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Olympic hopefuls

After four years of speculation and suspense, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky finally released the names of Team Canada for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

After four years of speculation and suspense, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky finally released the names of Team Canada for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. All the hockey pundits out there, some 30 million of us, would agree that it’s a doozy – power and speed, youth and experience, the whole package. You can argue that one player or another should have made the team, but overall everybody’s happy.

Although we are still smarting as a nation after the last overtime shootout against the Czech Republic (in which we all agree that Gretzky should have taken the last shot instead of Lindros) we are ready to believe again.

But while men’s hockey hogs the Olympic spotlight, there are dozens of other sports where Canada is a surefire medal contender, from speed skating to curling to freestyle skiing to alpine skiing to bobsled to women’s hockey and snowboarding. All our "other" winter athletes combined probably won’t get half as much time in the spotlight as our hockey team, and it’s a shame – we may take pride in their medals after the fact, but on the whole we don’t pay any notice to the long roads they took to get there.

It’s time to scout out the rest of our medal hopefuls in and their prospects at the 29 th Winter Games.

www.canski.org

This is the official Web site of Alpine Canada Alpin (ACA), the governing body for high performance alpine ski racing in the country. There are news items from races, news items from the organization, bios of members of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team (CAST for short) and national development teams, and event calendars and previews. Some 10 Canadian Alpine skiers have already qualified for the Olympics, and a handful of others – including Whistler’s Britt Janyk – are very close.

www.freestyleski.com

While they may not get the attention they deserve year in and year out, our freestyle athletes are poised once again to land on the podium. We have traditionally had one of the most successful programs in the world, producing world champions and contenders by the gondola load. This year’s team should include all of our top veterans, such as former Olympic gold medalist Jean-Luc Brassard and four-time world champion Nicolas Fontaine, but also a wealth of up and coming talent.

The range of content is similar to what’s available on the ACA site.

www.csf.ca

The Canadian Snowboard Federation has more energy and influence since the last Olympics, when the American-based International Snowboard Federation and European-based Federation Internationale de Ski divided the athletes into two camps.

Thanks to the gold medal performance of Whistler’s own Ross Rebagliati at the previous Olympics, the Canadian government has at last recognized the importance of supporting snowboard athletes, through funding and the provision of coaches and facilities – it’s not enough, of course, but it’s a start.

Although anything can happen at the Olympics, Canada boasts a number of strong contenders in both the halfpipe and parallel giant slalom events. You can find out who they are on this Web site.

www.canoe.ca/2002Games/home.html

While it’s technically possible to keep track of all our athletes, Canoe has been running a news digest on all of the winter sports – from figure skating to cross country skiing – as a kind of preview to the Olympics. This section also features news items related to the Olympics, archives of stories, and links to other Olympic sites.

www.cbc.ca/sports/

We can only hope that the CBC technicians strike will be settled before the Olympics, or we could be in for some of the worst coverage imaginable. Whatever happens though, their coverage of Olympic sports in Canada is tough to beat.

www.coa.ca

This is the official site of the Canadian Olympic Association, a body that organizes programs and assistance for our Olympians, and represents Canada to the International Olympic Committee. The COA also co-ordinates media coverage in co-operation with various national sports associations and federations.

Their preview section on the 2002 Winter Games is a good way to get acquainted with our athletes.

The site also posts a list of qualified athletes.

www.slc2002.org

This is the official Web site of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, and a good place to go to get a handle on the competition, and to follow all the action of the Games and Paralympics.

The information on this site is unbelievable. Under the section for men’s and women’s hockey, there are more than 20 feature stories, comparisons between the NHL and Olympic hockey, team rosters, a history of Olympic hockey, rule books to help you sort out the Olympic format and penalty system, a glossary, and numerous athlete bios. I spent about an hour at this site, and could have spent a day.

While the hockey section is huge, the sections for the other 14 Olympic sports are equally as impressive.

And get this – the focus isn’t on American athletes, but on the top contenders within each sport.