vancouver olympics Times – Sports Daily

The International Figure Skating Union’s Grand Prix Series enters its 15th season this weekend with its first event: The Trophee Eric Bompard Cachemire, in Paris. Competition starts Friday in competition, the first of six that will lead up to the Grand Prix Final in Tokyo in December and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. It will feature some interesting storylines.

Ladies’ Singles

Carolina Kostner

This event has perhaps the most stacked ladies’ field of the Grand Prix season. Two of figure skating’s greatest rivals will meet in this event as Korean World Champion Kim Yu-Na and 2008 World Champion and faces Grand Prix Final champ Mao Asada of Japan.

Kim, who has been training with Brian Orser in Toronto, blew away the field at the worlds in Los Angeles with a record score. She will show off new programs choreographed by David Wilson – George Gershwin’s “Piano Concerto in F Major” in the long program and a short program to a medley of music from “James Bond 007″, considered unusual music for figure skating.

The archrivals will also be joined by Italy’s Carolina Kostner, but the hotly-anticipated comeback of American Sasha Cohen has been iced as the 2006 Olympic silver medallist who is making a comeback, has pulled out of the competition after suffering an injured calf in practice. Japan’s Yukari Nakano and Caroline Zhang of the U.S. may also challenge. There are no Canadian women in this event.

Entries: Mao Asada (Japan), Candice Didier (France), Sasha Cohen, United States, Gwendoline Didier (France), Elene Gedevanishvili, (Georgia), Alexe Gilles (USA), Yu-Na Kim (South Korea), Kiira Korpi (Finland), Carolina Kostner (Italy), Yukari Nakano (Japan), Caroline Zhang (USA), Anna Jurkiewicz (Poland)

Men’s Singles

Brian Joubert, the 2007 world champion from France, launches his season in front of his home fans and will no doubt be trying to vindicate himself after finishing with what he considered a disappointing bronze medal at the 2009 Worlds.

A five-time world medallist known for his big jumps, Joubert is likely to be challenged in Paris by Nobunari Oda. The Japanese skater is in top form, winning last year’s NHK Trophy, after being banned for three months by his national federation in 2007 for drunk driving. Russia’s Sergei Voronov and Tomáš Verner of Czech Republic will also be in the running for spots on the podium. Vaughn Chipeur is the only Canadian man in the event as he begins his quest for the nation’s second spot at the Olympics.

Entries: Vaughn Chipeur (Canada), Chao Yang (China), Tomas Verner (Czech Republic), Brian Joubert (France), Yannick Ponsero (France), Alban Preaubert (France), Peter Liebers (Germany), Nobunari Oda (Japan), Sergei Voronov (Russia), Javier Fernandez (Spain), Ryan Bradley (USA), Adam Rippon (USA)

Pairs

Canadians Bryce Davison and Jessica Dubé will face the world’s finest pairs competition right off the bat in Paris when they return to the romantic style of skating that so suited them before their experimental season last year. They will meet world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany, the reigning world champs. It’s the first of two meetings between the two teams during this Grand Prix season. The second will be at Skate Canada in Kitchener, Ont., in late November.

Russians Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov, coached by Olympic champ Oleg Vassiliev, may also figure into the podium.

Entries: Adeline Canac and Maximin Coia (France), Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir (USA), Huibo Dong and Yiming Wu (China), Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison (Canada), Vanessa James and Yannick Bonheur (France), Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov (Russia), Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, Germany

Ice Dance

Canadians Tessa Virtue, of London, Ont. and Scott Moir, of Ilderton, Ont. are making their return to the Grand Prix circuit after missing the series last season when Virtue had to have surgery on both of her shins. They returned late in the season to earn bronze at the world championships, and they feel confident now that they are the best ice dance team in the world. They will debut their highly-anticipated new programs: a flamenco original dance and a free dance to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

Virtue and Moir enter the competition as the clear favourite but can expect some good competition from the French team of Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat, Sinead and John Kerr of Great Britain, and Americans Emily Samuelson and Evan.

