In the course of a glittering cycling career that started at the age of nine Staff won world championships in two branches of cycle sport: BMX in 1996 and track cycling.

On the track he took the world championship wins in two different disciplines: the Team Sprint in 2002, 2005 and 2009; and the Keirin in 2004.

The crowning moment of his career though came in Beijing in 2008 when he rode at the front for the first lap of the Team Sprint taking the Great Britain trio to the fastest opening lap ever recorded on their way to taking the Olympic Gold Medal.

Staff switched from BMX to track in 2001 to fulfill his ambition of winning an Olympic medal - BMX was not then an Olympic sport and track cycling particularly.

Read the rest of this entry »

More than 200 community groups, aboriginal communities, search-and-rescue organizations, ski patrols, old-timer hockey leagues, schools and non-profit groups will receive surplus automatic external defibrillators that were used during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Paralympics. The gifts from the Vancouver Organizing Committee and Medtronic, the manufacturer, are in addition to defibrillators they left in every competition and non-competition venue in Vancouver, Whistler and Richmond.

Shelley Parker, a spokeswoman for Medtronic, said nearly 350 groups across Canada applied for the machines, which can be used by bystanders when someone goes into cardiac arrest.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Unbelievable! And the United States gets the gold!” The Olympics is a time when people from all around the world meet together in one place to show each other all their hard work throughout the years. It all starts off with the opening ceremony. The representatives from each country hold their flags and wave to the crowd. Then the games officially begin.  Here are some highlights from this year’s games:

Figure skating: Kim Yu-Na lived up to her reputation as she gave South Korea their first ever Olympic figure skating title with her spectacular performance. Although, Canada's Joannie Rochette took the bronze, as she bravely competed after the death of her mother, Therese, who died of a heart attack four days before her daughter’s performance.

Read the rest of this entry »

When German television producer Martin Zimmermann first covered the Paralympic Games in Barcelona in the summer of 1992 he was there with two other producers delivering two half-hour features to viewers back home.

Today he is in Whistler with a crew of 20-plus people to deliver one hour-long and one half-hour show daily and he will be providing commentary for the live feed of the Paralympics closing ceremonies Sunday.

“We are doing much more,” Zimmermann said of Paralympic coverage by ARD, one of Germany’s two national public broadcasters. “You cannot compare what we did then to what we are doing today.

Read the rest of this entry »

Vance Air Force Base will host the 2010 Area Six Special Olympics Thursday. Opening ceremonies will be at 9 a.m.

More than 200 Special Olympians between the ages of 8 and 82 from Grant, Garfield and Kay counties are expected to participate. Competitions will be held in track, field and wheelchair athletics. Track events range from the 25-meter walk to the one-mile run. Field events include the shot put, softball throw, safety javelin and long jump.
In case of inclement weather, the rain date is April 1.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sexual offences and violent crime soared during the 17-day 2010 Olympic Games with 421 offences compared 329 in 2009. According to fresh figures released by Vancouver Police, the total number of crimes fell by an insignificant 1.5 per cent during the period Feb. 12 to March 1.

Property crime went down by six per cent from 1839 last year to 1,730 during the games.

“During the same period, the number of violent crimes in the city rose from 324 in 2009 to 421, an increase of almost 30 per cent. The major increases within that category came from assaults. Sexual assaults rose from 16 to 27 and common assaults rose from 250 to 340,” police said.

“It is difficult to draw conclusions from this 17-day period because of the extraordinary increases of both citizens and police within the downtown core. Either factor or both could contribute to these temporary spikes,” said Const. Jana McGuinness.

“These statistics are not reflective of the Metro Vancouver crime picture during the Olympics. Anecdotal information from adjoining police jurisdictions is that crime remained the same or dropped,” she added.

Read the rest of this entry »

March 15, 2010 - Creating a game to simulate the Olympics experience seems like a great idea. You have a plethora of sports to choose from and if made right a game putting you in the shoes (or skates, skis or other various footwear) could be a fairly deep experience. For example you could create your Olympian and work your way up from training to qualifying for the national team of your choice to finally the main event, going for gold. Sadly Vancouver 2010 falls well short of any sense of depth and offers up a somewhat limited version of the events seen at the Winter Olympics.

Read the rest of this entry »

The event was scheduled for this Saturday, but Organizer Frank Florig says that the field at Okkodo High School is not ready. He says a new date and possibly a new venue will be announced at a later time. Florig asks all volunteers and supporters to please call your point of contact at your school or organization for further details and new event location. And they "apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding and continued support of  Guam Special Olympics events.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Tajik Olympic official says the country sold one of its official accreditations to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver to a Russian comedian. Muhammadshoh Abdulloev, the head of Tajikistan's National Olympic Committee delegation to Vancouver, told RFE/RL that prominent comedian Gennady Khazanov officially represented Tajikistan at the Olympics last month.

Abdulloev said the cash-strapped Tajik delegation could not afford to invite Tajik guests to the Olympics, and therefore had to sell two of its official accreditations to the Bosco Sport Company for $2,000 and a promise by Bosco to sponsor the Tajik delegation at the Summer Olympics in London in 2012. It is not known how much Khazanov paid Bosco for the Tajik accreditation.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are change did not only attend the 2010 Winter Olympics in full protesting style, they made a movie as well. It is called 2010 Vancouver Olympics: The Movie Made by We Are Change Vancouver it shows the protests of the 2010 Winter Olympics and all its historic moments.    We bring you onto the streets of Vancouver and straight into the middle of the mass protests during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

We enjoyed both the Olympics and the protests and are proud to have filmed this historic moment of time. Highlights from The Olympic Torch Blockade, the Gold Medal Celebration to the Protests, provocateurs and Vancouver 911 Truth Society’s (soon to be legendary) 911 Banner Jamming of CTV’s National Olympic Nightly News Broadcasts (in solidarity with the brave and courageous members of Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth).

Read the rest of this entry »