Chris Lund

chrislund

Chris is one of the founders of Always OUA and currently a web editor at theScore. He was the editor of theScore's University Rush blog during the 2011 season. His work can be found at The Hockey News, The Hardball Times and JaysProspects.com and whatever other projects he has roped himself into.

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Olympics Viewing Guide – August 8

Posted by Chris Lund under What to Watch on Aug 08, 2012

Here’s your rundown of the Olympics events you need to watch today. (All times Eastern)

Athletics

Sultana Frizell will be the first Canadian in competition in the Athletics portion tomorrow when she participates in the women’s hammer throw at 5 am. Damian Warner is Canada’s lone male decathlete in these games and he will get things underway in the 100m dash at 5:10 am. Cameron Levins will be taking part in the first round of the men’s 5000m at 5:45 am. Jessica Smith and Melissa Bishop will both be in the first round of the women’s 800m at 6:35 am. Curtis Moss is the lone Canadian in the men’s javelin throw qualification at 2:05 pm. Hilary Stellingwerff and Nicole Sifuentes will both try to advance in the Women’s 1500m at 2:45 pm. Jared Connaughton and Aaron Brown will both try to advance to the men’s 200m final when they take part in the semis at 3:10 pm.

Basketball

The men’s elimination circuit is underway as Russia takes on Lithuania at 9 am to kick off the round. The United States will end the quarterfinal matches tomorrow at 5:15 pm when they take on Australia.

Canoe Sprint

Three medal opportunities for Canada in the medal sprint. Adam van Koeverden will look to bring home a medal in the men’s K1 1,000m at 4:30 am. Meanwhile, Mark Oldershaw will be looking for a medal in the C1 1,000m at 4:48 am.

Cycling – BMX

Tory Nyhaug will be the lone Canadian representative in the Men’s BMX seeding run.

Diving

Canada will have two divers in the women’s 10m platform preliminaries as Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion will break up their synchro partnership and go for individual glory. That’s set for 2:00 pm.

Wrestling

Carol Huynh will represent Canada in the 48kg freestyle division when she takes on Thi Lua Nguyen of Vietnam at 8:25 am. Martine Dugrenier will represent Canada against Japan’s Kaori Icho at 8:25 am.

 

For a full list of the events going on today, click here for the London 2012 Official Olympic Schedule

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Alexandre Despatie has his Olympic career come to an end

Posted by Chris Lund under Diving on Aug 07, 2012

Canada’s most prolific male diving talent of all time had his last Olympic dive today as Alexandre Despatie finished 11th in the 3m Springboard dive.

After a few solid dives in the final round, Despatie just didn’t have enough in the tank to get up high and complete his most complex dive which drastically lowered his finishing place. After a training period building up to the Olympics punctuated by a concussion and an exceedingly deep field, the odds were stacked against Despatie to leave with a medal.

Despatie, the only Canadian male to medal at an Olympic games, competed in four Olympic games over the course of his career, making his Olympics debut at the age of 15 years old at Sydney 2000. His two medals, both silvers, came in the 3m springboard in 2004 (Athens) and 2008 (Beijing).

It’s hard to understate how prolific Despatie has been in the international diving scene. With three gold medals at the World Championships, nine gold medals at the Commonwealth Games and four gold medals at the Pan-Am Games — not to mention a few bucketloads of silvers and bronzes from those competitions — he has been absolutely immense for Canada’s diving program which we are now seeing reap medals consistently. All of this without touching on his long list of accomplishments on the junior diving circuit.

Despatie has had a storied career, and will be missed by Canada on the international scene. Some will argue that he has gone out with a whimper in his final games, but his legacy extends much farther than that and will persist until someone officially unseats him as the greatest Canadian male diver of all time.

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Derek Drouin captures a Canadian bronze in high jump

Posted by Chris Lund under Medals on Aug 07, 2012

Derek Drouin has captured a bronze medal for Canada in the high jump with a height of 2.29 m.

The height matched his best in qualification where he placed second heading into today’s final. The bronze is odd in that it was shared with two other athletes, Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Robert Grabarz of Great Britain matched the 2.29m height.

Drouin is a high jumper on the NCAA circuit for the Indiana Hoosiers and is competing in his first Olympics at 22 years old. His best height this year was 2.31 m and it was expected coming into the games that he would need to flirt with Mark Boswell’s Canadian record of 2.35 m to be in medal contention. However, as we now know, the sub-2.30 m height was good enough to get the job done.

He’s the first Olympic medalist to ever come from Corunna, Ont., so expect the street he grew up on to change names at some point in the next year.

