Bernard will play for gold

Cheryl Bernard and her team defeated Switzerland in an expected way. It was not until the last stone was thrown that they secured their spot for the final. The Canadians curlers had some problems today but luckily for them, Switzerland team had some problems to. Both skips missed lot of opportunities, but the 2 last stones thrown were conclusive.

Bernard needed to sneak past a guard and remove one of two Swiss stones in the four-foot. As it left the skip's hand, both Bernard and O'Connor yelled for sweeping, screaming as loud as they have all week, somehow managing to be heard above the din of the crowd. The stone found its target and Ott couldn't duplicate the shot, hitting the Bernard stone but rolling from the rings to count just one and give Canada the game.

"It wasn't as stellar a game as we've all had all week," admitted Bernard, of the sloppy but satisfactory effort, "but we made the necessary shots when we needed to."

"There were some nerves going into that game, no kidding," said Bernard. "I think it was a little bit of the fear of having to play the bronze medal game, not so much the trying to win that game."

That may indicate the Calgary foursome is already satisfied, but nothing could be further from the truth. The team is hungry for one final win.

"I think maybe there's not so much pressure but we still have a job to do," said the skip. "You get this close and you probably want it even more."

They are going to play against Sweden, who defeadted China and Bernard’s team is definitely the underdog. The sweden team, lead by Anette Norberg won gold in the 2 last olympics. "We're definitely the underdog going in and that's understandable," said the Canadian skip. "That's OK, we're good with that."

Clara Hugues says goodbye with Bronze

It was her last laps on the speed skating world and she made it wonderful. With all the competition on that day, she managed to finish third, on the podium with a bunch of Kids. What a beautiful way to end a career that it’s quite spectacular. It was a sixth Olympic medal in 5 Olympics, first one in 1996 to summer game in Atlanta.

Clara is an impressive woman and got a heart of gold. What a great athlete she was!!! Her determination and compassion for other make her quite special. I will honor her career in an entry quite soon.

Silver in Short Track

On short track, 3000m relay, our ladies managed to get a silver medal. They finished third, good for a bronze, but the Koreans were disqualified so, they got a stop higher. Jessica Gregg, Marianne St-Gelais, Kalyna Roberge et Tania Vicent lead the team on the podium.

A first in bobsleigh

Canada had never won a medal on bobsleigh before, and, on Wednesday night, we won 2: gold and silver. Canada 1 led by Heather Moyse and Kaillie Humphries and Canada 2 led by Helen Upperton and Shelley-Ann Brown finished #1 and #2.

Cheryl Bernard

Some persons just got to us. We just don’t know why, but they do. During the Olympics, I’ve always had an athlete that becomes my Olympian Hero, and that’s what happened this year with the skip of the Canadian women curling team, Cheryl Bernard.

Frankly, on a year basis, I don’t watch curling very often, well, I don’t watch it at all BUT I follow it a little to know when the Olympic arrives, who are going to be our stars. I always love the under dogs, and on her case, there are lots to love. Not that she is an underdog now, but no one expected her to win the Olympic selection, and no one expected her team to lead the Olympic Pool that easily. They are now in semi-final and will play against Switzerland tomorrow.

Mrs. Bernard has been very impressive since the tournament started. Curling is a team effort, but there are reasons why she is the captain of this team and even if she is, what I call, a very beautiful woman, it’s not one of the reasons. She is well supported by her teammate, but her % of success is impressive. Some of the shoots she makes are unbelievable, her precision is astonishing, her focus is mind-boggling and her way to see the best strategy is quite efficient. And I also kinda like the fact that this woman is barely 5 foot 4 inches and is not twenty year old proving that an athlete can perform above 40.

Not sure she would like me to openly say that she is 43, but I guess with the last picture she made, she doesn’t care much about it. Not only she is beautiful, and a great athlete, but outside the ice, she is a gifted entrepreneur and owes her own company. She got it all!

All the pieces of the puzzle are in place to write history.

