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The sports activities calendar was thrown utterly out of whack after the unprecedented year-long postponement of the Tokyo Summer season Olympics.
Most noticeable, amid the assorted restarts of league and occasion schedules, is having two Olympics inside six months of one another. That hasn’t occurred for the reason that Worldwide Olympic Committee started staggering the Summer season and Winter Video games in 1994.
However in simply 100 days — on Feb. 4, 2022 — the Olympic flame will once more be lit, this time in Beijing for the twenty fourth Winter Olympics.
With myriad cancellations due to the COVID-19, the race to finish occasions and get athletes certified for Tokyo appeared, at occasions, unimaginable. Now, the race to do it once more is underway.
However that is precisely the place Marie-Phillip Poulin needs to be.
The Canadian ladies’s hockey group captain is treating October practices as if a gold medal is on the road.
“I really like this. There’s one place the place I am most blissful and most myself and it is on the rink,” she informed CBC Sports activities.
Poulin has been ready 4 years to get again to a different Video games — her fourth — to hunt revenge after a heartbreaking shootout loss to the People in Pyeongchang.
“That second crushed me somewhat. Quite a bit really,” mentioned the 30-year-old from Beauceville, Que. “It is nonetheless fairly recent in my thoughts. However you must look ahead and we all know the place we must be proper now.”
There isn’t any panic from Poulin as Beijing comes into focus. In truth, you will not discover many Canadian winter athletes panicking because the clock ticks down. Most appear comfortable.
It is a considerably completely different leadup to those Olympics in comparison with the turmoil forward of Tokyo, when athletes have been pressured to pivot and put together for for much longer than anticipated.
WATCH | Canada’s ladies win Olympic soccer gold:
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/956/75/soccerthumb3.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
After back-to-back bronze medals on the 2012 and 2016 Video games, Canada’s ladies’s soccer group had the largest second in its historical past, defeating Sweden for Olympic gold. 2:59
No person actually knew what the Video games in Japan have been going to appear to be with the entire new protocols and a seemingly endless transferring goal of qualifiers, coaching situations and restrictions. However the Canadians competing there confirmed resilience and adaptableness, one thing most of the winter athletes have been watching carefully.
Specifically, the ladies’s soccer group that gained gold.
“We watched loads of it. We have been in camp in Calgary for [the world championships] and the [women’s soccer] closing was unbelievable. We have been pumped to observe that. I feel we are able to relate lots to them. That was particular,” Poulin mentioned.
The Canadian ladies’s hockey roster might be introduced in late December, with the group of 26 being trimmed to twenty gamers on the finish of the centralization camp that’s underway.
“This complete factor is a course of. We wish to study daily,” mentioned head coach Troy Ryan. “As a lot as folks generally tend to take a look at scores, the centralization course of is about being profitable in February and this coaching and the exhibition video games will make us higher.”
It is qualifying season proper now, with a whole bunch of Olympic hopefuls competing on rinks and mountains and icy tracks seeking to earn the proper to put on the Maple Leaf in Beijing. The following three months will resolve the fates of athletes who’ve spent their lives getting ready. Crew Canada might be introduced in late January.
‘It is getting actual’
Freestyle skier Justine Dufour-Lapointe, who gained Olympic gold in 2014, is eyeing one other Video games.
“It is getting actual. We will rely the variety of sleeps till the Olympics now,” she mentioned. “I am simply waking up each day understanding my function and understanding the plan and specializing in that. One step at a time. That is all we now have to deal with.”
Her sister, Chloé Dufour-Lapointe, gained silver in freestyle in 2014 and is seeking to make it to her fourth Olympics.
“We’re precisely the place we must be,” she mentioned. “I really feel serene. I really feel ready.”
The freestyle group, together with 2018 Olympic champion Mikaël Kingsbury, have seven World Cup competitions earlier than the Video games in Beijing. Kingsbury has been dominant on the World Cup scene and is once more a favorite to achieve the highest of the rostrum on the Olympics.
Along with coaching in Canada, many athletes have additionally taken to worldwide areas.
Canada’s four-man bobsled group are actually in Beijing, coaching on the observe they’re going to race down in the course of the Video games. And early this week, Toronto’s Cynthia Appiah gained bronze within the ladies’s monobob occasion at a take a look at occasion in Beijing — the place the self-discipline will make its Olympic debut.
Ice dancing duo Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier have begun their season and are getting ready for the Grand Prix circuit earlier than the nationwide determine skating championships in January. The 2 opened with a win in mid-September on the Autumn Basic Worldwide in Quebec.
They’re coming off successful bronze on the world championships final March, their first medal on the occasion in eight tries.
“We’re in control of our personal future. We’re actually making an attempt to determine be our greatest in February to get on that podium on the Olympics,” Gilles mentioned. “Nevertheless we wish to really feel is how we’ll really feel. It is all in regards to the preparation.”
Poirier says their focus is on bettering every day and at every competitors and never falling into the lure of peaking too quickly.
“It is necessary we do not get forward of ourselves. We needn’t have our Olympic efficiency this week,” he informed CBC Sports activities. “Making an attempt to power that to occur now could be silly. We’re pleased with the work we’re doing and conscious of what we have to do on the Olympics.”
Canada’s short-track and long-track pace skaters are getting into their World Cup seasons with essential races all through November and December to not solely put together for the Olympics, however earn spots on the group.
Earlier this month, Pace Skating Canada held its nationwide championships in Calgary to set the aggressive tone for the season. Ted-Jan Bloemen, the 2018 Olympic champion within the 10,000-metre, says he is extraordinarily targeted at this level of his coaching.
“I feel I am as ready as you may be right now of the 12 months. I do know I am on observe. It is a actually motivating feeling,” he mentioned.
Bloemen set a brand new nationwide file at that occasion. He did the identical within the leadup to Pyeongchang and ended up successful gold.
“It is enjoyable to look again at the place I used to be then and the place I’m now. It is such a very long time already. An Olympic cycle already,” he mentioned. “That gold is one thing I am going to cherish for the remainder of my life and I might like to do it once more.”
Canada’s chef de mission may be very conversant in what the pace skaters are going by means of. Catriona Le Might Doan is a two-time Olympic champion, successful gold within the 500-metre in 1998 and once more in 2002.
She says each athlete is now in countdown mode.
“100 days out is an thrilling milestone as this implies ‘it’s actual,'” she mentioned. “The Video games is the place the athletes are hoping to have all of the bodily, psychological, emotional, and teamwork come collectively in order that they will have their easiest sport efficiency in Beijing.
“This milestone brings nerves, but in addition pleasure and pleasure.”
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