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.

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?

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.