying this to undermine Canada's performance in any way. To the opposite, I am very proud of what our team accomplished. Joannie Rochette's Bronze Medal in the women's figure skating competition was inspiring and was quite a story. To perform at this level after the tragic death of her mother only a few days before the competition is a great example of courage and inner strenght.

I also have to mention Canada's victory in the ice hockey tournament. Both the mens and womens conquered the Gold Medal in classic fashion. While the womens cruised towards victory without losing a single game, the mens had to face adversity.

After losing a game in the prelims, the Canadians pulled off a glorious 7-3 victory over Russia in the quarterfinals to then defeat Slovakia by the score of 3-2 in the semis and to finally edge Team USA by the score of 3-2 on an overtime goal by Sidney Crosby.

Yes, Canada fulfilled their promise of performance at these Games but more importantly, no major incident and no major controversy was reported. The focus was on the competitions and on the athletes' performances, as it should be.

Thank you Vancouver 2010 for the great memories.

(Picture: Closing ceremonies.)

Canada Mourns With Joannie Rochette.

The Olympic dream of Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette took a dramatic turn this weekend when Joannie's mother, Therese, passed away in a Vancouver hospital after suffering of heart related problems.

This awful news was delivered to Joannie Rochette early Sunday morning, only three days before the short program, scheduled for Tuesday evening.

Many thought that Rochette could forfeit, but the 24 year-old skater from Ile-Dupas, Quebec, decided to stick with the plan and practice to prepare herself to compete Tuesday. A lesson and a source of inspiration for all of us.

Joannie's biggest supporter during the whole lenght of her career happened to be her own mother. The athlete is also convinced that to compete no matter the circumstances and the barriers is what was tought to her by her own mother during all those years.

Joannie is convinced that to compete is the best thing to do right now. She has to live her life-long dream knowing that somewhere, her mother Therese is quietly watching, proud of her beautiful and strong daughter.

We will be glued to our television screens Tuesday evening all across Canada in support of our strong, proud and talented athlete. We will all skate with her, twirl with her and push her higher, spin her faster, that she ever did in her career.

(Picture: Joannie and Therese Rochette, Sun Media.)

Alexandre Bilodeau: Canadian Pride.

Alexandre Bilodeau received his Olympic Gold Medal Monday as the Men's Moguls medal ceremony was presented in front of an electrified crowd inside Vancouver's GM Place.

Bilodeau became this weekend the first Canadian to win an Olympic Gold Medal on home ground. After the deceptions of Montreal (1976) and Calgary (1988), where the Canadian athletes fell short, the whole country can now celebrate their new Olympic champion.

Canada has a competitive team this year in those winter games and I expect at least a half a dozen more Gold medals before the end of the competition.

But let's go back to the fantastic Men's Moguls final won by Alexandre Bilodeau for a second. The level of competition was impressive as a couple of athletes were able to win it all. Other Canadians in this final, Vincent Marquis and P.A. Rousseau, finished respectively in fourth and fifth place.

But in the end, Bilodeau's jumps were simply out of this world. The first jump up there contained two full body rotations while the second jump, a backflip, seemed to never end due to the extreme amplitude.

The reaction of the crowd and the state of joy in yesterday's official medal ceremony testified of the pride of the nation for Bilodeau who's life has already taken a new spin. He came in those Olympics as a hope and will go out as a hero.

Congratulations Alexandre for your fantastic Gold Medal, you made every single Canadian proud with your inspiring victory.

(Picture: Alexandre Bilodeau, Chris Helgren, Reuters.)

Despaties and Petitclerc named athletes of the year.

Winner of a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Alexandre Despaties has been named Quebec's athlete of the year today.

Four months before the competition, Alexandre Despaties broke a bone in one of his foot and his four-month recovery was difficult for his preparation. But his discipline and dedication allowed him to be in good shape for this great competition.

Yes, a Chinese diver was untouchable during the competition and managed to finish ahead of Alexandre at the Olympic final of Beijing. But great athletes and champions sometimes finish second.

Congratulations to you Alexandre for your great silver medal in Beijing.


On the womens side, Chantal Petitclerc won the same award with her fantastic five gold medal performance at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. Petitclerc also broke a number of her own World Records during the competition. She was simply the queen of the track at these games.

