Canada National Thread

[NearPup 4,183]

4 hours ago, seb851 said:

 

Canada has made great progress on many sport ... i remember Athena and Sydney fisco. 

Paris 2024 sound really good for alot sport, i can wait see Canada next year in FINA/IAAF World Championship. Rowing sound very good for Paris 2024 !

 

But Winter Sport for 2022 is not good cycle ...
 

Ya, some sports are in rough shape. Canada's Nordic skiing team is in the worst spot it's been since at least the 90s (Alex Harvey sure did a lot to hide the steep decline Canada's cross country team was in), our "best" (best, not good) medal chance in Nordic skiing is probably Boyd-Clowes in men's ski jumping. Short track is in a rebuilding phase after losing our best men's and women's athlete to retirement post-Pyeongchang (and IIRC there was a bunch of drama around the coaching, too). At least Sarault is looking good to make the team (one of my high school friend's dad is deeply involved in NB and Canadian short track so I'm really excited for that whole setup). Luge peaked in 2018, no consistency in women's Skeleton (and lets not bring up the men), we lost our best Bobsleigh pilot to the US. Curling has been rough this quad. Figure skating is in a deep, deep rebuild after Canada had it's best decade ever in the sport. The Alpine Skiing team is in the wilderness. Biathlon seems to have stalled after doing a lot of good progress over the past decade.

 

I'm cautiously optimistic about speed skating potentially being really good for us in 2022, and freestyle skiing and the slopestyle / big air events in snowboarding remain the best teams for Canada. I think if we want to have any chance of repeating a top three finish the freestyle skiers and snowboarders are going to need to do a lot of the work (if they have really good Olympics they could realistically win half a dozen gold medals). But outside of those three sports Canada has been having a terrible quad.

[seb851 31]

13 hours ago, intoronto said:

Meanwhile, I sent an email to all the commonwealth sports and only Cycling and Judo replied. Sadly most NFs in Canada are hard to reach.

What do you want to know? The team nominations for the Commonwealth Games? 

[intoronto 6,904]

34 minutes ago, seb851 said:

What do you want to know? The team nominations for the Commonwealth Games? 

The quotas each individual sport listed earlier has for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

[seb851 31]

13 hours ago, NearPup said:

Ya, some sports are in rough shape. Canada's Nordic skiing team is in the worst spot it's been since at least the 90s (Alex Harvey sure did a lot to hide the steep decline Canada's cross country team was in), our "best" (best, not good) medal chance in Nordic skiing is probably Boyd-Clowes in men's ski jumping. Short track is in a rebuilding phase after losing our best men's and women's athlete to retirement post-Pyeongchang (and IIRC there was a bunch of drama around the coaching, too). At least Sarault is looking good to make the team (one of my high school friend's dad is deeply involved in NB and Canadian short track so I'm really excited for that whole setup). Luge peaked in 2018, no consistency in women's Skeleton (and lets not bring up the men), we lost our best Bobsleigh pilot to the US. Curling has been rough this quad. Figure skating is in a deep, deep rebuild after Canada had it's best decade ever in the sport. The Alpine Skiing team is in the wilderness. Biathlon seems to have stalled after doing a lot of good progress over the past decade.

 

I'm cautiously optimistic about speed skating potentially being really good for us in 2022, and freestyle skiing and the slopestyle / big air events in snowboarding remain the best teams for Canada. I think if we want to have any chance of repeating a top three finish the freestyle skiers and snowboarders are going to need to do a lot of the work (if they have really good Olympics they could realistically win half a dozen gold medals). But outside of those three sports Canada has been having a terrible quad.

Medal Potential for Beijing 2022

FIS Sport

• FS Aerials : Marion Thénault
• FS Moguls : Mikaël Kingsbury
• FreeSki Slopestyle/BigAir : Megan Oldham, Evan McEachran, Max Moffatt, Teal Harle ...
• FreeSki Halfpipe : Rachael Karker, Cassie Sharpe, Noah Bowman and Simon D’Artois
• Ski Cross : Many skier
• SnowBoard Slopestyle/BigAir : Sebastien Toutan, Max Parrot and Mark McMorris also Lauri Blouin 
• SnowBoard Cross : Eliot Grondin

LongTrack Speedskating

• Team pursuit (Men and Women)
• Laurent Dubreuil and Ivanie Blondin

ShortTrack Speedskating 

• Courtney Sarault, Kim Boutin and Charle Hamelin

Also Hockey and Curling


But propably for first time no medal in Figure Skating for Canada since loooooooong time

[intoronto 6,904]

1 hour ago, seb851 said:

Medal Potential for Beijing 2022

FIS Sport

• FS Aerials : Marion Thénault
• FS Moguls : Mikaël Kingsbury
• FreeSki Slopestyle/BigAir : Megan Oldham, Evan McEachran, Max Moffatt, Teal Harle ...
• FreeSki Halfpipe : Rachael Karker, Cassie Sharpe, Noah Bowman and Simon D’Artois
• Ski Cross : Many skier
• SnowBoard Slopestyle/BigAir : Sebastien Toutan, Max Parrot and Mark McMorris also Lauri Blouin 
• SnowBoard Cross : Eliot Grondin

LongTrack Speedskating

• Team pursuit (Men and Women)
• Laurent Dubreuil and Ivanie Blondin

ShortTrack Speedskating 

• Courtney Sarault, Kim Boutin and Charle Hamelin

Also Hockey and Curling


But propably for first time no medal in Figure Skating for Canada since loooooooong time

 

Let's not forget Graeme Fish in the 5,000/10,000 m in speed skating

 

If the NHL players play, a medal in hockey is almost a must, even gold. 3/5 times NHL players played Canada won gold.