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Absolutely the worst dive in the history of the Olympics

Posted by Chris Lund under A Gold Medal in Failure on Aug 07, 2012

I will be the first person to confess that I don’t know anything about the technical aspects of diving. The twisting and tumbling and turning and gravity at-large which takes place is undeniably impressive, but what separates a gold medal dive from a silver medal dive from a bronze medal dive is absolutely mystifying to me.

I don’t get it, and I’m glad judges and commentators are there to tell me what to think.

Despite my admitted ignorance, one thing I have picked up after watching a ton of Olympics in my relatively brief life is that a dive is better if there’s less of a splash. While this contradicts everything we learn from backyard pool parties, it seems to be a fairly rigid and unflinching rule in the diving community.

As such, I have hereby classified this Stephan Feck dive as the worst dive of all the dives. Ever.

(GIF Source)

The 22 year old from Leipzig received a ’0′ for this effort. I agree with the decision.

Though, after doing a little research on Mr. Feck I’ve learned that he is a member of the German army. This is obviously intimidating and I hope he doesn’t come find me or any of the people who laugh at this video and inflict retaliatory pain.

That would be Fecking terrible. Like his dive. Which was the worst ever.

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Usain Bolt cares not for your made up rules or meddling staff

Posted by Chris Lund under Shenanigans on Aug 07, 2012

There’s something incredibly impressive about being the best in the world at something when people are trying to screw with you every step with the way.

In the case of Usain Bolt, he’s exceptional at running very, very fast. So fast that if he were a satellite NBC wouldn’t be showing the Olympics on a nine hour delay to their viewers. So fast that if he were were a Twitter server, we wouldn’t know about the Fail Whale. So fast that if he were a clock, Justin Bieber’s 15 minutes would have barely been noticeable and the world would be happy.

He’s that fast. Have you heard?

Training is developing your routine — finding a way to push your body to its furthest extent of excellence and making it the standard take lots of repetition. Professional basketball players have elaborate free throw routines, some people have musical accompaniments they like, Usain Bolt has his favourite warm up skipping rope.

Or, at the very least, he’s supposed to.

At the 100m final on Sunday, Usain Bolt was not allowed to bring his training rope into the arena for his warm up routine. A rule conscious usher told him it simply wasn’t allowed. The thing is, though, there’s no rule against it and it wasn’t the only time he was meddled with in preparation for the biggest track event in the world.

“Oh my God, why are there so many rules?! You can’t do nothing,” he [Bolt] told reporters after opening the defence of his 200m title with an easy heat win.

“It’s weird, some of the rules. I was coming in a while ago and I had my skipping rope in my bag and they said I can’t bring it in. I was like, ‘Why?’. ‘It’s just the rules’,” he said.

“I am going to do it tomorrow … I am going to stick it under my bag, bottom of my bag or something.”

Coe, the Games chief, said skipping ropes were “not expressly banned”.

“I will look at this,” he said. “I presume the skipping rope was a warm-up aid so I will look at that.”

It was not clear at what exact point Bolt’s rope was taken off him.

“If it was taken away before the stadium, then that is not correct,” said organising committee spokeswoman Jackie Brock-Doyle. “If it was taken before he entered the field of play (track), then that is probably correct. We are still looking into it.”

That was just the beginning. As Bolt was nearing the moment of the race itself, continuing his warmup and trying to get loose, it was made clear to him that he wasn’t getting ready for the race properly and he needed to shape up.

“I was at the line and the guy was telling me to line up, to stay in a straight line. I’m like, ‘Really? We are about to run and you’re going to tell me to stand in a straight line?’. It’s kind of weird, these rules, which doesn’t make any sense to me personally.”

Again, this is the biggest race in the world. And to make things worse, he had to ignore a Heineken bottle crashing in behind him at the start line. As far as record setting days at the office go, this one was trying.

There’s a certain brand of absurdity which has come with these Usain Bolt stories and, if we’re doing a candid appraisal here, it reeks of individual heroes trying to take down the world’s greatest down a peg or two. The premier event at the Summer Games, and arguably any form of the Olympics, is the 100m dash. To have people confiscating warm up items from the world’s fastest man and forcing him to line up a certain way when there are no rules in place seems incredibly odd if we want to roll with another explanation.

The point which really shouldn’t need to be stated is that this competition is far too important to have power crazed volunteers interfering with athletes. It happens at amateur events all the time, a volunteer thinks that they are a gatekeeper of Ghostbusters proportions and is happy to lay the wood on anyone who crosses their authority. But please, for the love of God, not at the Olympic games, and certainly not the biggest events, and most definitely not to the best of all time at said events.

