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CANMORE, Alta. (CP) - The torch has been thrown to Chandra Crawford.
The 22-year-old from Canmore, Alta., who stunned the cross-country ski world by winning an Olympic gold medal in the sprint, is the new face of Canada's cross-country ski team announced Friday. Beckie Scott, an Olympic gold and silver medallist, has retired.
Sara Renner, an Olympic silver medallist and world bronze medallist, is on sabbatical to have her first child. Crawford heads to Finland next week to begin preparation for the 2006-07 World Cup season, fully aware of the responsibility that an Olympic gold medal brings. "It's been so awesome having Beckie and Sara around and having their leadership and success to learn from," Crawford said at the Canmore Nordic Centre, which is just up the hill and through the woods from her home.
"I was so inspired by them. I'm excited to move into that sort of role." Crawford was a virtual unknown before she stepped to the top dias of the podium in Turin, Italy, and performed a celebratory air guitar.
It was just her second season on the Canadian team and she hadn't qualified for the Olympics until November. But she won cross-country skiing's version of the 100-metre sprint, in which racers advance through heats to the final. Crawford had three World Cup races after the Games to learn to wear the mantle of Olympic champion, so she's ready for the spotlight to be trained on her this season.
"I got some experience of hearing my name announced and not freaking out and becoming distracted," she said. "It's kind of cool, too. Before, I'd get on the start line next to a world champion and when they announced her, I'd go 'Oh, no.
"' "Now, maybe I'll have some intimidation factor and maybe people will start to notice my strategies, which is the one disadvantage of not being anonymous anymore." Crawford says she's behind in her training because she was exhausted at the conclusion of last season. She's hoping to peak for the world championships in Sapporo, Japan, in February.
"It was an incredibly rocky summer," she said. "I'm not totally sure what kind of shape I'm in here, but at the same time, I just love the process of figuring it out. On those days when I get my butt kicked, I learn so much and I can do something about it next time.
" Podium finishes tend to breed podium finishes as a week after the Olympics, Devon Kershaw of Sudbury, Ont., finished third in a men's World Cup sprint in Sweden. As Crawford had Scott and Renner for inspiration, national team head coach Dave Wood expects the podium finishes of Crawford and Kershaw will elevate the results of the entire team.
"This year has been a remarkable evolution in their own personal expectations," Wood said. "When Chandra and Devon made podiums last year, it was kind of a wake-up call that 'those are the guys I do stuff with every day and I'm just as good as them. Why can't it be me?
"' Kershaw races his first World Cup of the season Nov.'-19 in Gavillane, Sweden, and Crawford opens her season Nov. 25 in Kuusamo, Finland.
Kershaw, 23, is looking forward to a full season of racing. He suffered a rib injury last season that kept him out of competition until January. "I think our men's team has the confidence," Kershaw said.
"I hit the podium last year and it was great, but there are a lot of people on our team that are definitely right there as well. "If we can get a few people on the podium through the men's side, I think that would be an amazing year and I think we can do it." The project, paid for by the Calgary Olympic Development Association, includes doubling the size of the weight room, adding a warmup and stretching area, and increasing the size of the field lab where athletes are tested during training.
"It's going to be the best facility in the world and it's in my hometown," Crawford gushed. View seven day for previous Winnipeg Free Press stories.
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