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Race week at Whistler — Olympic legacies not just bricks and mortar

"To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind and can find the way to Enlightenment, all wisdom and virtue will come to him.
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"To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind and can find the way to Enlightenment, all wisdom and virtue will come to him."

- Buddha

Obscure. Almost esoteric. Fringe sport at best. I mean, really. Skinny skiers with guns on their backs chasing each other along the Callaghan's steep mountain tracks? Going from a heart-thumping 200 beats per minute to lying on the ground, calmly focusing their efforts on hitting five ridiculously tiny targets that seem a football field away? And then getting back up and sprinting again. Absurd, right?

Of course it is. But no more than the sight of those daring young men and women in their form-fitting lycra suits careening down Whistler Mountain's newest FIS downhill. Finely-tuned speed-hounds chasing hundredths of a second on high-tech boards that function best at speeds most people don't even reach when driving on the highway. Now that's crazy.

And inspiring. And exciting. And really what hosting the Olympics was all about. Three years after the International Olympic Committee bid farewell to the Sea to Sky, Canadian athletes are finally getting to compete on the legacies that were created in the mega-event's wake. The Nordic Festival, the Canadian Alpine Skiing Championships — these races are all being contested in top-calibre venues that exist only because of the Games. And it's having a distinct impact on snowsports' next generation.

But it's more than that. Regardless of what the mainstream media has to tell us about today's youth — about its indolence and passivity and incipient obesity — there's an under-reported counter-force among this cohort that's pushing kids to test performance boundaries like never before. Passionate, disciplined, hard-working and impeccably prepared, Canada's new generation of high performance athletes reveal a diverse palette of backgrounds and cultural histories. But they and their families all share one thing — a rare commitment to the idea of delayed gratification. Of making sacrifices to attain a bigger reward. Biathlon or alpine — it really doesn't matter in the end. It's all about, as the Buddha says, "disciplining and controlling one's own mind." And the last two weeks at Whistler have provided something of a showcase for that way of life.

Full Disclosure: unlike my esteemed colleague, Pique's Sage On The Back Page GD Maxwell, I harbour a certain weakness for high performance sports and kids striving for excellence. Blame it on my upbringing. My Olympian father was a fervent believer in the "healthy mind in healthy body" maxim and turned it into something of a religion for his four sons. Who then, if inadvertently, imparted it to their own progeny. The clan's latest sports star, Prince George's Sarah Beaudry, recently finished an astonishing fifth in her age class (under-19) at the World Biathlon Championships this past January.

We've heard a lot of complaints in recent years about the profligacy of the Games and the crushing costs of maintaining the bricks-and-mortar legacies left behind for posterity and the development of future Canadian athletes. And yet, in almost the same breath, people across the country insist on the "need" for increased gold medal tallies by our athletes at the international level.

You can't have it both ways alas. It takes a community to raise a top-level athlete. And a rich one at that. Not to mention a well-designed and properly-funded program using leading-edge facilities and coaches and nutritionists and physios and...

Biathlon is an interesting case in point. It's a hugely popular sport in Northern Europe — "If this were the German National Championships there would be thousands of spectators here," says my brother, Pierre, sadly eying the modest knot of parents and coaches milling about the finish line at WOP's biathlon stadium. He sighs. "It's so different here. Few Canadians even know about the sport."

And yet. And yet... Did you know that Canada's male biathletes outperformed their alpine skiing counterparts on the World Cup circuit this year? Indeed — Jean Philippe Le Guellec's historic victory in Ostersund, Sweden (the first for a Canadian male) was one more win than could deliver the once-proud alpine squad. I know. Not much to build a program on. Still, it's a heck of a confidence boost for the financially-fragile biathletes. "We're doing pretty well considering the kind of budget we operate with," explains my brother. "But it's been really hard since they turned off the tap in 2010..."

A weary veteran of the sports-funding wars, brother Pierre has worn all sorts of volunteers' hats within the B.C. nordic world. His latest challenge is to create a new biathlon stadium in Prince George with his team of volunteers in time for the Canada Games event that the northern city is hosting in 2015. He laughs. "And they've given us a measly budget to work with." He looks around the WOP facility. Shakes his head. Laughs again. "It's not going to look this fancy, that's for sure."

I've come to the biathlon stadium today to cheer on my niece, Sarah. She graduated from high school last year and immediately moved to Canmore to train with the core of the national biathlon team. And her performance soared. In Europe this year, she showed her coaches and peers just what she could do. Her fifth place finish at the World Championships, opines my brother, was a direct result of her full-time commitment to the sport. But it hasn't come cheap. Pierre says it's costing him about $35,000 after-tax dollars to keep her racing at this level.

Say what? "Well, you know — that's for coaching and travel and skis and guns and rent in Canmore and..." It's a sobering figure for sure. But to see that young woman in full stride racing down the championship course — to see the confidence in her look as she hits her targets, the assurance in her step as she wins her three national titles by going-away margins — well, it just confirms for me what my dad taught us those many years ago. Competitive sports is transformative...

Meanwhile across the valley on Whistler Mountain, old friend Rob Boyd is busy fine-tuning his own legacy project. The new Raven/Ptarmigan downhill course — an integral part of the Dave Murray Training Centre — is about to host the country's top speedsters as part of the 2013 National Alpine Championships. And I haven't seen Rob this excited — or nervous — in years. "It's not often that you get to unveil a new downhill course," says the proud "papa." He sighs. "Three years in the making — it's been a heck of a lot of work. And not just for me — this was a real team effort. So many volunteers, so many priceless contributions."

No question. When I talk to WMSC program director, Nigel Loring, about the project, he's quick to laud the Legacy Society's board of directors. "They moved mountains," asserts Loring. "I mean, if it wasn't for Steve Podborski, Dave Newton, Bernard Laroux, Dan Konantz and Doug Forseth, there wouldn't have been a venue for Boyd to work his course-making magic on."

That magic is clearly at play on this cool March morning. We're standing on the side of Raven watching WMSC alumni Stan Rey and Tyler Murray "test-drive" the new race course to make sure all is good before the competitors arrive.

And it's clear from the very start that the new downhill reflects much of its creator's personality. It's a fast-flowing course, with nice jumps and beautifully extended turns. It's fun rather than scary. Tactical rather than dangerous. "What a gas," enthuses Stan Rey in the finish area, a happy grin splashed across his face. "I can't wait to go back up and do it again. That was really entertaining."

Boyd too is all smiles. "That's exactly what we want to establish with this new course," he explains. "We want to give the racers a sense of confidence rather than fear. We want to teach them what it means to make high-speed turns... but without the risk of serious injury."

It's what Canadian ski racers need to experience, adds Boyd, if downhill is to grow and thrive in this country again. "There was a bit of a grassroots revolt this winter," explains the former champion. "Two years ago, Alpine Canada decided to ban downhill racing for anyone under 18. A lot of us coaches didn't agree with the decision. So..." He laughs. "So we basically worked around it." But he's quick to add: "We all agree, however, that we need to do a better job introducing downhill skills to developing racers. Which is why this Training Centre is so vital. It's not just about racing — it's about creating training camps too. Fostering development."

And the actual race? Couldn't have gone any better. The sky was clear, the track was fast, and the racers did their thing. In what can only be described as a cosmic convergence, WMSC alumnus Manny Osborne Paradis captured the men's national title for 2013. I mean, talk about legacy. In a venue named for Whistler's first downhill star, on a course created by Whistler's second downhill star, it was Whistler's third downhill star who reached the top step first. Cool, eh?