London Calling

We're No. 12! We're No. 12!

Olympic medal favourite Dylan Armstrong celebrates with the Canadian flag after competing in the shot put final during the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

With less than 100 days left before the opening of the Summer Games, here's something to stir the heart of every patriotic Canadian.

The Canadian Olympic Committee has decided Canada’s goal this summer will be to place 12th among the 204 countries competing, according to a story in the Globe and Mail. They figure it'll take about 20 medals to do that - up from the 18 Canada had in Beijing four years ago – when we took three gold, nine silver and six bronze. 

That haul moved us up to 14th overall from the 19th spot in Athens. That's a big move for a northern country that has historically excelled at winter sposrt, but not so much summer ones.

Moving up a few spots in the medal standings is no easy feat. For one, it takes money, say athletes.

That's part of the reason to Own The Podium program has spent an average of $30-million over the past three years to summer sport federations, for things like nutrition, coaching, travel to and from competitions, technology and research.

Don't throw like a girl

After interviewing Kitchener's volleyball star Sarah Pavan this morning, I stumbled on this old video of her during her days with the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Want to know why she's so good? Here's a fine example - the left-handed, 6'5" right side player is a master at killing the ball with her ferocious arm swing. With her height and jumping ability, Pavan can find holes others can't and spike the ball with precision. When she's on, it's almost undefendable.

In this game, Pavan smashed 22 kills in the match, lifting No. 2 Nebraska to a 3-2 victory over a Missouri squad at the NU Coliseum.

Where'd that devastating shot come from? Pavan, the product of two elite volleyball players in parents Paul and Cindy Pavan, was always taught from about age three by her father to throw the ball hard and with authority. And boy, does she.

"I grew up not wanting to throw like a girl," she told me.

Pavan sat down for a talk Wednesday, on a brief stop in Kitchener between the end of her season in Italy, where she plays porfessionally, and Winnipeg - where she'll join the national team training for its upcoming Olympic qualifying tournament.

Watch for a profile story on Pavan in the Saturday's TheRecord.com and the GuelphMercury.com

The two fastest people in St. Clements

Though many in tiny St. Clements probably never knew it - their Wellesley Township village is home this spring to a remarkably talented running couple.

Wesley and Tarah Korir are training in the area for the next few months. Tarah, whose parents live in St. Clements, is one of Canada's top middle distance runners - and she's hoping to qualify for the Olympics  before the end of June.

Her husband Wesley, hoping to run for his native Kenya at the Olympics, just won an obscure little race called the Boston Marathon on the weekend. Maybe you've heard of it.  He's also twice won the Los Angeles Marathon and placed second last year in the Chicago Marathon.

He can often be found running the less-travelled dirt roads around Wellesley Township.

"He's kind of known in the Mennonite community as the only African runner they’ve ever seen in the area," Tarah told my colleague Brent Davis.

Tarah, who met Wesley in 2006 while both were students at the University of Louisville, won the eight-kilometre Harry’s Spring Run Off in Toronto earlier this month. She races again this weekend in Toronto.

The pair have a 19-month-old daughter, McKayla, and have divided their time recently between Canada, the United States and Kenya - where the run the Kenyan Kids Foundation.

Watch for a profile on this special couple in the coming weeks.

Wykes makes it three for London

Despite two bloodied, scraped-up knees after a fall at the start line, Dylan Wykes has become the third Canadian marathon runner to qualify for the Olympic marathon race on Aug. 12.

Wykes, the Kingston-raised, Vancouver-based runner posted a time of two hours, 10 minutes, 47 seconds at the Rotterdam Marathon on Sunday.

It was the second fastest marathon ever by a Canadian. The fastest time belongs to Jerome Drayton, who ran 2:10.08 in Japan in 1975 - and 42 seconds under the tough national qualifying standard to go to the London Olympics this summer.

Wykes, 27, joins Guelph's Eric Gillis and Reid Coolsaet, who met the qualifying standard in last October's Toronto Waterfront Marathon. Coolsaet posted a time of 2: 10: 55 and Gillis just squeaked under the mark in 2: 11: 28.

The last time Canada sent three marathoners - the maximum allowed - to the Olympics, it was 1996.

Bruce Deacon, the last Canadian to compete in an Olympic marathon in Sydney in 2000, said it's exciting to see Canada field a full team of three in the gruelling 42K race. The last time that happened was in Atlanta in 1996.

