Friday, February 15, 2002
Sylvestre saves a bit of face
By CHRIS STEVENSON -- SLAM! Sports
PARK CITY, Utah - Canada's snowboarders did a collective face plant at these Olympic Winter Games and now the sport faces an uphill struggle back home to get its house in order.
Four years ago, the sport was at the centre of Canada's Olympic experience with Ross Rebagliati winning the gold in the slalom and then having it stripped because of some reefer madness.
He got it back, but it became the story of those Games.
This time around, much was expected of Canada's riders, but favourites like Jasey Jay Anderson, the overall World Cup champ, and Mark Fawcett, the world champ in parallel slalom, failed to even make it to Friday's final.
Instead, it was left to 22-year-old Jerome Sylvestre of Bromont, Que., to salvage a bit of pride for the Canadian riders. After qualifying sixth for Friday's head-to-head slalom, he was eliminated by just .05 of a second by American Chris Klug in Friday's first round.
It was a gutsy performance for a rider with little experience at this level of competition.
"I proved to myself I can run with the best guys in the world," said
Sylvestre, a late addition to the team. "I'm really glad because this is a big event and I proved I can handle the pressure well. This is a great experience for 2006. I"ll be there stronger than ever.
"My goal was to make it (out of qualifying), so this was icing on the cake. I wanted to just go for it. I had nothing to lose."
Facing a huge pro-American crowd, Sylvestre was down by .37 of a second after the first run (the riders go against each in two heats with the rider with the best combined time advancing).
Sylvestre made a bit of a mistake halfway down the pitch, but finished strongly. It just wasn't enough to catch the eventual bronze medal winner.
"I'm proud of my riding. I'm proud Chris beat me. He's a cool guy. He's a good guy to lose to."
The gold was won by Switzerland's Philip Schoch, who beat out Sweden's Richard Richardsson.
The Canadian riders were "poised to bring home a great deal of hardware from the Salt Lake City Games," according to the Canadian Olympic Association's media guide. But things unraveled quickly.
In the halfpipe, Natasza Zurek of Vancouver was touted as a medal favourite, but finished 15th. On the men's side, Trevor Andrew of Falmouth, NS, finished ninth. Daniel Migneault of Baie Comeau, QC, who won a World Cup event in Whistler in December, finished 26th and Mike Michalchuk of Calgary finished 27th.
Fawcett, of Rothesay, NB, finished 17th and didn't make the final. Anderson, of Mont-Tremblant, QC, who doesn't like the parallel slalom format, finished last (29th) among the riders who completed the qualifying run. Ryan Wedding of Coquitlam, BC, was 24th.
It didn't help that a knee injury kept Guillaume Morisset of Ste-Foy, QC, out of the halfpipe competition.
"This is disappointing for us," said Adam Faithfull, president of the Canadian Snowboard Federation. "Morisset was picked to be on the podium as well, but his knee turned out to be more serious than expected.
"Jasey not making it in and Mark getting edged out...it seemed like the guys with a lot of pressure on them didn't do well. It was the same thing in freestyle.
"We're not disappointed in the athletes, but our expectations were higher. We tried to keep the pressure off them. We tried to downplay the Olympics as a competition. It's not the biggest thing in snowboarding there is. Maybe we should have said, 'Hey, this is the Olympics, it does mean a lot.' Maybe we should have built it up more."
Faithfull said the athletes perhaps weren't well enough prepared for what to expect. The venue here was packed with a raucous crowd of 16,000 people.
"Look at this," said Faithfull, looking up at the crowd. "There's a football game behind me and snowboard is over here."
Faithfull will now face the challenge of pulling the snowboarding community - by the nature of the sport, a fractious bunch - together. Riders like Anderson are not even full-fledged members of the national team, but associate members. They aren't obligated to national team sponsors, but instead have their own deals. The riders are used to fending for themselves and with a budget of just $600,000 at this point, the CSF can't come up with enough money for the riders to justify dumping their current sponsorship deals.
"We don't want to take money out of the athletes' pockets," said Faithfull, but structuring a new deal to bring everyone onside is a priority after the Games. Sport Canada doesn't like the CSF having a two-tiered deal with its athletes. It's hard for the CSF to get a clothing deal, for instance, if it cannot assure the manufacturer the high-profile athletes will be wearing their clothes.
"We're looking at the American model where the athletes aren't obligated to wear a national team uniform, but the athletes pay into the program a certain fee to use coaches. It seems to work for them," said Faithfull.
There will also be a focus on improving Canada's development program.
The introduction of the parallel giant slalom at these Games wasn't popular with the North American riders since it is a discipline in which the Europeans excel.
But there could be good news for Canada come the next Olympic Winter Games in Turino, Italy in 2006. There are rumours of snowboard cross - or boarder cross - being introduced as a third discipline in four years. It features packs of four or six riders competing on a course at the same time.
Canada is strong in that event on the World Cup circuit.
But as these Games proved, previous results count for little.
2002 Games Snowboarding Coverage