Joannie third after the short program

The competition is not over yet in figure skating, but Joannie Rochette made a her best performance of the season good for a third position. The whole world sympathized with what happened to Joannie and I am sure that lot people joined me and wish her the best for the last part of the competition held on Thursday evening. I hope she’ll ease her pain by winning a medal, whatever the color

Gold #6

Another great day of competition, Canada winning another gold medal, this one is in ski cross; Ashleigh Mcivor finished first and if the previous round was risky, she won this one by far. The conditions were rough but she made it. Congratulations!

There is no word to describe how beautiful they were last night, competing among the best, but showing they were without contest, the best! They were sublime, they were delicious, they were marvelous! No other reward than gold would have been accepted. If you got the chance, you got to watch that performance. It is not only history for Canada, but for the whole ice dancing world.

Joannie’s courage

It is without warning that Joannie Rochette’s mother was stroke by a heart attack. Her parents were coming to cheer for their daughter at the Olympics and they had just arrived in Vancouver. Her father told the news to Joannie early on Sunday morning.

It is with courage that Joannie wishes to still participate at the competition since it was a dream for both mother and daughter.

Our though goes with her and her family, and i am sure wherever she is, her mother will make sure that her dream comes true.

Virtue & Moir : Flawless

Ice dancing was always one of my favorite sport to look at. The skaters are always so beautiful and elegant. My favorite couple retired few years ago: Patrice Lauzon and Marie-france Dubreuil! To me, there were the greatest even thought, they didn’t have the chance to win an Olympic medal after Marie-France was injured. We are lucky to have them as analysts during the Olympics. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are absolutely wonderful. Young and beautiful, talented and so incredibly fascinating, they will be the best of this discipline for a long time.

Sunday night, they offer a flawless performance that put them ahead of the competition. The judges should have place them even higher, but we feel a little bit suspicion as they may have want to still give a chance to the Russian to win the gold medal. To night, it’s the free problem and I hope our channel will show more then just few competitors.

First double medalist: Kristina Grooves

For several, the long track skating was supposed to give us a lot of medal. We did get 3 since the beginning of the games, which is great if you asked me, but since I wasn’t ask, there are a lot of disappointment because some of our skaters didn’t do what they were expected to.

Kristina Grooves gave it all att he 1,500m, and there she is holding another medal, silver like this one. She was the leader all along, but at the very end, she missed the first position by so little: congratulations to Kristina, a great champion. A new discipline this year : ski cross, so very spectacular. We had a chance of Medal, but with all the pressure on the athlete shoulder, the gold only was accepted. Going for all or nothing, Christopher Delbosco lost control in a risky jump and fell so the hope for medal.

Saturday summary

n short track, we had hope for medals but effort was in vain. The Hamelin brothers made it to the final five, but finished 4 and 5. They started their run strongly, but lack of juice at the end. This strategy didn’t pay off and the Koreans benefited of it. On the woman side, Kalina Roberge wasn’t at her best; she ended up finished second in the little final, her final ranking being #10. But I want to congratulate Tania Vincent who made it to the final. At 34 years old, it’s her last Olympics. What she did was incredible, considering that she had a difficult surgery to a hip and come back anyway: An example of determination and courage. Important mention to our Canadian on the 30km pursuit: 3 of our athletes finished in the top 9. This is quite something. Ivan Babikov finished #5, Georges Gray #8 and Alex Harvey #9.

Gold #4

In Alpine Skiing, Erik Guay had another chance to go for a medal on the super G. He finished in fifth position. He was so close of the podium! In any case, this was a tremendous performance.

On the men side, on skeleton, Michael Douglas was disqualified because his equipment arrived 3 minutes late to the check up. He was a hope for a medal, but Jon Montgomery was in much better place to get one: before the last descent, he was second. The under dog went down there with no error at all and made a terrific run. It was up to Martin Dunkiers from Norway to keep his rank, and, the little mistake he did was too much and Jon gets the gold.

Shit happens....

I want to talk, I NEED talk about Mélissa Hollingsworth. Since she had won the bronze Medal on skeleton 4 years ago in Turin, this young lady was the Queen of her discipline. No need to say that with all the pressure put by Canada on our athletes, she needed to win the gold medal. On her last descent, it was almost certain that she was going to get the Silver, getting the gold being almost impossible because of the great performance of her rivale Amy Williams. But the worst happened, and she finished fifth.