Entries: Zoé Blanc and Pierre-Loup Bouquet (France), Kristina Gorshkova and Vitali Butikov, (Russia), Madison Hubbell and Keiffer Hubbell (USA), Sinead Kerr and John Kerr (Great Britain), Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre (USA), Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat (France), Ekaterina Rubleva and Ivan Shefer (Russia), Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates (USA), Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (Canada)

Tokyo’s hopes of hosting the 2016 Olympics were shattered Friday as the Japanese capital was eliminated in the second round of voting by the International Olympic Committee.

Rio de Janeiro was named the winner of rights to stage the 2016 Games, beating Madrid in the final round of voting to become the first South American Olympic host. Rio had 66 votes to Madrid’s 32.

Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting before Tokyo’s exit left the race down to the Rio and Madrid. Tokyo had 22 votes in the first round and 20 in the second.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama released a statement Saturday congratulating the Brazilian people on Rio de Janeiro’s win in a bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

‘‘I want to offer my heartfelt appreciation for the citizens of Tokyo and athletes,’’ said Tokyo Gov Shintaro Ishihara. ‘‘Let’s use this precious experience, while tackling environmental issues and contribute to the development of world cities. I pray for the success of the Games in Rio de Janeiro.’’

Under host city voting procedures, the city with the fewest number of votes in each successive round of balloting is eliminated until one city has reached a majority of the valid votes cast.

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The International Olympic Committee is no stranger to tough decisions. It took the risk of sending the games to Beijing and said “No” to New York in the aftermath of 9/11. Yet, despite all of that accumulated experience, some IOC members are struggling with their latest conundrum: choosing the Olympic host for 2016.
Just two days ahead of the vote, many were undecided.
And that means two things—it’s still too close to call between Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid and, for the next couple of days, IOC members are going to feel that they are the most popular people on the planet. Everyone in Copenhagen, where they are gathered, seemingly wants to be their new best friend.
Want to meet Michelle Obama? Not a problem if you’re an IOC member who needs a little pointer on which way to vote. The first lady, beating her husband to the Danish capital, has a two-room suite in the IOC hotel, with homely white leather furniture and an interactive table that, at the touch of a hand, gives bird’s eye views of how a Chicago Olympics might look.
Mrs Obama arrived Wednesday, two days ahead of the U.S. leader, and got straight to work on impressing IOC members.
“We’re not taking anything for granted, so I’m going to go talk to some voters,” she said.
IOC members who have been through this selection process repeatedly, previously sending the games to London, Beijing, Athens and Sydney, told The Associated Press that they could not remember a tougher choice. The AP canvassed the opinions of a dozen IOC members. With all four cities seen as amply capable, technically at least, of holding the Olympics, they said much will ride on how well or badly the cities make their case in final 45-minute presentations to the IOC on Friday before the successive rounds of secret balloting.
“I have two favorites,” IOC member Nicole Hoevertsz said. “It’s going to come down to the last, last presentation. It’s going to come down to the last minute.”
As tension mounted, so did tempers. Despite fresh IOC warnings that the cities should avoid criticizing their rivals, the Spanish Olympic Committee’s vice president, Jose Maria Odriozola, told the national Efe news agency that “Rio is the worst bid.”
Rio bid organizers said the criticism was “totally unacceptable” and formally complained to the IOC.
The outcome Friday could hinge on which cities are eliminated first and, if and when their favorites are knocked out, how IOC members subsequently line up behind the other candidates. That makes predicting a winner perilous and means that even members who say they already have made their choice are still worth lobbying.
“It is difficult enough to know where the first-round votes are going to go, so trying to imagine where the swinging votes are going to go is impossible,” said Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, whose father served as IOC president for 21 years.
“Events in the next 48 hours will decide the winner, because they will have a significant influence on the second- and third-round votes,” he said.
Samaranch said he believes nearly all the IOC’s 106 members already have a favorite. But IOC vice president Chiharu Igaya said “many” members are undecided.
Added British IOC member Craig Reedie: “This is really close. The closer it gets the more people will say, let me think about it. We all want to see the presentations. It’s what people see that will count. Decided? No, I haven’t actually. I’m getting close.”
Late, high-powered lobbying can be important—as then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, proved when London campaigned successfully for the 2012 Olympics. Blair traveled to Singapore ahead of the vote and spent two days lobbying members, inviting them to his hotel suite for one-on-one meetings.
Chicago tore a leaf from Blair’s playbook: Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett met with him last week to solicit his advice and get tips on navigating the IOC voting process.
But for the first time, there are no IOC executive board meetings in the days leading up to the vote. That means less opportunity for schmoozing.
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Brawn GP’s championship leader Jenson Button snatches pole position for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix with his last lap.
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Brawn GP’s Jenson Button and Williams’s Nico Rosberg are fastest in Friday’s two practice sessions for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.
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GIRONA, Spain (Reuters) – Twice major champion John Daly conjured up a spot of magic from his glorious past in the Spanish Open first round on Thursday.