Gillis, who was in Vancouver this weekend to defend his title at the Vancouver Sun Run 10km (he placed fourth this year), told the Vancouver Sun he thinks the three could do something special at the Olympics.

"I feel the excitement. People are excited that Canada is sending marathoners again. We all have a chance to run even faster there. That's my goal."

 

Brannen seeks Olympic redemption in the desert

Video by David Bebee, Record staff

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — It’s a long way from the streets of Preston to this dusty footpath in the Sonoran Desert.

Nate Brannen, built racetrack lean, is doing what he’s always done best. He’s running — past red rocks baked in the Arizona sun under a baby blue sky. It’s a smooth, effortless motion for an athlete who has been knocked off his feet so many times by the physical toll of running professionally.

Brannen, the Cambridge-raised track phenomenon, is plotting his return to the Olympics in a land of jackrabbits, rattlesnakes and scorpions. Arizona has been the Olympian’s winter home for three years, and he says it’s part of the reason he’s in the best shape of his life.

This isn’t a feel-good story. This is about unfinished business.

At 29, Brannen’s career as a middle-distance runner is already a blur of highlights. Breaking the four-minute barrier for the mile while still in high school. Athlete of the year at the University of Michigan. Running for Canada at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Records broken, medals piling up.

So hasn’t he accomplished enough? Not a chance.

“I don’t want to walk away from the sport missing anything. I want to walk away knowing I ran everything out of my body that was possible,” he said.

Read the full story here.

A woman and her horse

Record file photo/Mat McCarthy

On Monday,  Record photographer Mat McCarthy and I will take a bit of a road trip to Stouffville, Ontario to visit Ute Busse.

Busse, 57, is the Breslau-based dressage coach and judge who's throwing her hat in the competition to ride for Canada at the London Olympics. She'll be training with her horse, Lindor, at her daughter's stable near Stouffville.

Dressage, for the unitiated, is like ballet for horses. It's about grace and beauty, and is considered the highest expression of horse riding and training.

Busse, a former member of the national dressage team who was named the Ontario Equestrian Federation coach of the year in 2011, has until mid-June to qualify for the Games. 

Hopefully we can learn a few things from Busse, who first started riding horses in her native Germany at age six. Her father was a professional horse man.

We'll tell you more about Busse and Lindor later this month.

Moors continues to impress on international stage

(sorry for the video from Brazilian TV- still looking for a high-quality English version).

If there was any lingering doubt 15-year-old Victoria Moors belongs on the gymnastics team going to the Olympics this summer, she's blowing that out the door.

The Cambridge gymnast had another very strong performance at an international meet this month - this time bringing home silver from the Zibo World Cup in China. She wowed with her difficult tumbling lines coupled with an artistic touch, landing her a fraction away from gold in total points.

Moors also placed fifth on uneven bars and Dymnamo Gymnastics teammate Madeline Gardiner was sixth on balance beam.

Since bursting onto the senior circuit last fall, Moors has impressed crowds and judges with her powerful floor routines. She isn't just being talked about as a Olympic hopeful - Canada's gymnastics community is putting its medal hopes on her shoulders.

If Moors qualifies for the Games and goes on to win a spot in the floor final - as many observers are predicting - she'll have reached a height only a handful of Canadian gymnasts have ever touched.

Since Canada first began competing at the Olympics in 1956, only two women have reached an event final: Kelly Brown on vault at the boycotted 1984 Games, and Kate Richardson at the 2004 Games in Athens.

Gillis heads to Vancouver with a target on his back

Guelph's other marathon hope in the Olympics, Eric Gillis, also has a title to defend this month.

He's heading to B.C. this weekend for the Vancouver Sun Run 10K, where he'll try to once again win the high-profile race after becoming the first homegrown Canadian in 13 years to do it last year.

Gillis, 31, won the 2011 Sun Run in 29 minutes and six seconds, narrowly beating Kenyan native Kip Kangogo, the 2010 winner, and Dylan Wykes. Wykes is the  Kingston, Ont., native now living in Vancouver who is also vying  to qualify for the marathon in the Olympics.

Gillis told the Vancouver Sun his mind is on bigger things right now - like the Games.

"I feel like I can be competitive ... I definitely feel like I've got the experience and can handle the pressure," Gillis said.

"But I'm not really thinking about goals because I'm not on the team just yet. I'm waiting until it's official ... to nail down my goals and what I want to do there."