A fantastic harvest of gold for Chantal for her last Olympic Games in career. We will follow the continuation of her career as she said to wish to try to compete in Marathon events.

Congratulations and good luck Chantal.

Emilie Heymans mimics Alexandre Despaties.

After failing to win a medal in singles competition at her last two attempts on the 10 meters tower, Emilie Heymans handled the pressure and finished in second place at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

With a total of 437,05 points, Heymans splitted the two skeletal Chinese divers on the podium. In fact, before the last round of diving, Emilie was in first place by a small margin. But a perfect dive by Chen Ruolin of China was good enough for a gold medal for the 15-year-old diver. Wang Xin finished in third place.

The podium finishers can be described as being two childrens and a fully grown woman. The two Chinese divers' combined body weight does not exceeds Heymans' body weight. With that fact in mind, we can only admire Heyman's performance.

The Canadian diver wins her third Olympic medal in career after winning a medal at the synchronized diving competition in Sydney and Athenes.

Another Canadian was present in this final. Marie-Eve Marleau finished with a total of 332,10 points, good for a seventh place. It was Marleau's final competition in career.

(Picture: Emilie Heymans, Canadian Press.)

Silver with a taste of gold.

After winning a silver medal from the 3 meters spring board at the 2004 Olympics in Athenes, Alexandre Despaties has repeated the exploit yesterday in Beijing.

The athlete from Laval, Quebec, was simply exceptionnal. After missing four months this year because of a broken foot and a back injury, Despaties was not a sure bet for a podium finish. The level of competition was high as Dimitri Sautin from Russia, He Chong and Qin Kai from China were in great shape.

Despaties did not commit any major mistake during the final. He gave his best and finished in second place with a total of 536.65 points. Only He Chong was better. In fact, Chong was impressive, immaculate, untouchable.

When he was asked to comment his performance, Alexandre Despaties said that this silver medal had a taste of gold after this horrible year 2008 that kept him away from competition for too long.

The situation was so uncertain for him that even a great magazine like Sports Illustrated doubted him and excluded the multiple world champion from the podium in their pre-olympic predictions.

Congratulation Alexandre, the whole country is proud of you.

(Picture: Alexandre Despaties, Canadian Press.)

Canada is on the board.

It took eight days but finally Canada has won it's first medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The country has won a total of three medals today. A gold, a silver and a bronze medal.

The first gold medal for Canada was won by Carol Huynh, an Olympic wrestler. In her perfect run, she defeated Mariya Stadnik from Azerbaijan by 4-3 and 2-0. Then in her second match, Carol Huynh defeated Hyung-Joo Kim from Korea by 1-0 and 1-0. Her third match was won over Kazakstan's Tatyana Babatyuk by 1-0 and 4-0. The gold medal match was disputed with Chiharu Icho, a match that Carol Huynh won by 4-0 and 2-1.

The bronze medal won by Canada also came from the women's wrestling team. Tonya Verbeek suffered a loss in the prelims round but came back with two wins to finish on the podium.

The silver medal won today by Canada came from David Calder and Scott Frandsen in rowing.

So after a long and difficult week, the country is now officially on the board. I hope that these results will inspire the rest of the Canadian team for the remainder of the competition.

(Picture: Carol Huynh, Canadian Press.)

One week without a podium.

The 2008 Olympics are now halfway over and Canada is still looking for a first medal. The expectations were to finish in the top 16 but it seems that the objective is impossible to achieve for the country.

Despite having problems finding a rythm, some of our athletes offered their best performance in career. For example, Mike Brown registered a new Canadian record at the 200m breast stroke but finished in fourth position. Only a mere 9/100th of a second from a bronze medal.

The Canadian delegation is not pushing on the panic button just yet. Historically, the better performances for the country are coming during the second week of the Olympics. It will not be different in this edition because we still have to see the best from the Canadian athletes.

Alexandre Despaties, multiple world champion and bronze medallist at the 2004 Athenes games in diving will begin his quest for a gold medal this weekend. We also anxiously wait for the finals in rowing that have to be run this weekend. A couple of medals should come from this discipline. Also, the men's baseball team and the women's softball team are still in the hunt.

A little bit more patience is required and it is very important that we keep supporting our team.

Michael Phelps, The human machine.

