Canada declares war on Switzerland

[Drake Tungsten]

The phrase isn't "We're #3", is it?

It's going to have to be in Canada.

On a side note, it's really hard to find articles about these Olympics that aren't about a dead luger.

[Asher]

That's what I thought.

Again, it's no different than what was done before. Tucker Frederick is an idiot, it was done in Salt Lake. Specifically, Canada and the USA signed an actual agreement in 2002 because the US olympic teams needed access to Canadian training facilities earlier that year also (due to US construction delays).

Canada and the US then signed that agreement in 2002 to give Canadian athletes additional time to train at the facilities that other countries were not privy to. The problem is the Americans assumed we would just grant them extra training time at the facilities here "because they did it for us", but the problem is the only reason we got it in 2002 is they needed extra time at Canadian facilities for practice (particularly the Bobsleigh/Luge/Skeleton track in Calgary, and the Calgary Oval).

[Drake Tungsten]

As Host of Winter Olympics, Canada Acts More Like Guard

Count the American speedskater Catherine Raney among the athletes, coaches and officials of several sports surprised by Canada’s approach to hosting the Winter Games in February.

Raney, who spent more than seven years living in Canada and training with the Canadian national team, was told after the 2006 Olympics that the Canadians did not want foreign athletes training with them leading to the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

She and many other foreign athletes had expected to spend quite a bit of time practicing at the Olympic sites, but have been granted only minimal access.

“They’re playing nasty,” said Raney, now living and training in Utah. “I think every one of us would love to prove to them that what they did wasn’t right, and we’re ready to show it on the ice.”

Canadian officials said they were following rules of access to competition sites, as set by each sport’s governing body. But they also intend to protect the Olympic host’s home-field — or home-ice, home-snow or home-track — advantage.

Canada has made a public quest to win more medals than ever, and more than any other country.

“By virtue of being at home, you have more access to venues,” Cathy Priestner Allinger, the executive vice president for sports of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, said in her office this summer. “That’s the nature of it. There’s no country or organizing committee that would tell you otherwise, or that wouldn’t try to take advantage of some of that.”

The sometimes conflicting notions of sportsmanship and gamesmanship require a delicate balance. Some say Canada may have tilted too far.

A decades-old open-access agreement between the luge teams of the United States and Canada has come undone. Americans said that most Canadian athletes took 60 to 100 extra practice runs in Utah before the 2002 Salt Lake Games. Canada offered the United States 18 this time, in a trade for 18 Canadian runs at this year’s world championships in Lake Placid, N.Y. The Americans refused.

“I guess I can intellectually say I understand it,” said Ron Rossi, the executive director of USA Luge, upset that a gentlemen’s agreement dating to the 1980 Lake Placid Games has ended. “But as an honorable thing, I don’t support it, and I think it shows a lack of sportsmanship.”

Last winter, speedskaters from several countries were denied access to the Richmond Olympic Oval, Canadian officials said, because they did not make proper arrangements and because of a last-minute decision to shut the site to add lighting. A German team spent days waiting to be allowed in. Kevin Crockett, a Canadian Olympic medalist now coaching for China, was among those who went in, only to be escorted out. The conflict and confusion made headlines in Canada.

At the Whistler downhill course, unfamiliar to most of the world’s best skiers, several medal contenders were left watching over a fence as the Canadian team trained.

“Everybody was pushing to get on that downhill,” said Max Gartner, Alpine Canada’s chief athletic officer. “That’s an advantage we cannot give away.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/sports/21olympics.html

Luckily the lack of access didn't faze the Americans, who won the four-man bobsled today.

The lack of training probably sucks if you're a dead luger, though.

[Asher]

Here's another article. Note that there WAS no "decades-old" agreement about open access between Canada and the USA. That's bull****.

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/luge/news/newsid=11260.html

Luge federations spar over Whistler training time

VANCOUVER - A disagreement over training time at the Olympic sliding centre in Whistler, B.C., has frayed relations between the Canadian and U.S. luge associations and led one American official to warn Canada not to expect any favours leading up to future Winter Games.

"I've been in this position for 25 years and I won't forget,'' Ron Rossi, executive director of USA Luge, told The Canadian Press in an interview this week. "The U.S. will also be fortunate enough to have a Games at some point in the future.''

Tim Farstad, executive director of the Canadian Luge Association, called the dispute "different perspectives on the same situation.''

"They may be upset with us, I'm not sure,'' he said in a telephone interview from Calgary.

At issue is a handshake agreement USA Luge believed existed between the two associations.

Rossi said Canadian lugers were allowed 60 to 90 extra training runs on the sliding facility at Park City, Utah, in the years leading up to the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Rossi believed American lugers would be given similar training time if Canada was awarded a Winter Olympics.

Farstad said in the year before the Salt Lake Games, the luge world championships were held in Calgary.

"We made a specific agreement around that time frame because sliding on the Olympic track was important to us and sliding on our track in Calgary was important to them,'' he said.

Last winter, Rossi approached the Canadian Luge Association in hopes of being granted additional training dates on the Whistler track in advance of the 2010 Winter Games.

"My goal wasn't to duplicate 60 to 90 runs,'' he said. "My goal was to try and get two training weeks.

