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Posts Tagged ‘Paul Sullivan’

With one run remaining in the womens skeleton, Great Britain’s Amy Williams is ahead of Canada’s Melissa Hollingsworth by 0.54 seconds. This is an extremely large lead in a gravity sport such as the skeleton. I’m hoping that if Williams is able to hold on for the gold, the British press can stop taking a shit on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. I’ve been to busy and engaged with the city of Vancouver and the fabulous party that has been going on that is the games to follow much of the media response to the games so far, but I have still been hearing peripherally that Fleet Street’s knives are out. The only way possible to be covering these games thus far in a completely negative light would be if one went in with the intention to do so. Paul Sullivan had a nice piece in this morning’s Metro Vancouver noting that the US media has certainly changed their tune since American domination of the medal count has become the normal day to day story. Great Britain’s medal drought will soon be over. One hopes that will also be the case for the negative coverage for the sake of negative coverage from the British press.

Update: Amy Williams of Great Britain laid down an excellent 54 second flat fourth run in the womens final run of the skeleton just now to capture the gold medal. Kerstin Szymkowiak of Germany had a fabulous final run to jump into 2nd place to claim the silver, with Anja Huber, also of Germany finishing in the bronze medal position. Canada’s Melissa Hollingsworth had an amazing start to her final run, but had a few sketchy turns. She still managed to place 5th in an extremely strong womens field. The final two runs in the mens skeleton are up next. CTV’s Olympic webpage will have the coverage live in HD, where Canada’s Jon Montgomery currently sits in second place after two runs 0.26 seconds behind Martins Dukurs of Latvia.

Update II: After the third run Canada’s Jon Montgomery sits in second 0.18 seconds behind Latvia’s Martins Dukurs in the mens skeleton. CTV will broadcast the final run live or you can watch in almost real time at CTV’s webpage.

• Does This Mean Whistler Will Disappear? CBC and The New York Post both have stories up at their sites discussing the potential future of Intrawest, the company that owns the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort that will play host to the alpine events...
• Does The IOC Have A Learning Deficiency? [/caption] Towards the end of last week, in an incredibly tone deaf move, the International Olympic Committee sent word to the Australian Olympic team that the large banner the team had suspended outside their rooms...

• How Greece's Problems Affect Us A lot of people don't even know that Greece's debt is a problem that is threatening to bring down the European Union. And of those...
• Great Britain - Ready to start embryonic stem cells tests to regenerate neurons In a couple of months, the first test to verify if embryonic stem cells directly injected inside patients' brain plagued by stroke can regenerate damaged...

Students at W. Earle Miller Public School

In an editorial comment from Wednesday’s Metro Vancouver, Paul Sullivan outlined his five reasons to not ‘Believe’ in the Olympic Games. While I can appreciate the jab at CTV, the Canadian broadcaster for the games, I find little else to agree with in his reasons. Lets take his points one by one.

Number 5: Sullivan says “The Olympic mascots are endangered or non-existent species [...] Somehow this says it all.” I have no idea what this says. Yes, the Olympic mascots are hybrids of endangered and mythical creatures. The animals that are threatened or endangered have not reached that point because of the Olympics. To my mind, all this says is that VANOC is conscientious of the amazing wildlife that BC is privy too. What does highlighting that fact say? If anything it brings further needed attention to animal populations under threat.

Number 4: “The Games will cost at least $6 billion [...] what are we going to do with a $104.9 million toboggan slide?” The first point to note with this claim is the standard tactic of anti-Olympic voices citing the figure of $6 billion as the cost of the games. As I’ve pointed out before, that number includes the construction costs of the Canada Line, the Sea-to-Sky Highway improvements, construction of the Vancouver Convention Centre, improvements to the Port Mann bridge and the construction of the Pitt River bridge. I strongly suspect that most, if not all of these infrastructure projects would have been undertaken were Vancouver not playing host to the games. They certainly are not ‘but for’ the Olympics. I should hope that any Vancouver resident is at a bare minimum proud of the fabulous new Canada Line. At a cost of $1.7 billion the rail line represents almost 30% of the oft quoted $6 billion figure; it is worth every penny and happy to have that argument with Sullivan. It baffles me how people seem to treat the $6 billion as money that is just lost. Do I really need to point out that these are investments? There is a reason that the latest quarterly growth figures from the Conference Board of Canada have BC atop the pack in terms of economic performance. I presume I don’t need to explicitly state why this is. I imagine that with the bobsled track we will see stronger luge, bobsled and skeleton teams in the future, as well as a new yearly World Cup event in Whistler. Wait for it; I expect that will bring a positive economic impact to the community.

• Different Flavours Of Social Conservatism The other day while discussing the prorogation of parliament with my dad, an interesting point came up that is worth mentioning here. I was saying how depressing it can be paying heed to events as...
• Court 'Spurns' Female Ski Jumpers? I'm in the middle of getting ready to fly home so I don't have much time to read and write, but this article's headline "Top court spurns Olympic ski jumpers", caught my eye for two...

• Michael Jordan Posters sports-memorabilia -> Basketball-NBA -> Lithographs-Posters-and-Prints During the 1990s, it wasn't uncommon to see Michael Jordan posters lining the walls of kids rooms. Born in 1963,...
• Athlete Profile: Dan Wakeham The first male Olympic competitor on snowboard in Britain, Dan Wakeham has announced that he will be retiring from the world cup circuit. He has...