While Canada is still looking for it's very first medal at these 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps is dominating the competition at the pool. Today, Phelps added two other gold medals to his collection and became the athlete with the more Olympic titles in history.

Phelps has five gold medals and five world records this far in the competition. His dream of winning eight events in Beijing is very much alive. As of today, Phelps has won 11 gold medals in his amateur career, an all-time record. Tomorrow, he will go for two more gold medals and increase his impressive collection.

Yesterday in the 4x200m freestyle relay, the United States team crushed the world record with a time of 6:58,46 almost five seconds faster than the world record. Phelps was the first to go in and took only 100m to create a huge lead for his team. Canada was present in this final but had to settle for a fifth place.

(Picture: Michael Phelps, Canadian Press.)

Let the games begin.

Today in Beijing, the 2008 Olympic Games opening ceremonies were presented. To finish the colorful ceremony that lasted a total of four hours, a runner with the Olympic torch, hung by wires at the very top of the stadium has lit the cauldron, the final official symbol that the games are open.

With the opening ceremony now behind us, we can now turn towards the sport and the (hopefully) clean competition. Politics and fighting should be set aside for those two weeks while friendship, goodwill and unity should prevail.

Sadly, some military activity broke out these last 24 hours in Ossetia between Georgia and Russia. The whole world is asking and working to establish a pause in fighting for at least the durantion of the Olympics. A report estimates about 1400 casualties in these last hours.

On a more sportive note, the objective for Canada is to rank 16th once the competition will close. It is an attempt to improove the 19th place achieved in Athenes in 2004. Ex-gold medallist, Sylvie Bernier, did not advance any number of medal as an objective. She simply stated since a few months already that the global performance matters and a 16th place or better will mean a success for the country.

(Picture: Canadian Press.)

Spielberg says no to the Beijing Olympic Games.

With less than six months to go to the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, Steven Spielberg has decided to retire his contribution to the opening and closing ceremonies of the games.

Spielberg is unhappy with China's inaction in the Darfour area and has decided to retire himself in protest. The famous producer had warned China's International Olympic Committee a few months ago already and decided to take action this week.

The IOC tried to minimize this decision today. They classified Spielberg's decision as a ''personnal decision''. There is no mention about Spielberg's decision in any Chinese national news source of course. China is known to censor anything bad about their country or the upcoming Olympic Games. Any critic is simply censored.

The Human Rights Watch organization salutes Spielberg's decision and urges any sponsor, any national Olympic Committee and any government to increase their pressure on the chinese regime. The organization also want China to improove their human rights policy.

China remains the biggest prison for human rights and freedom to speech activists and journalists. In China, at least thirty journalists are held in prison for using their freedom of speech rights in 2008.

The Beijing Olympic Games are to be held from August 8th to 24th 2008.

(Picture: Steven Spielberg, Getty Images.)

Olympic flame brings controversy.

The Olympic torch and it's flame should cover over a record 137 000 km during 130 days before the opening of the Beijing summer Olympics coming next August 2008.

The Beijing Olympic Committee announced that within the run, the flame is scheduled to go thru Taiwan. But that decision is raising a lot of controversy in Taiwan.

The Taiwan Olympic Commitee president, Tsai Chen-wei, said that it was an attempt to devaluate their sovereignty. Taiwan and China are political ennemies since the separation of Taiwan from China 58 years ago. Some controversy is also raised in Tibet and on Mount Everest as the flame is also planned to go thru those politically delicate areas.

The torch itself, made of aluminum, is 72 centemeters high and weights 985 grams. It represents a scroll with a traditional chinese symbol meaning ''The cloud of luck''. Let's hope it will bring luck as there are more negociations over the course of the torch going on.

Maybe the story will devellop a bit more in the upcoming months.

(Picture: Canadian Press)

Marc Gagnon to be honored.

On April 27th in Halifax, the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame will induct two great canadian athletes. First, the induction of a great short track skater,Marc Gagnon. He participated in 3 different Olympic winter games and won a total of 5 medals.

Gagnon inspired and paved the way to a whole generation of skaters that are now forming the short track canadian team. A well deserved honor for him. He has been working in the media hosting his own TV show after his olympic career.

The other inductee will be Olympic swimmer Marianne Limpert. She has won a bronze medal in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games. Some other honors are reserved for canadian founders during the evening.

Congratulations!