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Britain’s Jenson Button won the opening race of the 2009 Formula One season after dominating the Australian Grand Prix for the newly-formed Brawn GP team.
Button, who started from pole at Albert Park, was claiming the second victory of his 154-race career to complete a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the former Honda team who were facing an uncertain future when the Japanese car manufacturer withdrew from F1 late last year.

Button’s teammate Rubens Barrichello, who started second on the grid, made an appalling start and damaged his front wing in a first corner collision, but he completed a 1-2 for Brawn after profiting from a late collision involving Red Bull’s Sebastien Vettel and Robert Kubica of the BMW-Sauber team.

Promising young German Vettel was coming under pressure from Kubica for second place when the pair collided on turn three, the race finishing under the safety car as the debris was cleared off the track.

Button was emulating the feat of the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio, who won for Mercedes in their Formula One debut in 1954, and paid immediate tribute over race radio to technical guru Ross Brawn, who led a management buyout with Nick Fry to rescue the team from extinction.

“Thank you, you’re a legend, it’s going to be a great year,” he said.

Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, who had started the race from the pit lane after a technical infringement in qualifying, finished third, but lost the position to world champion Lewis Hamilton after incurring a time penalty. Hamilton had started at 18th on the grid.
Timo Glock finished fifth in the second Toyota with two-time world champion Fernando Alonso of Spain sixth for Renault.

Nico Rosberg (Williams) and Toro Rosso rookie Sebastien Buemi completed the points-scoring positions.

In contrast to his teammate Barrichello, Button made a perfect start and quickly built a commanding advantage.

The safety car was deployed for the first time after 18 of 58 laps when Kazuki Nakajima of Japan crashed heavily in his Williams.

But Button quickly rebuilt his advantage from the restart, briefly coming under pressure from Vettel and the charging Kubica after the second round of pit stops before crossing for a fairytale victory.

“An amazing day,” he said.

Hamilton was delighted with his high finish after what looked set to be a disastrous weekend for last year’s dominant dominant teams with the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen out of the points.

“We did the best job we could, it just showed the true spirit of the team,” he told BBC Sport.

The build-up to the first race of the season has been dominated by a row over an aerodynamic device used by the Brawn, Toyota and Williams teams. The three teams are racing under appeal after rival manufacturers questioned the legality of their rear diffusers which are said to give them an unfair advantage.

The FIA, motorsport’s world governing body, will consider the appeal after next weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix where Button and the Brawn GP team will start strong favorites.

source: edition.cnn.com

Cycling legend Lance Armstrong fractures his collarbone in Spain’s Vuelta Castilla y Leon and is a doubt for the Tour de France.
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British number one Andy Murray takes on Spain’s Tommy Robredo for a place in the quarter-finals in Indian Wells.
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The Brawn team made its Formula One testing debut on Monday, with Jenson Button setting the fourth-fastest time at the Circuit de Catalunya.

It marked the team’s first full test since Ross Brawn announced last week he bought out the former Honda team, clearing the way for a full lineup of 20 cars at the Australian Grand Prix this month.

Button showed the new BGP 001 car will be competitive, clocking a best time of one minute 21.140 seconds after 82 laps. BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld was fastest in 1:20.338, with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli also topping the Brawn car.

