What a great day! Our hotel has a great gym so I got a workout in this morning, and then went to lunch at the Four Seasons with 15 of Canada's top CEOs (friends of Bell and CTV's). They managed to find some spare tickets for the festivities this evening so my Mom and I got to watch the swimming live at Olympic Park. Phelps was amazing, as usual, winning his 21st Olympic medal, and I was particularly impressed with the DJ in the aquatics centre, who played one of my favorite tunes -Gold Dust- upon the completion of the women's 800m race, and then a bunch of dubstep. We finished the evening off at a beautiful boutique hotel on Kensington, all while getting insanely frustrated about the crappy internet and not wanting to use my data on my phone, and eventually storming off to a corner store to buy a SIM card that works in the UK. I now fully realize my dependance on my text messaging abilities, twitter, & everything else that connects me to the people I love!
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Wow! Sensory overload!
My lovely mother, Marilyn, and I flew out at 6:30pm and I slept the whole way. Like 8 hours, I think. When we landed at 11am, I felt great and by the time we got to our hotel on the tube I was already feeling like I had adjusted to the time zone. Unfortunately, as it turns out, while we were deciphering the London Underground maps and figuring out how to buy our Oyster Cards that grant us access to the Tube - we were missing Prince Harry's visit to Canada Olympic House. Lucky for me, I've already found my prince charming, so I was only moderately disappointed. My Mom, on the other hand... not so moderate. Walking around London is breathtaking, but needless to say, a bit of a change of pace from the shores of Nitinat Lake, BC. The history of the palaces and cathedrals and other spectacular buildings is so intriguing and the intricacies of the designs and construction are unbelievable. I honestly don't really feel like we're in the midst of the Olympic Games when we aren't right at the venues. It's not like Vancouver's city-wide buzz, with people showing their Nations' colours in their clothing, on signs, and even painted on their faces. I said in my interview with the Mike and Tare Show on Vancouver's QMFM today that, during our Games, I seriously felt like everyone in the whole city was partying except for me. Not here, really. In fairness, maybe it's too early for me to be forming that opinion. I'll try to get more into the scene in the next few days. I can say for sure, that it is really, really nice to be a part of the Olympics without the pressure of competing. I did a really good job of convincing myself that I wasn't under any pressure during our Games but looking back on it, I realize just how much work that required. Even hearing the Olympic song on CTV as I was packing for this trip, I got all stressed out momentarily. And then I remembered "it's okay, not this time, your Olympic work is done" ... for a little while. Sochi sure is coming up quickly though! I spent the beginning of this week camping at Nitinat Lake on Vancouver Island. No cell service, no internet, no power or running water. It was amazing. I tried kiteboarding for my first time and learned that it is something I could seriously become obsessed with. Nitinat used to be a windsurfing mecca but as the sport lost popularity, the lake didn't see much action for a while. Now that everybody's switching to kiteboarding, the temporarily-sleepy campground is again bustling. We arrived on Sunday morning after spending a night at a lovely little spot along the river between Lake Cowichan and Nitinat, only to find that there was not one single flat spot to put a tent along the whole beach. It was packed. Even venturing off deep into the woods, we would have had to do some serious brushing to find the ground, as the scrub brush is as thick as West Coast rainforest gets.