The critics are hard with her and qualify this performance like disastrous. I would like to see them going down there and do better? I hope she will be able to keep her mind positive and strong and that her sponsors will stay behind her. She is the best, and, shit happens. And it happened to her today and it was not just her fault: How Canada possibly thought of finishing first on the medal run?

Another Gold for Canada

On speed skating, 1000m, Christine Nesbitt, the actual world champion, did as expected and won the gold medal for Canada, by ,02 seconds. It was only in the last 200m that we were sure she would make it. Congratulation to a great champion! Let’s also mention the great performance of Kristina Groves, a bronze medalist in Vancouver already, for her fourth position. She finished .06 seconds only behind the last place on the podium.Ladies Halfpipe in the snowboard competition, Mercedes Nicolls did great by finishing #6. The girls gave everything they had and we could see an apparent evolution from the last Olympics. Congratulations to Mercedes to be among the best.

In figure skating, on the men side, Patrick Chan didn’t made a podium as we all expected to, but, the 3 medalists did great. A fifth position is nothing to be shamed of.

There is not better gift...

On her twentieth birthday, Marianne St-Gelais offered not only to herself, but to all Canada, a silver medal on 500m in short track. Saguenay Lac-St-Jean is euphoric! She couldn't have ask for a better birthday present. Jessica Gregg finished #4 and Kalina Roberge, that we expected to win, still did good and finished #6. On alpine skiing, downhill, Britt Janyk made a terrific descent and finally finished #6. She was very excited and she had all the reasons to be proud of her as we expected another woman there. It was a first participation for her. Justine Lamoureux made it the final of the Halfpipe in Snowboard. He finally finished #7, but considering the very high level of competition there, including the American delegation lead by Shaun White, now, 2 times Olympic gold medalist, this 33 year old men can be proud.

Snowboard Cross – Maelle Ricker

She was home, she grew up there, but 31 years ago, when she was born, she had no idea that she would hold the gold medal in her hand. Congratulations to Maelle for this achievement in a sport that it’s quite spectacular! Who said athlete are too old when they turned 30?

JJ, where are you?

I was not able to watch the all match, but i am beginning to really ask myself where our good old JJ is? You know, the one that was winning because she was the most consistent of them all? We see glimpses here and there, and each time, we think : my, she is back!!! But no, it’s just to remind us that the great player is still inside here, but can only get out of hibernation for a short period of time before going back to sleep again. Please JJ, come back to us!!!

But she wasn’t the only one to lost in Dubai today.
Third Round action
Shahar Peer (ISR) d. (1) Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) 62 75
(Q) Regina Kulikova (RUS) d. (2) Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS) 57 76(2) 64
(3) Venus Williams (USA) d. Olga Govortsova (BLR) 75 60(4)
Victoria Azarenka d. (Q) Anna-Lena Groenefeld 61 46 63(12)
Vera Zvonareva (RUS) d. (6) Jelena Jankovic (SRB) 63 62(7)
Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) d. (10/WC) Flavia Pennetta (ITA) 63 60
(8) Li Na (CHN) d. (11) Marion Bartoli (FRA) 36 75 60
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS) d. Daniela Hantuchova (SVK) 63 64

The Canadians at the Olympic

One thing I like to do each 4 year, is to watch the winter Olympic and this year, it is held in our Country! The Canadian athletes are put under a lot of pressure: the sentence of the last past 4 years was; the Canadians, to finish first on the medal run on our own soil. It has been 3 days now that the competition is started and we are standing fourth.

But it doesn’t really matter at this point. I just want to highlight some of the best performances done by our athletes, and i will not forget those that didn’t won a medal, but performed really well.

My favorite Olympian, Clara Hughes, managed to finish fifth on the 3,000m speed skating, when everybody thought she couldn’t do better than a 10 position. It’s not over yet, and it is quite possible that she will win medal #6 on the 5000m, which will be wonderful, since it is on my birthday. I don't care about the color, i just think it would be great!

On biathlon, Jean-Philippe Le Guellec finished #6! What a performance!!! He was able to compete with the best and did his best performance in career. On the men’s downhill, Erik Guay finished only .33 seconds behind the gold medalist, Didier Defago, which allowed him to finish #5.

