Hayden did make one swim in the high-tech suit two years again and was also under the old short course world 200-metre record. “I wasn’t happy about it. It was the suit, not what I was doing.”
Pierse on the road to recovery from dengue fever
Annamay Pierse of Vancouver is staging a comeback season after ending the 2010 long course year with a case of dengue fever, contracted during the New Delhi Commonwealth Games, which sapped her strength and made her lose about 10 pounds. “It was a disastrous year. Everything that could have gone wrong did. It was just a mosquito bite, but there’s nothing you can do, no treatment for it. You just have to let it take its course,” she said.
“You hurt all over. There’s crazy pain all over your boy and your hands and feet swell. It hurt even to watch TV because it hurt to move my eyes. You feel like you’re been a punching bag. I wouldn’t with it on my worst enemy,” said Pierse, who got the disease late in her trip to New Delhi. She’s now building her strength and mileage back for the coming season, “but it’s a season where I know I’m going to get my butt kicked.”
IOC gives women’s ski jumping a second look
Christoph de Kepper, IOC chief of staff, was in Toronto to talk to Canadian Olympic Committee members at the group’s planning session and said women’s ski jumping is favoured to be on the Sochi sports agenda in 2014:
“We learned [at the time of the Olympics in Canada] the fighting sprit of the women ski jumpers... Nobody in the IOC or Olympic movement would criticize the way they defended their cause. It’s a good cause. It’s legitimate to fight for your participation at the Games,” he said in an interview.
“We always said we will leave the door open ... The IOC discussed this matter at recent meetings in Acapulco... and we discussed 11 new events, including ski jumping. There is no decision taken yet but there is an openness from the IOC to consider women’s ski jumping. At the 2011 World Championship we’ll look at the level of performances and based on that we’ll take a decision for the 2014 Games.”
On the topic of North American TV rights for the 2014 Olympics. it was suggested CBC and CTV could have double-barreled bids, depending whether NHL hockey players are participants or not. Negotiations start in 2011.
He said there was no precedent for such a strategy of conditional offers,
“It’s not in the IOC tradition to accept offers that are conditional... In the end if we have offers that are conditional, it’s likely these offers will be looked at twice.... But if your competitor makes an unconditional offer, they you run a risk (of rejection).”
Seven Canadians qualify for ISU Grand Prix Finals
The last of six International Skating Union Grand Prix figure skating events in Paris saw seven Canadians qualifying for four ISU Grand Prix finals -- one men’s single skater, a pair and two dance couples. The finals take place in Beijing, Dec. 9-12.
In men’s, three time-Canadian champion Patrick Chan, 19, of Toronto is the solo skater making his third trip to the final. He was fifth in both 2008 and 2007. Chan, who trains Colorado Springs under Christy Krall and Lori Nichol, won gold and silver in Grand Prix events this year
In pair Kirsten Moore-Towers, 18, St. Catharines, Ont. and Dylan Moscovitch 26, Waterloo, Ont., make their first Grand Prix final appearance. They train with Kris Wirtz and Kristy Wirtz in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.
Olympic ice dancers Vanessa Crone, 20, of North York, Ont., and Paul Poirier, 19, of Unionville, Ont., got gold and silver at their assignments in Canada and the United States. It’s their second time in the final, for Crone and Poirier who are coached by Carol Lane, Jon Lane and Juris Razgulajevs in Scarborough, Ont.
Canadian ice dance bronze medalists Kaitlyn Weaver, 21, Waterloo/Houston, Tex., and Andrew Poje, 23, of Waterloo, won a silver medal at their first event in Japan and placed fourth at Skate America. They are coached by Pasquale Camerlengo, Shae-Lynn Bourne and Angelika Krylova in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
