Search Olympic News

VANCOUVER '€” Skier Lauren Woolstencroft, whose domination of Paralympic Games slopes reached a pinnacle in 2010 when she won five gold medals, is expected to announce her retirement from the sport on Thursday.

WHISTLER '€” When wheelchair athlete Chantal Petitclerc won 10 gold medals combined at the 2004 and 2008 Paralympic Summer Games, she was reserved a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. So where does that place skier Lauren Woolstencroft '€” who earned at least half a star with five golds at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games?

The vivacious Petitclerc, now a TV personality and in-demand public speaker, was named Woman of the Year (Chatelaine), Canadian of the year (Maclean's), winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canadian athlete of the year and recipient of the Order of Canada.

WHISTLER - When wheelchair athlete Chantal Petitclerc won 10 gold medals combined at the 2004 and 2008 Paralympic Summer Games, she was reserved a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. So where does that place skier Lauren Woolstencroft - who earned at least half a star with five golds at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games?

The vivacious Petitclerc, now a TV personality and in-demand public speaker, was named Woman of the Year (Chatelaine), Canadian of the year (Maclean's), winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canadian athlete of the year and recipient of the Order of Canada.

WHISTLER '€” You'd think an athlete would never get tired of winning medal after medal, as Canadians Lauren Woolstencroft and Viviane Forest have done at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games.

But you'd be wrong.

Teeing? Sounds like something you do on a golf course or, perhaps, at high noon at the Empress Hotel in Victoria.

But if you hear that word at at UBC'€™s Thunderbird Arena this week, it means a sledge hockey player has just been penalized.

VICTORIA '€” Trevor Greene won a gold medal Saturday in the hearts of those who watched the former Canadian Forces reservist push his wheelchair slowly down Lyall Street in Esquimalt, moving the Paralymic flame on the first of a 31-leg tour of Greater Victoria.

No one put more effort into the task than Greene, a former Canadian Forces reservist who was struck in the head with an axe in Afghanistan in 2006, leaving him paralyzed and unable to breathe without assistance.

VICTORIA '€” The Paralympic Winter Games are in part about gaining equality and respect for disabled sport. It can be slow progress, to be sure, but skier Lauren Woolstencroft made rare inroads early.

She made history in 2002 by becoming the first disabled performer to be named Victoria female athlete of the year as she joined a list includes past winners as Olympic-medallist rower Silken Laumann, Ironman Hawaii champion Lori Bowden and Olympic runner Debbie Bowker.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canada and the United States are set to bring the curtain down on the Vancouver Winter Games with an Olympic showstopper in the men's ice hockey final on Sunday.

The fireworks will start early on the final day as Canada and the U.S. go toe-to-toe for the last gold of the Games which could also determine which nation finishes top the medal table.

But for Canadians, who have been waiting for this day since Vancouver was awarded the Games, there is only one medal that matters -- men's ice hockey gold.

Vancouver (AFP) - Finishing first is what matters at the Olympic Winter Games, but scientists believe that coming home third is often better than being second best.

It's all to do with a tongue-twisting phenomenon called "counterfactual thinking" or "what might have been", said Victoria Medvec, a psychologist and university professor.

Ian Lindsay, PNG

NEW WESTMINSTER '€” When you live in a small town, like I do, you know what brings a community together. It might be your town'€™s annual parade, or the news that a developer is tearing down the theatre to make way for a superstore.