Oops She Did It Again

Lindsey Jacobellis must be the unluckiest Olympian there is.

Four years ago in Torino she was leading by a country mile but decided to do a grab off the last jump within sight of the gold.



This year having won everything in between she crashed through one of the control gates in the semi-final and ended up having to content herself with winning the B-Final for 5th place overall.

Meanwhile the main event saw more Canadian gold as Maelle Ricker who lives in Vancouver won not just on home soil, but her home mountain. As with the men it was the junior French team member who was here for 'experience' who experienced silver in Deborah Anthonioz. World champion Helene Olafsen of Norway and Switzerland's Olivia Nobs crashed out half way down.

What a Finish

Yesterday in the men's Boarder Cross final the Canadian's thought they were on to a another gold. Most of the way down the track Mike Robertson (red bib) had been in the lead. Defending champion Seth Westcott (black bib) had a poor start away from the gate. Indeed at the turn that had been the unseating of many through the rounds he was lying in fourth spot of the four.

But his compatriot Nate Holland fell leaving room for the unexpected French finalist Tony Ramoin who had never podiumed at any event sitting in silver. But the experience of Westcott showed as he carried speed through the technical end to the Whistler course, overtaking first Romoin and then on the last corner overhauling the Canadian. As you can see from the picture above over the last jump it was still close but a perfect landing saw Westcott take the gold once again and Canada had to settle for a silver.

It was better than they fared in the men's downhill where Eric Guay coming in fifth. But American Bode Miller attacked the top of the course to become an early leader, but he was later edged out by edged our Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal by 0.02 of a second. But the cowbells were soon ringing in force as Swiss Didier Defago took another seven hundredths out of that lead for gold.

Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo had a very happy start to the Chinese year of the tiger lifting gold in the figure skating pairs, fellow Chinese pair Pang Qing and Tong Jian took silver and Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy the bronze.

The Search for Canadian Gold is Over #Vancouver2010

Alexandre Bilodeau is the name that will go down in Canadian sporting folklore. After two full Olympic games on home soil he is the man who has broken the golden drought, every Valentine's Day he is bound to be remembered.

Having just missed out in the female moguls on Saturday with Jennifer Heil only taking the silver, Sunday saw Bilodeau succeed in the men's event. He finished ahead of the Canadian born Australian defending champion Dale Begg-Smith with American Bryon Wilson in third. Bilodeau and Wilson were the only finalists to attempt a double twisting back-flip off the top kicker.

But after a nervous wait while Frenchman came down the run last but sixth the Canadian dream of gold was finally over.

There was almost a shock for Canada earlier on the day in the men's biathlon sprint over 10km. At one of the standing shooting time check Jean Philippe Leguellec reached it first, but had to take a penalty loop for missing one of the targets. As it was there was a surprise when Vincent Jay of France took gold after a clean 10 targets. Wind and snow affected many of the favourites as only Jay and bronze medalist Jakov Fak of Croatia having a clear shoot. Briton Lee Jackson came in 55th good enough to qualify for the pursuit event later in the competition.

The women's 3000m speed skating saw another Canadian Kristina Groves podium for bronze. But she, German Stephanie Beckert and the rest of the field had no answer to world number one Czech Martina Sablikova, who was over 2 secs clear of the field to join that bunch of her famous compatriots and name-sakes at the top of women's sports.

Elsewhere

The completion of the emotional men's luge competition saw a changing of the guard. Defending champion from Italy Armin Zoeggeler winner of the last three golds could only claim the bronze behind a German one-two but even David Moeller could do nothing to hang on to his younger compatriot Alex Loch. Brit A.J. Rosen sadly dropped a place on the last run having picked his way up to 15th earlier in the day, thus failing to equal Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson's (Tara's uncle) performance in Lake Placid in 1980.

The Nordic combined the event that combines ski jumping with cross country skiing led to an exciting climax at the end of the 10km second element. Johnny Spillane of the USA who took America's first medal in the Nordic combined was leading heading to the line but was out sprinted to the line by Jason Lamy Chappuis, taking France's second Nordic gold in two hours.

The figure skating also got underway with the Pairs short programme. Chinese Xue Shen & Hongbo Zhou ended Chinese New Year in top spot, ahead of Alona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy of Germany and Yuko Kavaguti & Alexander Smirnov of Russia. The leading three had a bit of a gap over the other two Chinese pairs lying in 4th and 5th. Britains representatives Stacey Kemp & David King lie in 16th place overnight before the free programme on Monday.

Women Can't Jump - Need for Gender Balance

From the London Olympic Games when women's boxing is included in the Olympic programme only one sport will not have male and female competitors at either the Summer or Winter Olympiads. That event was the first to award medals today in Vancouver.

While Switzerland's Simon Amman won the first gold of the Games apparently women can't jump, that is ski jump, at least not yet at these Games. There are 100 women* from 18 countries prepared to hurl themselves off the end of the ramp into the air at elite level, not one of them will be seen doing so in Vancouver this fortnight.

Last summer the women tried to take Vanoc (the organising committee) to court through the Canadian civil law for inclusion on equality grounds. They said their exclusion violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Judge agreed that their case was discriminatory but couldn't be fought through Canadian courts, but also said Vanoc were right that only the IOC (International Olympic Committee) had authority to decide on sports inclusions. She said:

"The IOC made a decision that discriminates against the plaintiffs. Only the IOC can alleviate that discrimination by including an Olympic ski jumping event for women in the 2010 Games."

Canadian ski jumper Katie Willis said, "It's awful that we lost, but I'm glad we tried." Both Wills and world champion Lindsey Van had previously requested a meeting with Jacques Rogge the IOC President before the court case to argue their case, but the meeting never came to fruition.

