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#1
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
Probably the greatest xc-skier in Canada, Alex Harvey has been pulled
out from the Canadian cross-country team and its funding because he wants to stay and train at the (father's) Pierre Harvey National Ski Centre located at Mont-Ste-Anne, QC, rather than training in the Rockies (AB), 4 000 km away. What a shame regarding the Cdn xc organization who does not understand our elite needs and preferences. More than 50% of Cdn the cross- country skiers live in QC, the xc-mecca in North America. No wonder also why some Quebecers are ****ed at Canada... Rock |
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#2
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
Hard to know what to make of things like this from a distance and
without sufficient details. It is the second seemingly odd piece of news recently out of the north: "Lee Churchill Hired as Callaghan Valley Training Centre Head Coach" (replaces Amy Caldwell, who was summarily fired a couple of months ago). Gene wrote: Probably the greatest xc-skier in Canada, Alex Harvey has been pulled out from the Canadian cross-country team and its funding because he wants to stay and train at the (father's) Pierre Harvey National Ski Centre located at Mont-Ste-Anne, QC, rather than training in the Rockies (AB), 4 000 km away. What a shame regarding the Cdn xc organization who does not understand our elite needs and preferences. More than 50% of Cdn the cross- country skiers live in QC, the xc-mecca in North America. No wonder also why some Quebecers are ****ed at Canada... Rock |
#3
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
On May 5, 3:10*pm, wrote:
Probably the greatest xc-skier in Canada, Alex Harvey has been pulled out from the Canadian cross-country team and its funding because he wants to stay and train at the (father's) Pierre Harvey National Ski Centre located at Mont-Ste-Anne, QC, rather than training in the Rockies (AB), *4 000 km away. http://www.ctvolympics.ca/cross-coun...tml?cid=rssctv That is precisely the kind of thing we have those "down jacket guys" or "sports leaders" for:-) |
#4
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
Thanks for the link. I always wonder about the substance of these
disputes. While a certain esprit de corps can be beneficial, this is basically an individual sport. The USST initially tried to run up against that (still?), but then backed off to some degree (Kris Freeman is hq'd in the east and there's the Alaska bunch). OTOH, if you don't have a national center with athletes focused around it to some substantial degree, there's a tendency to devolve. I wonder how the Norwegians, Swedes and Finns handle this, granted traveling distances are much less. Gene anders wrote: On May 5, 3:10*pm, wrote: Probably the greatest xc-skier in Canada, Alex Harvey has been pulled out from the Canadian cross-country team and its funding because he wants to stay and train at the (father's) Pierre Harvey National Ski Centre located at Mont-Ste-Anne, QC, rather than training in the Rockies (AB), *4 000 km away. http://www.ctvolympics.ca/cross-coun...tml?cid=rssctv That is precisely the kind of thing we have those "down jacket guys" or "sports leaders" for:-) |
#5
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
Last news from the local Quebec paper: this is Tom Holland, the head
of the so-called "High Performance" Ski committee who decided to retrograde Alex Harvey. However, the news says that his decision shall be approved by the whole "High Performance" Ski committee... Not done yet I must say... |
#6
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
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#7
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
Vegard Ulvang and Bjørn Dæhlie came from Kirkenes and Nannestad (near Oslo), which is about as far apart as you can get in Norway. I've just read that Norwegian Inge Braten will be the new Canadian National Team Coach. Now there's a man that I admire. It looks like his down to earth skills are going to be called upon in his new job. |
#8
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
The guys in the down jackets are going to have to back down on this
one. The hue and cry from the skiing community has been overwhelming. It has even been mentioned in parliament. I think it points out to systemic problems with the way CCC operates (basically as a silo cut off from the grassroots ski community). There was a good article here that summarizes many of the issues: http://www.corussports.com/divers/pi...5-1545811.html As Donald Farley, Salt Lake Olympian puts it at the end of the article, the organization is supposed to work for the athletes, not the other way around. Alex's father makes some points a good father would make. I think I can summarize a few of them although my french is still at the early learners phase: - They the athlete out of a milieu that works for him, making him quit school at age 18 and go and live thousands of km away. - When the athlete is finished his career without education and job prospects, they drop him on the street. - They want to force him to do a long dryland training camp in California in October of the Olympic year. Every year the CNEPH guys to to Ramsau to do on ski training and test skis. Pierre doesn't think another long dryland camp with lots of running makes sense for Alex at that time of year. Why change the routine that works months before the Olympics? - Last year CCC hired a foreign coach for a huge sum of money and then parted company 6 months later during the lead up to the Olympics. (Yet they want to deny Alex the $15K extra he would have got if he agreed to all the training camps?) - Then skiers from the CNEPH group that Alex trains with had the best- ever performance by a North American team at the world U23/Juniors last winter, so they must be doing the right things. Why mess with that? - It is better for Alex to recover and regain his motivation where he is comfortable, otherwise he may arrive at the Olympics tired, unmotivated...I can't translate "faire patate aux olympiques" directly, but it translates to "bomb". His phrase was "Il va arriver en février l'année prochaine, complètement écoeuré et démotivé et il risque de faire patate aux olympiques s'il n'a pas de plaisir". - His comment on the high-performance director: « C'est certain que Holland est quelqu'un de très entêté. Il fait un programme et croit que tout le monde doit se mettre à genoux devant lui. Si tu as Wayne Gretzky et Guy Lafleur dans une même équipe, tu sais qu'ils auront des demandes différentes » He's saying is a bit stubborn in the head. He has his programme and expect everybody to drop to their knees before him. If you had Wayne Gretzky and Guy Lafleur (hockey players, for those in Europe) on the same team, you would treat them differently Basically, with all the arbitrary-seeming personnel changes and generally bad decision-making going on, why would he trust them with his son's future? I wouldn't. Chris Chris The main issue seems to be with the high performance director, who |
#9
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
His phrase was "Il va arriver en février l'année prochaine,
complètement écoeuré et démotivé et il risque de faire patate aux olympiques s'il n'a pas de plaisir". It's been over 20 years... The whole paragraph reads: "Alex doesn't have any problems with the rest of the Canadian team. He gets along well with the anglophones. But when you're gone for six months, there's need to live in your own milieu in order to be comfortable and recharge the batteries. [if not] He's going to arrive next February completely sick and unmotivated and risks bombing at the Olympics if he is not in good spirits." The reference to Gretzky and LaFleur is that if you had them on the same team, you know that they would have different needs (than others). Holland had written Harvey: "Si on fait des exceptions pour tout le monde, le concept d'équipe disparaît." If we make exceptions for everyone, the team concept disappears. (he goes onto add that they had already made an exception for him; he must participate in the training camps) (reporter) "D'autre part, deux autres membres de l'équipe canadienne de ski de fond, Philip Widmer et Sean Crooks, auraient demandé de quitter Canmore afin de venir s'entraîner avec Alex Harvey au Centre national à Québec." On the other hand, two other members of the Canadian cross country ski team, Widmer and Crooks, have already requested a waiver from Canmore in order to train with Alex Harvey at the National Center in Quebec. All this makes me wonder the more what led to the canning of Amy Caldwell, since they had hired her for the Olympic run up and her small group of young skiers had progressed well. Her attachment to a USST tech no doubt rankled some heads in terms of developing larger responsibilities, but did they really think that Zach, was going to relegate himself to stay at home dad for the next three years. Gene |
#10
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Alex Harvey out of the Canadian team!
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