Especially if that person is all-world awesome the way Usain Bolt is.

You can take away his skipping rope, you can line him up in a straight line, but you can’t run faster than Usain Bolt and neither can anyone else, ever. The 200m semifinal goes on Wednesday, the 200m final goes on Thursday. He will sneak his skipping rope in, he will line up wherever he wants. He will probably win and by a lot at that.

Don’t trifle with the man. Playing with explosives is hazardous.

Cap tip to Darren Kritzer who tipped me off to this story of discontent.

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Party time in Grenada: Kirani James gives his country its first medal

Posted by Chris Lund under Medals on Aug 07, 2012

There’s something incredibly awesome about being the first person from your country to accomplish something. Did you know that the first American to win an Olympic gold medal was James Connolly in 1896 for the triple jump? Probably not. But he’s the first, and even though there have been thousands of people to win gold medals in between for the States he will always be the first.

Equally cool example: Marc Garneau is the first Canadian to ever go to space and he will always be the first. No Canadian has ever been on the moon. You, provided you are Canadian, should get on that. I would but the idea of that many G-Forces spooks me.

Coming into the 2012 Games, Grenada had never won an Olympic medal. Enter Kirani James, sprinter, who became the first Grenadan to ever win a medal at the Olympics when he won the 400m sprint by a half second over Luguelin Santos of the Dominican.

How important is that to a native of Grenada? Well…

Grenada’s police commissioner, James Clarkson, authorized street celebrations with the explanation that “this is to my mind the most important event that ever happened to our country, even more important than Christopher Columbus landing.”

Not too shabby. Given that many like to argue medals should count for more in countries with small populations, it should be noted that Grenada now has more medals per capita than any other country at the games with one per ever 110,821 inhabitants. This is what Slovenia gets for resting on its laurels, enjoying their paltry medal for every 514,385 inhabitants.

James acknowledges that this is a pretty significant moment for his country, and you can expect a few towns to be named after him in the near future. If his neighbourhood were to adopt his nickname — Jaguar — as their new moniker, it would be a step up over their current name which is Gun Battle.

“I think there are quite a few street parties going on,” James said. “I just go out there and just try to do my best in terms of representing my country in a positive way. As long as I do that, they are going to be proud of me, and as long as they are proud of me I’m happy with that. But just being there and this being an Olympic gold medal, this is a huge step for our country in terms of stepping up to the plate in track and field, just going out there and putting us on the map.”

Grenada is soaking up the moment as parties have been going for some time now.

Take note, Pakistan. Your zero medals for a population of 179,309,000 is looking mighty lame right now.

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Cameroon’s population in London is slowly dropping

Posted by Chris Lund under What? on Aug 07, 2012

Many of you reading this have either traveled to London for the purposes of a vacation, or perhaps have considered it as a future destination. One great way to get there is be an Olympian in 2012. If you happen to be someone from an impoverished country, you may consider staying in London or Europe as a whole. As in not leaving for home. Ever.

Five athletes from Cameroon have officially ‘absconded’ according to their Olympic mission.

A reserve goalkeeper for the women’s soccer team, Drusille Ngako, was the first to disappear, the agency quoted Cameroon’s Olympic mission as saying.

…

“What began as rumour has finally turned out to be true,” Team Cameroon mission head David Ojong said, in a letter sent to the Cameroonian sports ministry.

“Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village.”

Ngako was the first to disappear while her teammates left for Coventry for their last preparatory encounter against New Zealand, he said.

Her disappearance was followed by that of swimmer Paul Ekane Edingue and five boxers eliminated from the games.

Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli, Blaise Yepmou Mendouo and Serge Ambomo, disappeared on Sunday from the Olympic village, Mr Ojong said.

The athletes have allegedly cited ‘economic’ reasons as their motivation for staying in Europe and not returning home with their fellow athletes. Feel free to insert your Eurozone economy joke here.

All told, this is an interesting byproduct of the games which has taken place for some time now. Every Olympics — or at least Olympics in countries with favourable living conditions — there are a batch of athletes who choose to defect from their country and seek refuge in the location of the games or its surrounding area.

I’d have to imagine that an Olympiad in North America or Europe would be particularly popular for athletes who want to abscond. North American countries have established themselves as a hub of immigration and in Europe, an athlete absconding for political or economic reasons have the ability to settle anywhere in Europe provided it is a member of the European Union as it is a condition of membership in the EU. Shared values between states means they are all willing to — formally at least — take on refugees who land in one of the states, lest they be ejected from the Union and persist as a lonely, lonely pariah.

