January 24/06 10:53 am - Wedgewood Takes Over Gastown, Sport for Life, Athlete Bursaries

Posted by Editor on 01/24/06
 

New Organizer for Tour de Gastown
Courtesy Team Wedgewood

Organization of Canada's fastest race the Tour de Gastown has been handed over to the Wedgewood Cycling Team as part of a three year deal that will see the race added to their list of great fundraising events for the BC Cancer Foundation.

Award winning event organizer Jonathan Wornell will head up the event scheduled to be raced through the historic streets of Vancouver's Gastown district on Wednesday July 19th 2006.

"The race fits well into our portfolio of events for 2006" explained Wornell, whose team has already secured, for the city, the Westside Cycling Classic as the Provincial Road Championships on June 19th 2006 and the Provincial Cyclo Cross Championships on October 31st 2006.

"The Wedgewood Cycling Team is committed to providing first class cycling events in the city of Vancouver and bringing the excitement of cycle racing to the public, the Tour de Gastown has a long history within the Canadian Sports scene and with this announcement we hope to move the race forward to an exciting and bright future" continued Wornell. "We think this addition will allow our organization to achieve its goal of surpassing the $100,000 we raised for the BCCF in 2005."

Teams already scheduled to hit the famous cobbles of Gastown in 2006 include local heroes Symmetrics Cycling with Navigators Insurance & Health Net providing the power from the US.

The Wedgewood Hotel, Washington Marine Group, Bean Around The World, Treloar Physiotherapy, and Body & Soul Health & Fitness are proud sponsors of the Wedgewood Cycling Team.


Canadian Sport for Life
Courtesy PacificSport

Over 140 technical sport experts representing nearly 70 different organizations and governments from across Canada left Ottawa last week with consensus that the recently published resource paper entitled Canadian Sport for Life, a new model for long-term athlete development (LTAD), will change sport for all Canadians.

PacificSport Sport Performance Advisors Istvan Balyi and Richard Way created an expert group with Charles Cardinal (Centre National Multi-Sport de Montreal), Colin Higgs (Memorial University of Newfoundland) and Steve Norris (Canadian Sport Centre Calgary) to research and develop the new model for Canada with funding provided by Sport Canada.

"It's our goal to see British Columbians shine on the Olympic and Paralympic stage in 2008, 2010 and beyond," said Olga Ilich, Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts. "For that to happen, we need a state-of-the-art training model to optimize our athletes' potential. The LTAD model will improve sport performance in B.C. and throughout Canada. I congratulate PacificSport on their participation in developing this new model."

The recently released LTAD (Long-Term Athlete Development) consultation paper describes a seven-stage Canadian approach for training, competition and recovery based on developmental age ˆ the maturation level of an individual ˆ rather than chronological age. It is athlete centred, coach driven, and administration, sport science and sponsor supported. Athletes who progress through LTAD experience training and competition in programs that consider their biological and training ages in creating periodized plans specific to their development needs.

Chief Technical Officer for Diving Canada, Mitch Geller explains "It has been a dream of ours to do the LTAD project. In the past, there always seemed to be other priorities, but then Sport Canada came through with the financial support, after compelling lobbying from Istvan and Richard about the value of LTAD. LTAD is not about immediately raising the roof, about higher levels of performance. It's about raising the floor and that's what we're after. We're after raising all the minimum levels of sport performance."

Of the 47 National Sport Organizations (NSOs) in attendance at this week's session, 26 have already adopted the new LTAD model. "We are trying to help coaches understand, at each stage of development, how they should fit in their fundamental skills, their technical skills, their strategies, and their tactics, and what is the appropriate use of each of those at each stage of development," said Mike MacKay of Canada Basketball.

Canadian Snowboard Federation's Christian Hrab put it quite simply at the conclusion of this week's session ˆ "LTAD is creating better communication at all levels of our sport and we expect to produce champions because LTAD makes sense."


Team Investors Group Amateur Athletes Fund 2006
Courtesy SIRC

Deadline : January 31, 2006

Athletes CAN, in partnership with Investors Group, is committed to helping Canada's top athletes achieve excellence. Twenty bursaries of $5,000 each will be awarded to eligible active senior national team athletes.

Details on this program and application forms are available on www.athletescan.com. Act now! Applications must be submitted by January 31, 2006.

Jason Hussak
Athletes CAN
301 - 1376 Bank street
Ottawa, ON K1H 7Y3
Tel: 613-526-4025
Fax: 613-526-9735