There are only five competitive days of Ski jumping on the hills plus three for the Nordic combined. Therefore there is no technical reason why a women's even could not be fitted into the schedule, the women are appealing to Rogge for inclusion in 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

Maybe we should get Jo Swinson on their case.

* I have it on good authority none of the 100 is my good friend Caron.

Citius, Altius, Fortius, de Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum

RIP Nodar Kumaritashvili 1988-2010

Competitors have said that the Bobsleigh track at Whistler for the Olympics is incredibly fast. In fact it has long had a reputation as the fastest track in the world.

However, there have been a number of crashes in practise and as the Games prepare to officially open we are reminded of just how dangerous these sports can be. Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled on his sixth and final practise run, crashed on the final turn, came off his sled at at 90mph (144.3km/h) and hit a unpadded pole near the finish. He was pronounced dead later at hospital.

Josef Fendt, the president of the World Luge Federation said:

"The track is too fast. We have planned it for a maximum speed of 137 kph but it is almost 20kph faster. We think this is planning mistake.''

One of the things that the Canadians have been criticised for prior to these games is lack of access to the venues of visiting teams. While this policy is within the letter of the rules it has drawn criticism from many of the other nations. In Sunday's Observer Sport Monthly the following startling statistic was mentioned which in light of today's events takes on new significance. Ahead of the 2002 Salt Lake Games the US offered 90 practice runs to the Canadian luge team, this year the reciprocal deal is just 18.

British silver medalist in Turin 2006 in the skeleton Shelley Rudman said:

"The reality is, it's a different track, I haven't had that many runs there. The Canadians have had a phenomenal amount of runs there and they are very strong at the moment."

According to a team official the British team have had just 10% of the practise time on the track of the host team. Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg said after losing control on Thursday:

"I think they are pushing it a little too much. To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we're crash-test dummies? I mean, this is our lives."

The rest of the Georgian team have said that they will compete Nikolos Rurua, the country's Minister for Culture and Sport said the national team had "decided to be loyal to the spirit of the Olympic Games" adding that the athletes will "dedicate their performances to their fallen comrade".

Kumaritashvili joins the ranks of Australian skier Ross Milne and British luger Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski who both died in training crashed in Innsbruk in 1964, and Swiss short-track speed skier Nicolas Bochatay who was killed in practice for the then demonstration event in Albertville 1992.

As my title says combining the Olympic motto "Swifter, higher, stronger" added on to a Horace quote "of the dead say nothing but good". For poor Nador and his family my thoughts and prayers, for the Olympic movement look at the future and the safety of the athletes, look at the rules to access to venues for visiting athletes and see if that rule can be changed that would be a lasting tribute to this young man whose life was tragically cut short in his prime.

Update 01:51: The luge event was planned to go ahead on Saturday and the latest news is that this is still the intention.

Update 2: According to BBC correspondent Ollie Williams' tweet.

Olympic luge track reopened. Training resumes later on Saturday but with higher wall where Georgian luger died and "change in ice profile"

Update 3: The men's event is scheduled to go ahead later on Saturday as planned. The men will use the women's start 200m further down the track which will reduce speed. The walls at the exit of turn 16, where Kumaritashvili crashed have also been raised as a precaution.

The men were offered two addition training runs this morning. 36 of the remaining competitors took to the track, of the 3 who didn't one was Levan Gureshidze, the Georgian team mate of Kumaritashvili. The three may still take part in the event which starts are 0100 GMT.

The 'Unluck' for Irish Sport May Continue

The luck of the Irish appears in somewhat short supply for the quadrennial events that are happening in 2010.

First we had the hand of Gaul which lead to the late goal that denied Ireland from going to Johannesburg for FIFA's World Cup. While the Swedish Referee Martin Hannson who failed to see Thierry Henry palming the ball twice to get it to his team mate William Gallas from that winning 'goal' will be on a South African bound flight.

Now the Irish women's Bobsleigh team who are in Vancouver waiting and expecting to compete in the 2 woman event are now waiting to hear what the IOC decide on their fate. There are twenty women's pairs competing at the Olympics and Ireland duo, Aoife Hoey and Claire Bergin, are ranked 20th in the World, but the Australian team, Astrid Loch-Wilkinson and Cecilia McIntosh, went to the Court of Arbitration in Sport (Cas) to point out that the governing body, International Bobsleigh & Tobogganing Federation (FIBT), failed to properly apply its regional qualification system by omitting a team from Oceania.

Yesterday Cas said FIBT had wrongly applied the criteria by saying that Ireland rather than Australia had qualified. However, they also 'strongly recommended' the inclusion of the Irish bob. That decision however now is in the hands (pardon the pun) of the International Olympic Committee and the local organisers Vanoc.

The Statement from Cas reads:

"The Cas panel found the clear wording of the qualification system implemented by the FIBT reflected the intention of representation by one men's bob team and one women's bob team from non-represented continents and could not be interpreted otherwise than as formulated.

"Accordingly, the application of the AOC (Australian Olympic Committee) was granted and the FIBT was ordered to allocate a continental representation quota place to the AOC for participation of the pilot Astrid Loch-Wilkinson in the two-man women's bob event in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

"Nevertheless, considering the situation of the Irish athletes, who expected legitimately to be entitled to participate in the Olympic Winter Games 2010 after their entry had been validated by the FIBT and the IOC, the Cas Panel has recommended to the IOC and Vanoc the inclusion of a 21st team in the women's bobsleigh event which is scheduled for 23 February 2010."