Olympian defectors are just one of the many fascinating social phenomena that take place at these games. For some athletes it marks a chance to become a national hero, for others it is the chance to start what is hopefully a better life in a new nation altogether.

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Simon Whitfield crashes in triathlon

Posted by Chris Lund under Triathlon on Aug 07, 2012

There won’t be any medals for Canada’s opening ceremony flag bearer this year as national triathlon star Simon Whitfield crashed in the finals this morning and couldn’t finish the race due to what’s believed to be a shin injury.

The result is surely disappointing for Whitfield and Canadian fans as he appeared to be in good position to make a medal push after the swim portion of the race. Whitfield left the water in 22nd position and was within striking distance of the leaders when you consider how long they had to go.

For a visual of how heartbreaking this is, here’s a picture of Whitfield’s wife and daughter Pippa reacting to the news.

Certainly a disappointing way to end Whitfield’s distinguished career in competition. Two Olympic medals in four tries and a flag bearer credit to his name. Not to mention the first gold in the history of Olympic triathlon. Quite frankly, had he won a medal we’d have to throw him in jail for murdering trees to print his résumé.

There were two other Canadians in the race but neither finished in the top 20. Kyle Jones of Hamilton, Ont., finished 25th overall, just ahead of Brent McMahon of Kelowna, B.C., who finished 27th.

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Olympics viewing guide – August 7

Posted by Chris Lund under What to Watch on Aug 07, 2012

Here’s your rundown of the Olympics events you need to watch today. (All times Eastern)

Athletics

Plenty of Canadians will be looking for good performances when the track and field events get under way. Elizabeth Gleadale will be wearing the red and white in the javelin throw qualifiers at 5:00 am. Sheila Reid will be in the women’s 5000m qualifiers at 5:55 am. Aaron Brown, Tremaine Harris and Jarred Connaughton will be in the Men’s 200m sprint at 6:00 am. Derek Drouin and Michael Mason will be getting after it in the Men’s High Jump at 2:00 pm. If Nikkita Holder, Jessica Zelinka or Phyllicia George advance in the women’s 100m hurdles qualifiers at 2:15 pm, they’ll appear in the finals at 4:00 pm. Geoffrey Harris will represent Canada in the 800m at 2:55 pm. Crystal Emmanuel will look for a spot in the final of the women’s 200m at 3:25 pm when she races in the semis.

Basketball

Canada’s women’s basketball squad will take on the Americans at 9:00 am in their quarterfinal matchup. Hopefully they don’t encounter a Norwegian referee.

Boxing

Catch Custio Clayton in action for Canada in the men’s welterweight competition when he fights Freddie Evans of Britain at 4:45 pm.

Canoe Sprint

Emilie Fournier will represent Canada in the Women’s K1 500m heats at 5:07 am.

Cycling

Joseph Veloce will represent Canada in the Men’s Keirin at 5:00 am. Tara Whitten goes in the Women’s Omnium 3km individual pursuit at 5:19 am.

Diving

The men’s 3m springboard will see Alexandre Despatie and Francois Imbeau-Dulac represent Canada in qualifying at 5 am as they look to continue Canada’s diving fortune at this Olympics. The finals are set for 2 pm.

Equestrian

Ashley Holzer is the lone Canadian in the Individual Dressage which is set for 5 am.

Synchronised Swimming

Marie-Pier Boudreau Gagnon and Elise Marcotte sit fourth after qualifying in the women’s duets. We’ll see if they can land a medal at 10:00 am.

Triathlon

Three Canadians go in the triathlon as Kyle Jones, Brent McMahon and THE Simon Whitfield will look to win a medal. Find out how it goes at 6:30 am.

 

For a full list of the events going on today, click here for the London 2012 Official Olympic Schedule.

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Game Log: Canada vs. USA

Posted by Chris Lund under Women's Soccer on Aug 06, 2012

The biggest women’s soccer game ever of all time in any galaxy including the one from Star Wars is under way. I’ll keep you updated here while you refresh the page on the dock at your cottage.

- Canada has started out tentatively, and are having trouble clearing their half.

- Complaints about the officiating on both sides of the ball as a few questionable fouls are handed out. This is a game that CAN’T be decided by officiating. Far too important for this tournament and the women’s soccer game at-large.

- Canada has found a way to hold possession and work the counter attack. Americans are still pressing but Canada is hitting back.

22′ minute: Christine Sinclair scores for Canada!