Short track speed skating worries me, the team struggled for a lack of a better word at the last worlds, and we can't rely on Hamelin to lead a team, he is likely at his last games. Hoping they can develop, its been a couple years, so maybe they have indeed. 

 

[orangeman 2,876]

15 hours ago, NearPup said:

Ya, some sports are in rough shape. Canada's Nordic skiing team is in the worst spot it's been since at least the 90s (Alex Harvey sure did a lot to hide the steep decline Canada's cross country team was in), our "best" (best, not good) medal chance in Nordic skiing is probably Boyd-Clowes in men's ski jumping. Short track is in a rebuilding phase after losing our best men's and women's athlete to retirement post-Pyeongchang (and IIRC there was a bunch of drama around the coaching, too). At least Sarault is looking good to make the team (one of my high school friend's dad is deeply involved in NB and Canadian short track so I'm really excited for that whole setup). Luge peaked in 2018, no consistency in women's Skeleton (and lets not bring up the men), we lost our best Bobsleigh pilot to the US. Curling has been rough this quad. Figure skating is in a deep, deep rebuild after Canada had it's best decade ever in the sport. The Alpine Skiing team is in the wilderness. Biathlon seems to have stalled after doing a lot of good progress over the past decade.

 

I'm cautiously optimistic about speed skating potentially being really good for us in 2022, and freestyle skiing and the slopestyle / big air events in snowboarding remain the best teams for Canada. I think if we want to have any chance of repeating a top three finish the freestyle skiers and snowboarders are going to need to do a lot of the work (if they have really good Olympics they could realistically win half a dozen gold medals). But outside of those three sports Canada has been having a terrible quad.

Nordic and alpine skiers haven't been medal producers for Canada at the Olympics for a very long time, so I'm not concerned about them dampening our medals in 2022.  

 

Short track is concerning, but there are some good athletes. While Canada is rebuilding there a bit, the rest of the world is catching up.  It used to be South Korea, China and Canada with some stars from the USA mixed in.  Now Russia, Netherlands, Italy and several other European countries are very competitive and there just isn't room for everyone on every podium.  

 

The same could be said for curling.  The growth of the sport worldwide is great, and exactly what inclusion at the Olympics is supposed to do.  But it also means Canada isn't as dominant as before.  Having said that, since 1998 (the first time curling was a sport, the first time women's hockey was included and NHL players came to the Olympics), Canada got at least 3 medals out of those four events each time with at least a gold until 2018.  In 2014 they got all 4 gold, in 2018 they got a silver and a bronze.  Mixed curling gave us another gold, but it was by far our worst showing ever in those events (and I've said this before, but I was there in person to see it!  With an American friend!  AHHH!).  They're going to have to do better that 2018 to keep Canada up there.  

 

In the early 2000s Canada hoarded speed skating medals.  When that declined, freestyle took over.  Freestyle and snowboarding will have to do more heavy lifting as figure skating declines.  Short track got 5 medals (1G) and 3 (1G) at the last two Olympics respectively.  I think they can get thereabouts again.  Speed skating may have a pick up with young talent.  Sliding sports will decline from 2018, likely.  

 

In sum, I expect less than 2018 but if hockey and curling perform again, we could see 3 medals (1G) turn into 5 golds which would turn things around dramatically.  

[seb851 31]

18 hours ago, George_D said:

Milton Velodrome has contributed to this

At least they didn't make the same mistake then Montreal Velodrom which was converted into a biodome...
 

Tabarnak !!! 

[Monzanator 5,123]

Canadian's alpine skiing has completely tailed off in the recent decade. Makes U wonder if all the skiing hopefuls target freestyle events straight away. I'd assume women's moguls would be in better shape but guess there is no replacing the Dufour-Lapointe clan? Whatever happened to Andi Naude though?

[james89 961]

i'm confused where this sentiment that Short Track is in a rebuilding phase - sure Girard's retirement was unexpected, but are we expecting Kim Boutin to be totally off form when she comes back? The first Canadian selection for the Olympic team is happening this week so we should have some early indicators. True it is more competitive than a number of years ago but I still think the Canadian team is in the mix for 4-6 medals. 

[seb851 31]

1 minute ago, Monzanator said:

Canadian's alpine skiing has completely tailed off in the recent decade. Makes U wonder if all the skiing hopefuls target freestyle events straight away. I'd assume women's moguls would be in better shape but guess there is no replacing the Dufour-Lapointe clan? Whatever happened to Andi Naude though?

Canadian women's  moguls is on downhill since many years, Justine Dufour-Lapointe is not very competive since the 2017-2018 season and FreeStyleCanada overproctect Chloe Dufour-Lapointe to detriment other youth skier

The only one who had the potential to replace Justine D-L was Andi Naude but she unfortunately retired