By about 6pm, most of the spots had freed up - the weekend warriors had gone home! We set up a perfect base camp with a few of our friends and settled in for a few days of well deserved rest and recovery after a long, hard training camp in Whistler with my team. The problem I have is actually resting and recovering. I did pretty well, for the most part, only kiteboarding one afternoon. But... it being my first time, I did have one gnarly crash... I got picked up and slammed down on my face, after catching the toe edge of my board. It's insane how much power can be generated from those big kites. And it made me remember why I quit wakeboarding years ago... those toe-edge bails are so brutal! Whiplash. Our crew finished the trip off with a quick little jaunt down the side of a ravine to one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen. We swam into the emerald green pool it lands in and crawled up the rocks behind it. I'm pretty sure everybody in our group found this to be an incredibly peaceful, holistic, even spiritual experience, really feeling 'at one with nature'. Turns out I'm totally freaked out of this kind of thing. I should have known from my super scary underground, underwater tunnel experience in Jamaica last winter. But the other day, I was pretty much in full panic mode by the time I got into the ice cold splash zone behind the main force of the falls. I clutched to my man and eventually managed to calm down, but as everybody dove back out through the falls, I couldn't stop envisioning getting pushed to the bottom of the seemingly bottomless pool in the impact zone and started panicking again. Ha! I'm such a wimp! I just can't handle water in my eyes and my mouth, especially ice cold water causing brain freeze! It still blows me away that there are waterfalls like the one we got to experience scattered all around our beautiful province of British Columbia with barely a beaten path to them. We caught an evening ferry back to the mainland on Tuesday night, drove up to Whistler to welcome a few hundred lawyers to their Whistler conference the next morning, and were back on the road to Vancouver by 10am Wednesday to pack for London.
I had a great time in the Vancouver Triathlon with my relay team taking the win. Brent McMahon won the swim, and Paula Findlay's Mom ran for us!
Now I'm back in Whistler training hard with the entire Canada Ski Cross Team, getting ready to ski at Mt. Hood in August, after I spend 10 days in London helping out at Canada House August 2-12th. My knee is feeling good! Our training camp has been very intense so far. Today was a bit of a rest day after 3 1/2hrs in the gym yesterday, into hill sprints on our bikes. We did a bunch of speed and agility drills this morning and then went to the pump track! My first pump track sesh. Check out the video... Mir, McIvor set sights on future Reuben Villagracia Friday, June 15, 2012 - 08:00 in MMA fighter Frank Mir and Canadian Olympic ski cross gold medallist Ashleigh McIvor were in Thunder Bay on Thursday. Frank Mir is already plotting for life beyond the Ultimate Fighting Championship cage. So too is Canadian ski cross racer Ashleigh McIvor, who hungers for one last shot at Olympic glory. Despite differences in their athletic backgrounds, Mir and McIvor — this year’s guests at the Thunder Bay Sports Celebrity Dinner held Thursday at the Valhalla Inn — have more in common than one thinks. “I’ll tell stories from sport and my Olympic experience,” said the 28-year-old Whistler, B.C., native. “Inspirational stories are a lot of things people can relate to in what we do in sport. Sport is a metaphor for life in general.” McIvor, who won gold in women’s skicross at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, admits she isn’t the world’s biggest mixed martial arts fan, but knows Mir has gone through the same sacrifices to climb the top of his world. “The mental aspects,” McIvor said. “Just how to prepare, how to remain calm, how to utilize all of your skill set.” For the 33-year-old Mir, Thursday’s trip to Canada is part of some healing and regrouping time. The former UFC world heavyweight champion and Las Vegas native is coming off a TKO loss to Junior dos Santos in a title fight on May 25. Even though he plans to continue fighting, the outspoken Mir has already been trading his shorts and gloves for a suit cageside. “I like analyzing fights and I like doing colour commentating,” Mir said. “It’s an opportunity I would take advantage of when I run into it. Hopefully it’s something I can do full time.” A possible foray into professional wrestling isn’t out of the question either. “Not opposed to the idea,” Mir said. “I can’t do a back flip or anything.” Landing a UFC star was something new for celebrity dinner co-organizer Dave Ferguson, whose event raised money for the Thunder Bay Boys and Girls Club. “We try to mix it up. It worked out great,” said Ferguson. “When I first contacted the agent and booked Frank, he didn’t have the title fight (against dos Santos) yet. (Alastair) Overeem tested positive and our guy was in and I was like, ‘Great!’” Mir joked his