Our first medal was won by Jennifer Heil, on freestyle skiing - moguls -, who was so close to be the first Canadian athlete to win a gold medal on her own soil, but she was passed by the last contestant, Hannah Kearney, who did better then she ever did before. A silver will do great next to her gold medal won 4 ago, congratulations!!!

We then won a bronze medal, on speed skating 3,000m. Kristina Groove managed finishing third and here’s another medal to her 2 silver medals from the last Olympic.
Canada, and Québec, went totally crazy 2 nights ago, when we finally won our first gold medal. Alexandre Bilodeau, made an incredible performance on freestule skiing - Moguls - to win: a victory dedicated to his brother! His life is going to be changed forever. And Quebec is really proud of him.

Yesterday, we added another silver medal when Mike Robertson was finally passed by long time rival, and defending champion, the American Seth Wescott. The least we can say, Snowboard Cross is very far from being a boring sport to watch. Even if you don’t like sport, this is something you got to watch at least once in your life.

Fed Cup Week-end

World Group, 2010 - 1st Round
Ukraine v Italy 1 - 4
Details Czech Republic v Germany 3 - 2
Serbia v Russia 2 - 3
France v USA 1 - 4

There were lot of drama this weekend surrounding the fed cup. On the World Group, the defending champions, the Italian team, was facing Ukraine and a bunch of great players. Alona Bondarenko did give the Italians a scare on the first match beating Francesca Schiavone, but it didn’t last long because Flavia Pennetta took charge of the 2 next matches and gave the lead 2-1 to Italia beating and Kateryna and Alone Bondarenko. They finally won 4-1.

There was also no drama for USA since the won 4-1 against France, Parmentier winning the only match for the French team that already didn’t have much importance.

It wasn’t the same for the 4 other teams completing the World Group I. The Czech Republic had to wait for the double match to finally know that they would be the team advancing to the next round. Groenefeld effort, from Germany, who won her 2 single matches, the second one forcing a tie, was in vain.

There were also a lot of Drama in Serbia where, the double also decided who was going to advance. On the first day, Ana Ivanovic couldn’t give the momentum to her team and Kuznetsova didn’t have a lot to do to win. On the second match, when everything looked like Russia was going to take a lead of 2-0, Jelena Jankovic, finally found her tennis when she was lead 4-6, 1-4, facing an opponent that she had never beaten before, Alisa Kleybanova, and won 8 strait games to level the chance.

And she didn’t stop there, she played like we haven’t seen her play in a long time and gave the lead to the Serbian team beating Kuznetsova in a high quality match the day after. However, it wasn’t enough: Ana lost to Kleybanova and all the big name had “rendez-vous” to decide of a winner. Russia won !

Serena Williams - Australian Queen

I don't like the woman, but she sure is a great champion, and an incredible fighter. She could have won this on a wheel chair, so much her will to win is strong. If the first week was easy for the American, the second one wasn't a walk in the park but Justine Henin, who had proven to be back, was not enough to stop her. The belgian got a little bit nervous and it wasn't a gift Serena wasn't going to refuse, or used.

Congratulations to both the Champion and the finalist. Justine is back, and this is going to be hot on the tour this year...

Dinara injured

Dinara Safina retired in fourth round afflicted by the same terrible pain on her back that forced her to retire at the WTA championship in Doha. Kirilenko profited of this walk over, but it left us all very concerned for the tall Russian.

The Australian Open III

Before to falling to Justine, Kleybanova and Wickmayer did take with them important parts of the draw: The Russian deprived Australia of their adopted Queen, Jelena Dokic, she was just too strong. As for Wickmayer, Flavia Pennetta gave it all, but her touch and strategy wasn’t enough to stop the powerful strokes of the “qualified player”. Yes, Justine should have been a seeded player, but Wickmayer shouldn’t have played at all.

The Australien Open - Part II

When the tournament started, we had no idea that 2 Chinese girls would make it to the last 4: congratulations to Na Li and Jie Zheng for their incredible run.

Li defeated players like Agnes Szavay, Daniela Hantuchova, Caroline Wozniacki and Venus Williams while Zheng disposed of Martinez Sanchez (the only player that inflicted a double baggles to her opponent this tournament), Bartoli and finally ended the dream tournament of Kirilenko.