- Significance of this Sinclair goal:

- A couple of close chances for the Americans as they look to reply after the Sinclair marker. McLeod caught out of position at a couple of points but the Americans can’t find the goal.

- Canada goes into the half with the lead, despite several good chances put towards goal by the United States. Canada did well to hold up at the back end with shot blocking and clearance attempts, but the Americans dictated the flow of play. The half came at the perfect time for a team in need of a reprieve.

- More curious calls from the official as identical plays will only be called fouls once. Really unimpressive work by the official.

- Some theatrics enter the game now as teams try to capitalize on the officiating. Canada need to fight their way off the rops here just five minutes into the second half. America is pressing.

- The States finally gets their breakthrough as a corner is whipped in, takes a bounce and ends up in the Canadian goal. Nobody covering the near post is a curious error. Inswinging corners to the near post are deadly if you leave that spot open. Ball appears to go off McLeod and in among a mess of bodies.

- Canada comes back with good possession after the American goal. Maybe they just need their time to get settled into a half here. We shall see… We’re 60 minutes in.

- Americans get away with a handball in the box after a Sinclair cross. On the counterattack Desiree Scott is carded for a challenge on Abby Wambach at midfield. Bad sequence for Canada.

- Consensus that this officiating crew is terrible is upheld through 2/3 of the game.

- Kaylyn Kyle checks into the game for Jonelle Filigno.

67′ – CHRISTINE SINCLAIR!!!!! 2-1 Canada. She’s now tied with Abby Wambach for second all time in women’s scoring.

- More Sinclair history!

69′ – Megan Rapinoe equalizes with a laser beam! Off the far post and in the goal. A beautiful shot. She and Sinclair are going toe-to-toe with two goals apiece.

- Your best players have to be your best players in the biggest games. This match is living proof.

72′ – CHRISTINE SINCLAIR HAT TRICK. ARE YOU !@#$ING KIDDING ME? 3-2 CANADA.

- Who’s ready for a heart attack finish? We are!

- Some sort of free kick in the box for the USA here… odd…

- Miss on the free kick leads to a penalty shot for the USA… Wambach to take

- I can’t stress how odd this is.

- Wombach scores. What a bizarre sequence of events. There are no words. Original free kick is allegedly for McLeod holding the ball too long. So odd.

- The officiating was, is and appears to want to stay terrible.

- Abby Wambach misses a wide open Canadian goal on a counter attack. Terrible, uncharacteristic miss.

- This is really intense. Seriously.

- Canada erupts after a brutal blown corner kick call. The officiating has really stolen the show in a terrible way against all odds.

- End of regulation. So many emotions. Like a Best of Keanu Reeves YouTube video. Extra time coming up.

- Canada have handled Wombach phenomenally throughout the game.

- Who has more left in the tank? Extra time…

- Both teams handling themselves well thus far. No atrocious calls to speak of yet.

- Both teams look gassed, we’ll see if it leads to a mistake.

- Canada can’t convert an indirect free kick in minute 103. Just couldn’t find a clear head.

- Canada earns a corner off a challenge on Sinclair in the box. Good chance coming up…

- Tancredi near miss on the header, called on an over the back foul. As you were.

- Closing in on 1,000 words here on this game log, had no idea this is what would transpire. It started as a fun idea.

- Half time in extra time. Oh boy.

- Canada puts it into touch with an American injury. Would have been there best chance. We Canucks are sporting.

- McLeod punches out a dangerous American corner. Americans hold possession after it is put out.

- Wambach hits the crossbar with a header. A game of inches.

- Alex Morgan scores in stoppage time. Heartbreaking.

- Canada will play for bronze against a strong France side, while the Americans will take on Japan in the final.

- America was kept in check well despite the goals as Abby Wombach couldn’t seem to finish and Alex Morgan challenged the Canadians but was contained until the play that decided it. Rapinoe was the American star today and her goals were full value, despite the colossal misstep Canada made to surrender the first. America played well, though you can argue, quite convincingly at that, that they were the second best side today.

- Hard to understate what a great performance this was from the Canadian women. Despite plenty of bounces and whistles going against them, they kept coming and coming against the top team in the world and took them to the utter brink. If you can think of a better performance in Canadian soccer history — women’s or men’s — I’m all ears. This game was sheer brilliance from the Canadian women and their fans can fly their flags high knowing that they were represented in a way that was pure class. They deserved a better result, plain and simple. It’ll be tough to regroup for the match against France, but with this resilient group I wouldn’t put anything past them.

- Christine Sinclair for closing ceremonies flagbearer.

- I’m out.

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