With Canadian winters what they are, Canada’s athletes excel in the sports that make up the Winter Olympics. They have achieved impressive standings, and their stories are inspiring:
-- With 24 medals won, the 2006 Turin Games were Canada's most successful in the country's Olympic history
-- Vancouver 2010 will be Canada's second Winter Olympics; Calgary was its first in 1988
-- Speed skater Cindy Klassen was the first Canadian to win five medals at one Winter Games in 2006 at Turin, and she is even more determined to increase her medal count in 2010
-- In 1964, Peter Kirby, Doug Anakin, John Emery and Vic Emery won Canada's first bobsleigh gold in the four-man event; Pierre Lueders and teammate David MacEachern won gold at the 1998 Nagano Games in the two-man event
-- Catriona Le May Doan was the first Canadian to defend an Olympic gold medal in an individual sport--she won her second gold medal in the 500-metre speed-skating event at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games
-- Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards won Canada's first medal in the skeleton event at the 2006 Turin Games and is poised to go for the podium in Vancouver
-- Barbara Ann Scott won Canada's first and only gold medal in singles figure skating, female or male, at the 1948 Olympic Games
-- The Canadian women's ice hockey team has won two of the three gold medals awarded since the event was included in the 1998 Games in Nagano, and they are even more determined to win in 2010 in front of the hometown crowd!
And much more...