“We have enjoyed a positive opening day of running at our first test,” Button said. “We did experience a problem with the gearbox late in the day but we knew we might face some reliability issues in view of our lack of testing. … It’s early days yet, but generally it has been a positive start to our pre-season preparations.”

Brawn took over the former Honda F1 team after the Japanese auto manufacturer pulled out of the sport in December because of the high cost of competition.

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press – via google.com

Brawn GP will replace Honda Racing in the 2009 Formula One world championship after Japan’s No. 2 carmaker sold the team to its former manager Ross Brawn.
Brawn, Honda’s team principal last year after working with seven-time champion Michael Schumacher at Ferrari and Benetton, bought all the shares in the Brackley, England-based team, Honda Motor Co. said in a statement today. Honda spokeswoman Yasuko Matsuura declined to give financial terms.
“The past few months have been extremely challenging for the team, but today’s announcement is the very pleasing conclusion to the strenuous efforts that have been made to secure its future,” Brawn, a 54-year-old Briton, said in an e- mailed statement.
The sale means 10 teams will start the March 29 season- opening Australian Grand Prix at a time when Formula One costs are coming under closer scrutiny by automakers experiencing the worst global sales slump in decades. Honda quit the most-watched motor sport in December and put the team up for sale to save more than 20 billion yen ($203 million) a year.

Ross Brawn

Following Honda’s departure, teams agreed to slash costs by 30 percent by banning testing during the season and sharing data on tires and fuel — previously areas of fierce competition. Yesterday they announced further plans to halve overall budgets in 2010 compared with last year’s level.
Brawn GP will use engines supplied by Mercedes-Benz in this year’s championship. The new team retained Honda’s driving lineup of Britain’s Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, who held off the challenge of fellow Brazilian Bruno Senna, the nephew of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna.

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Relish the memories – 2008 was a special year for sport, and the outlook for the next few does not appear half so rosy.

Next year is thin in terms of big international events. The World Athletics Championships take place in Berlin, and it is left to rugby union – a minority sport globally – to provide another highlight when the British and Irish Lions tour South Africa, the world champions. And further ahead, the successor hosts of two of this year’s stellar events, the Olympic Games and the European Football Championships, have hard acts to follow, with fewer resources and the global economic crisis to combat.

The Beijing Olympics was the apex of 2008. China opened its doors to the world and demonstrated that it could organise a successful sporting extravaganza. It did so by hurling massive amounts of money and manpower at the Games, in a manner that perhaps only an authoritarian state could. The yin and yang nature of the event was symbolised by the happiness and pride of the Chinese people at hosting the world’s biggest sporting party on the one hand, and their government’s refusal to budge an inch over human rights on the other.

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The competition pool for a Chicago Olympics would last about as long as a swimming world record does these days.

Chicago 2016 organizers unveiled several venue changes Friday that they say will benefit athletes and the community, and make their bid more attractive in the highly competitive international field. In addition to moving the aquatic center and making the competition pool a temporary facility, the sailing, canoe/kayaking, track cycling and BMX cycling venues all will be moved under Chicago’s retooled bid plan.

“We worked very closely with international sports federations and national governing bodies,” said Doug Arnot, Chicago 2016’s operations chief. “This plan is better for sport, better for the games and, perhaps most importantly, better for Chicago’s youth sports legacy. This plan remains very financially responsible.”

The changes will add about 5% to the budget, which remains at $4.7 billion, Chicago 2016 chairman Patrick Ryan said. That’s a bargain compared with other Summer Games; London estimates its overall costs for the 2012 Olympics will be about $16.5 billion, three times the original estimate.

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World Cup slalom leader Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) skied two great slalom runs but still finished second behind Germany’s Maria Riesch, who won both the first and second runs, at the Audi FIS World Cup in La Molina, Spain on Sunday. Riesch built nearly a full second lead on the field with her first run and dominated the day.

“For a second I thought Lindsey may get the win, but Maria’s first run was too good,” Women’s Alpine Head Coach Jim Tracy said. “Maria pretty much schooled everyone on the first run. But Lindsey is super confident and it definitely showed today.”

According to Tracy, while challenging course conditions presented themselves, Vonn was on a mission after Saturday’s giant slalom where she missed a gate.