Canada can send three marathoners to London. Only Reid Coolsaet and Gillis have qualified so far, but Speed River teammate Rob Watson of Guelph, whose best is 2: 16, and Wykes, whose personal best is 2: 12: 39, will try one last time to qualify by running the Rotterdam Marathon on April 22.

Wykes, who ran 1: 02: 38  and 1: 04: 22 half-marathons this year, tried to make the Olympic standard at Japan's Lake Biwa Mainchuri Marathon in March. He dropped out at 25 kilometres because of a stomach problem.

With Wykes not running the Sun Run this year, Gillis' main competition will once again come from Kangogo and fellow Kenyans, Willy Kimosop and Kibet Rutto, according to the newspaper.  Kangogo and Kimosop, the 2009 champion in 29: 04 and fifth last year, both live in Lethbridge, Alta.

Two other Canadian contenders are Torontonians Matt Loi-selle and Rejean Chiasson, who ran last year's Toronto Water-front Marathon in 2: 16: 01 and 2: 17: 48.

I'll have a full profile on Gillis later this spring.

Coolsaet to defend title in last local race before Games

Marathoner Reid Coolsaet will defend his Toronto Yonge Street 10km title this month in what may be fans' last chance to see him race with local runners before the Olympics this summer.

Take at look at the video above to see what the race's last 800 metres looked like. Hot on his heels are Speed River Track & Field Club teammate Eric Gillis and Kenyan born Albertan Kip Kangogo.

Coolsaet, who along with Gillis qualified for the Olympics last September, is in Flagstaff, AZ finishing up a high-altitude training camp. He's returning to Ontario four days before the April 22 race in Toronto, where he finished with a time of 28:08.0 last year.

“The Yonge Street 10km obviously is a downhill race and it’s nice to feel fast and get a fast time and kind of carry that 10k speed into the marathon buildup,” Coolsaet said. “My plan is hopefully to feel fresh and healthy going into the marathon training phase. I will be cutting back the mileage a little bit to feel a little quicker. Hopefully it works.”

While the 9 a.m. race has a party atmosphere, where beginners and Olympians can share the road and entertainment along the route, Coolsaet will use the race to measure his Olympic preparation. He will face Kangogo (who finished third last year in 28:09.4), Kenya’s Nelson Ndereva, a 2:10:58 marathoner, as well as Terrence Attema and Giitah Macharia.

Coolsaet plans to race in the Ottawa 10km in May and the Vancouver half marathon at the end of June. He'll head to London Aug. 1, for the Olympic marathon Aug. 12.

We caught up with Coolsaet and Gillis and the rest of their Speed River teammates for interviews in Flagstaff late last month. Watch for those stories and videos later this spring.

Brannen looks good out of the gate

Dave Bebee/Record staff

Preston-raised running sensation Nate Brannen figures he’s got as good a shot at the podium in London this summer as anyone.

That's what the middle-distance runner and former Olympian told me during an interview in a park in Scottsdale, Arizona a few weeks ago.

And although he's planning to time his training so that he’s running at his peak by July, he already looks good.The best he's looked in years, in fact.

This past weekend, he won the 1,500 metre race at the Sun Angel Classic in Tempe, Arizona with a time of three minutes, 39.85 seconds — four seconds off his personal best, but not bad for his first race of the season.

He plans to qualify early in the running season for London and has set high goals for himself beyond that.

“If I walk away not an Olympic finalist, I’ll feel I didn’t achieve my goals and reach my potential this year,” he said. “Once I make it to the final, there’s the world’s twelve best guys on the line. One any given day, the three spots for the medal contenders could change.”

Plenty of people who've known Brannen since he was a kid say there's nothing surprising about his confidence. His abilities on the track stood out from an early age, says close friend Scott Thorman, the former major league baseball player and fellow Preston native.

At a Grade 6 track meet, an 11-year-old Brannen nearly lapped the entire field of runners in an 800-metre race, including front-runner Thorman. Even running with a pack of kids a year older than him, he was clearly in a league of his own.

“He had already won the race, had rested and was walking around by the time I won the race for the 12-year-olds,” Thorman said. “That gives you a little indication of the exceptional talent that he has.”

Brannen seemed destined to run with the world’s best.

“When you excel that far ahead of everybody, it’s more than just the fastest kid in class. It’s the kid that opens eyes,” Thorman said. “Everybody knew there was something special here.”

Watch for a full profile and video on Brannen this Saturday in TheRecord.com and GuelphMercury.com