sport

What inspires your motivation?

Which athletes do you know?

I can name several current athletes competing for Canada and other countries at the Tokyo Olympics. I can’t, despite my support for and interest in, name any athletes who will be competing in the Tokyo Paralympics. This probably isn’t that surprising seeing as how athletes with disabilities aren’t featured as much in the media (Rees, … Continue reading →

A Story…

In the past several weeks I’ve been reflecting a lot on racism and systemic racism. I’ve read Superior: The return of race science by Angela Saini and White Fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism by Robin Diangelo. I’ve added other books to my summer reading list as well. This … Continue reading →

Opportunity and hope

Mark Ideson, the skip of the Canadian wheelchair curling team at the 2018 winter Paralympics talked about how watching skeleton athlete Jon Montgomery win during the Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics inspired him to pursue sport more seriously. The result, for an individual who thought that their sporting days were over has been multiple Olympic medals … Continue reading →

Sport under threat from climate change

During my doctoral research one of my participants brought in a photo of her sand boarding. It was snow boarding on sand dunes and we talked about the potential impacts of climate change on sport, particularly winter sport. Check out the website for my research here. The cross country ski program in Special Olympics Alberta … Continue reading →

Now I wish I could have caffeine

Caffeine and I don’t get along very well so I don’t get the whole addiction but a recent study makes me wish I could turn to a cup of coffee when I’m super tired and still need to function. First a little about how caffeine works. It takes about an hour for caffeine to reach … Continue reading →

Ritual in sports

Watching the Olympics it is interesting to see the pre- and post-performance rituals that many athletes perform and think about all the ones we don’t know of. Canadian diver Jennifer Abel talked about her ritual with her chamois before she dives, and the fact that she keeps the same chamois for an entire Olympic cycle. Other athletes … Continue reading →

Why you have to give it your all on the way to the start line.

During my first couple years of dragon boating I messed up. I would do the dry land warm up with the team and then hang around in marshalling until it was our time to go down to the boats. Then when we finally got on the water I would hold back the entire way to … Continue reading →

What goes into a dragon boat line up – part 2

Several years ago, when I was paddling with a different dragon boat team my coach forgot to put me in the line up for festival. Instead she had a guest paddler. The moment someone pointed out the oversight she put me into the line up, in the bench the guest paddler had been sitting in. … Continue reading →

What goes into a dragon boat line up?

This weekend was the Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival. I paddle and co-coach Dragon Blades, which used to be made up of skaters and family members from the Edmonton Speed Skating Club, but in all honesty is now more friends than skaters. We had an amazing festival, finishing 5th overall. There were a lot of things … Continue reading →