“Today’s conditions were challenging with about a foot of new snow over the ice. But, Lindsey rose to the occasion,” Tracy said. “She didn’t like what happened yesterday and today she put her game face on and executed really well.”

Vonn came into the second run in fourth place, but laid it all out on the course to end up second. While disappointed not to win, she was the first to give a high five to her friend Riesch on her first victory of the season.

“She was maybe a little conservative on the first run and obviously Maria wasn’t, but being slightly conservative on the first run enabled her to lay it down on the second run knowing that she could certainly win the race if she wanted to,” Tracy said.

The course, with or without unexpected snow conditions, presented a challenge to anyone who skied it with technical sections that challenged all racers who encountered them.

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IOC president Jacques Rogge foresees no immediate threat to the Olympics from the global financial crisis and says the fight against doping will be a key priority for a second term in office.

Rogge, a 66-year-old Belgian who has led the International Olympic Committee since 2001, notified members last Friday that he will seek re-election next October for a final four-year term that will take him to 2013.

He spoke in a telephone interview with The Associated Press ahead of a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday where he publicly announced his candidacy for another term at the helm of the IOC.

No challengers are expected and Rogge’s re-election is considered a formality at the October 2009 assembly in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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Peter Ueberroth took a swipe at international officials critical of the money the U.S. Olympic Committee receives, setting up some possibly uncomfortable moments for the Chicago group trying to land the 2016 Games.
“Who pays the bill for the world Olympic movement?” Ueberroth said Saturday in his final speech as USOC chairman. “Make no mistake about it. Starting in 1988, U.S. corporations have paid 60 percent of all the money, period. Be sure you all understand that. The rest of the world pays 40 percent. It’s pretty simple math.”
It was Ueberroth’s first extensive response to comments made by European IOC members Denis Oswald and Hein Verbruggen, who said earlier this year that the amount of money the USOC received was not morally acceptable and called for the revenue-sharing deal to be revisited.
As part of a long-standing deal with the International Olympic Committee, the USOC receives about 13 percent of U.S. TV rights fees and 20 percent of global marketing revenues. That added up to about $300 million in the four-year period ending in 2008.

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Michael Phelps who claimed a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympic Games said it was harder for him to learn Chinese than to win swimming races.
Before the American came to China for the 2008 Games he seriously took a few Chinese lessons. A popular online video shows how hard he tries to imitate the voice of a Chinese learning multimedia software in saying such basic words as “guo zhi” (juice), “nan hai’er” (boy) and “nu hai’er” (girl).
But still, the 23-year-old rated his Chinese language studies as the most difficult thing he had tried in his life. “Learning Mandarin is even harder than winning eight gold medals in the pool.”
In primary school Phelps took French and German courses, but the swimming ace said, “all the words, characters and pronunciations in Mandarin are so different. All of them are hard to manage.”
He was not the only star athlete trying to learn some Chinese language and culture. When gymnast Nastia Liukin arrived back home in Dallas, Texas, with five medals around her neck, the Russian-born blonde appeared in front of her reception wearing a black T-shirt with two big Chinese characters “Beijing” in the front. (blog)
“The Beijing Olympics have brought world attention to the Chinese civilization and further enhanced the utility of the Chinese language worldwide,” said Zhao Guocheng, the Office of Chinese Language Council International (OCLCI) deputy director general.

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The selected host city for the 31st Olympic Games in 2016 will be announced tomorrow (Thursday) at an IOC meeting in Copenhagen. There are currently four cities competing to host what is one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world.

Chicago (USA) is the favourite to win the rights to host the 2016 Games, followed by Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Madrid (Spain) and Tokyo (Japan).

The other cities on the shortlist were Prague (Czech Republic), Baku (Azerbaijan), and Doha (Qatar), however they have now been eliminated.

Hosting the Olympic Games is likely to have a positive impact on the winning nation’s property market. Average property prices in the run-up the Olympic Games in the last five host cities – Beijing (China), Athens (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Atlanta (USA) and Sydney (Australia) – appreciated at a significant pace, outstripping average national property price growth.

source: homesoverseas.co.uk