travels take him to so many cities that he loses track of where he is — but he doesn’t let that affect how is speeches turn out at these dinners. “I pretty much just shoot from the hip. It used to drive my wife nuts, but now she knows I just go with the flow,” said Mir, who has fought Tank Abbott, Brock Lesnar and Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera during his 11-year UFC career — the longest current run in his weight class. “It’s just like fighting. You walk in there and you can only plan so much, but once the bell rings it just kind of happens. You’ve got to know what you’re doing.” McIvor knows that she’s on the long road to return to the Olympics. A torn ligament in McIvor’s knee cut her season short. She’s still on the recovery trail; she even received a scope just three weeks ago. “The plan is to get back on the snow in mid-August . . . and then be good to go for this season, hopefully get a good result at world championships and then be set up for another good result at the Olympics,” said McIvor, whose family owns a cabin near Kenora and her boyfriend has property on she calls the “other side of Lake Superior.” “(Thunder Bay) kind of feels familiar,” she added. McIvor does promise one thing: An appearance at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia will be her last hurrah as an amateur. “That will be it. If you see me competing after 2014, track me down and say, ‘Hey! That’s it. You’re done!’” she stressed with a smile. “I love racing. I love ski cross. There’s more to life than sport. Sport is my life right now, but there’s more to life than sport.” During Thursday’s dinner, Dr. George Gwozdecky was named the recipient of the Chris Ferguson Sr. Memorial Award for his service as a Thunder Bay sports builder. Gwozdecky, the father of University of Denver men’s hockey head coach George Jr., was director and doctor of sports organizations in soccer, tennis, hockey, football, running and water skiing. Dr. Gwozdecky, who was inducted into the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1988, is a member of the Canadian Council of Sports Medicine and was the Chief Medical Officer for Team Canada at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. The Province>Blogs >SportsSports RSS Feed June 1, 2012. 11:51 am • Posted by: Terry Bell Canada named it’s 2012-13 ski cross team Friday. It’s a formidable group. There are four men and four women, all of them already medal winners on the World Cup circuit. Whistler’s Ashleigh McIvor, the 2010 Olympic champion and Kelowna’s Kelsey Serwa, the reigning world champion, are both hoping to come back from injury. Whistler’s Marielle Thompson, only 19, will be out to defend the Crystal Globe she won as the overall World Cup leader last year. Calgary’s Danielle Poleschuk, who is returning after missing last season due injuries. The men’s team consists of reigning X Games and world champion Chris Del Bosco of Montreal and Calgary’s Brady Leman, who placed second in the overall World Cup standings last season. Dave Duncan of London, Ont., hit the podium twice last year. In his first whole season on the World Cup circuit, 22-year-old Tristan Tafel of Canmore, Alta., got his first victory. “We have very strong programs on both the men’s and women’s side and we have set some big goals for the coming season,” Alpine Canada director of sport for ski cross Dave Ellis said in a release. “We want to remain No. 1 in the world and will be gunning for a men’s or women’s overall title again.” Canada has won the Nations Cup as the overall circuit’s top team four straight years. Defending that title is important, but there are other fish to fry this season. “It’s a world championship year and we will be going for more podiums there,” Ellis said. “We are also into the Olympic qualification cycle so the pressure starts to build from here. When Ashleigh returns we will have three world champions and eight athletes who have had World Cup podiums. We’re looking forward to having everyone back.” Naming the men’s team wasn’t easy. Toronto’s Nik Zoricic died after a crash at a World Cup race in Grindelwald, Switzerland, last March. ”It’s been tough naming an all-star team without the inclusion of a great friend and teammate to us all, Nik Zoricic,” Ellis said. “Nik will be dearly missed on the circuit but he will live on with us all in spirit as we continue to push forward in the quest for podiums.” Three members of the 2011-12 team have retired – Julia Murray and Davey Barr of Whistler and Quesnel’s Brian Bennett. Stan Ray, another Whistler skier has decided to take up freeskiing. But the pipeline continues to flow. Former World Cup alpine racer Louis-Pierre Helie of Berthierville, Que., will do ski cross this year and will start the season with the team’s prospect training group. That squad includes West Vancouver’s Georgia Simmerling, another ex-alpine racer who made two World Cup ski cross starts last year and 2012 NorAm champions Ian Deans of Kelowna and Mariannick Therer of Saint Sauveur, Que. Eric Archer returns as head coach. |
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