"After some very difficult discussions, we received a response back that you could have 18 runs.''

Farstad said the Americans wanted six extra weeks of training.

"They gave us a list of six different weeks of training,'' he said. "They might have come down to two, but in the beginning they said six and we offered one. We thought that was fair. We wouldn't give any other country that possibility.

"The only reason we even talk to the U.S. is because they've done it for us and we've done it for them. We kind of switch back and forth when we can and help each other because the European teams are so strong. We thought it was fair and equitable but they didn't seem to think so.''

Rossi denies asking for six weeks.

"There was never an expectation that we would receive six weeks of training time,'' he said in an e-mail. "We want fairness, but such a request would have been counter to that principle, so I can assure you it was never made.''

This isn't the first time Canadian sports federations have been accused of being overzealous in guarding their home-field advantage for the 2010 Games by restricting assess to Olympic venues.

Last March it was reported long-track speedskaters from outside Canada were being denied training time at the Richmond Olympic Oval.

At the time officials with Speed Skating Canada rejected any suggestion anyone was being treated unfairly. They said some of the teams had not followed proper protocol in booking time. Others were denied access because there was work being done in the building.

The Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee, known as VANOC, spent $580 million building or upgrading venues for the Feb. 12-28 Games. All were open at least one year in advance to give Canadian athletes time to practise in the facilities.

Between January and the end of March, seven World Cup events - including a luge race - were staged at Olympic venues in Vancouver and Whistler.

Each sports federation sets rules for international competition and practice time in Olympic venues prior to the Games. VANOC officials say in some cases, Canada has exceeded what is required.

The new track at the Whistler Sliding Centre - home to bobsled, luge and skeleton - is so fast and technical, extra training weeks were added.

VANOC officials did not want to comment directly on the disagreement between the two luge federations.

Farstad said during the initial luge testing for the track, the Canadian association told the Americans to bring a full team. Other countries were allowed just one or two sleds.

Rossi was a luge racer from 1978 to 1984. His wife was a member of Canada's luge team at the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Rossi said a "unique relationship has existed for 30 years'' between the Canadian and U.S. luge associations, which "Canada has decided to ignore.'' He doubts there is much chance the U.S. will be granted any extra training time between now and when the track is closed for the Games on Jan. 1.

"Perhaps if I can somehow talk to the right person within Canada, and appeal to them on a level of just good sportsmanship and fairness, then maybe,'' he said.

"But I don't think so at this point.''

Farstad isn't worried the disagreement will result in future ramifications from Luge USA.

"We don't have a chill,'' he said. "I thought we offered a very fair and equitable agreement. They wanted more and we just said we couldn't do it.

"I don't think anything has really changed on our side. I can't speak for them.''

[Asher]

The lack of training probably sucks if you're a dead luger, though.

This logic bugs the ****ing hell out of me.

First of all, the dead luger DIED ON A TRAINING RUN. How does additional training runs help prevent this?
Second of all, the dead luger DID NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL OF THE TRAINING RUNS OFFERED TO HIM.

[Drake Tungsten]

Note that there WAS no "decades-old" agreement about open access between Canada and the USA. That's bull****.

Ron Rossi seems to disagree with you.

Anyway, I hope you guys are happy with your third place finish. It's a shame that, since '88, Canada has become more concerned with winning a few more medals rather than putting on a quality Olympics, but it is what it is.

[Asher]

Ron Rossi seems to disagree with you.

Ron Rossi is a liar. He first claims it was an agreement, then it was a gentleman's agreement, then it was simply "tradition". The guy lied in his first interview last year and increasingly squirmed on the comment instead of manning up that he lied.

Typical American, really.

What's also amusing here is that the Americans were asking for an exemption and extra time not afforded to other teams. They wanted a competitive edge, and were not playing fair.

[Drake Tungsten]

The real irony is that no one is even going to remember who won the medal count at this Olympics in a few years. They would, however, remember a quality Olympics run in the proper spirit and filled with memorable moments. Canada didn't even finish in the top 10 in the medal count in Calgary (I had to look it up; U.S. finished 9th), but Calgary will always be thought of as a superior Olympics to Vancouver.

Calgary = Jamaican bobsled team, Eddie the Eagle, Battle of the Brians

Vancouver = one dead luger, Canada treating their neighbors like **** to finish third in a meaningless medal count, Cheryl Bernard

[Asher]

To be fair, Vancouver can never beat Calgary at anything.

[Drake Tungsten]

Like it or not, Vancouver is representing your whole country at the moment.

[Asher]

13 Golds, tied the all-time Olympic record for golds.

If Team Canada wins tomorrow in hockey, that's a new record...

[Ecofarm]

"All-time record for gold" is meaningless. They give more medals these days.

Anyway... It was bad enough when Canada killed that luger, when they killed that skater's mother they really crossed the line.

[Asher]

Still means something if no one else has done it.

[Ecofarm]

Not really. Any of the Gold leaders back in the day could have got more if more medals were available.

Try % of golds given. That stat would have some meaning.

[Asher]

Why don't you go figure that out for us.

Considering no events were added this year, I do consider it to mean something.