Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 19, 2014, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE C3 winnipegfreepress. com WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014 C 3 OLYMPICS Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse go for bobsled gold today " I'm a Canadian. My goal was to curl for Canada in some way, shape or form, so the teams in the provinces I played with didn't matter to me," said Fry, who has curled for Manitoba, Newfoundland and Northern Ontario in his career. " It was just a matter of getting the correct group of guys together that I felt that I fit with. I was prepared to do what I had to to find those guys, and I'm just lucky it ended up coming to fruition." Fry grew up in the house of Manitoba curling legend and Brier winner Barry Fry, whose 1979 team was inducted into the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame on Tuesday. " I probably threw my first rock at the Granite Club when I was six. I've definitely had my ups and downs, but I know the guy that I am now, the player and teammate that I've turned into," said the 36- year- old Ryan Fry. " It's definitely a learning process over the course of 10 to 15 years that I've been competing, but that's what growing up in sports is all about. It's finding the flaws in yourself and being able to bring a better version every season and every year. And hopefully that version helps the team. It's starting to pay off." Fry said being in the Olympics and winning a medal wasn't the dream he grew up with but it all lines up with how he's built. " I love competition in any shape or form. I love the opening tournament of the year. I love playing in the provincials, the Briers and now the Olympics," he said. " It's competing and it's something I wanted to do. I grew up wanting to be a curler. I didn't dream of winning an Olympic medal, but I wanted to be the best in the world. So we have an opportunity to do that here in the next few days." gary. lawless@ freepress. mb. ca Twitter: @ garylawless Curlers Continued from C 1 K RASNAYA POLYANA, Russia - A big blast of winter weather finally arrived at the Sochi Games on Tuesday night, dumping a big helping of thick snow just in time for the Olympic debut of the men's ski halfpipe competition. The challenging conditions didn't faze Canada's Mike Riddle at all. The veteran freestyle skier stuck with his plan to unveil a new combination for his final run and it helped him win a silver medal. " I managed to link together some tricks that I haven't done before," Riddle said. " I couldn't be happier with the result." Riddle hit back- to- back double cork 1260s for the first time - 3 � rotations with two twists per trick - and it was enough to wow the judges at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. The rest of his run was clean and it earned him a score of 90.60 points. " Just to be here is unbelievable and then to get a medal - I'm speechless," he said. American David Wise took the gold with a total of 92.00 and Kevin Rolland of France won bronze with 88.60 points. Calgary's Noah Bowman finished fifth while Justin Dorey of Vernon, B. C., missed jumps in both his final runs and ended up 12th. Riddle won a world title in 2011 and took the overall World Cup crown last season. " I did have more in the arsenal that I wanted to bring out, but conditions made it kind of impossible to maintain speed," he said. Thick, clumping snowflakes started falling at the start of the qualification round in the early evening. The snow turned to rain and then back to snow ahead of the final two runs. The winter wonderland made for great scenery but did little to jazz a tepid crowd that was quite thin without a Russian in the final. At times, spectators could barely see the skiers drop into the halfpipe. In ski halfpipe, competitors are always trying to come up with neverbefore- seen tricks and combinations. However, those high- flying manoeuvres were muted somewhat due to the slow conditions. Some skiers were forced to adjust their plans just before their runs. It was no problem for Riddle, who has seen all kinds of crazy weather conditions over his long career. The 27- yearold from Sherwood Park, Alta., was the third- oldest skier in the 29- man field. He competed in the first world championship in 2005 and was on hand for his sport's World Cup season debut as well. He relied on that experience in the final. " Knowing what to do when the weather is bad - when to hold back and when to send it - definitely is an advantage in conditions like this," he said. Dorey was strong in the qualification run but struggled in the final. He was the last down the pipe but had trouble with a landing and lost his balance. " I didn't come here to get fourth place," Dorey said. " I really, really wanted to podium. I was going for broke." As much as it hurt to come up short, he was very proud to see Riddle - his longtime friend and teammate - reach the podium. " He's been skiing the best he's ever skied in his life this year," Dorey said. " It's incredible. He's one of the older guys and he's just hitting his prime." Matt Margetts of Penticton, B. C., fell in his second qualifying run and missed the cut for the 12- man final. Wise, meanwhile, overcame the conditions to score a 92 on his first run, which held up as the weather worsened. He was the favourite entering the event as the three- time defending X Games champion. " Huge respect to him tonight," Riddle said. " It was really tough conditions and he put down an unbelievable run and that just pushed me that much harder to try and put my run down." Riddle had reached the Top 10 in his last 12 competitions entering the Games. He was sixth after a mediocre first run. " You had to land really high on the transitions to be able to maintain speed for your next trick in order to link together your run," he said. " So if you weren't perfect, you were done, basically. Every trick had to be pretty much perfect." Ski halfpipe was making its Olympic debut thanks in part to the efforts of Canada's Sarah Burke, who died in a training accident in 2012. " This Olympics for me is definitely bittersweet," Riddle said. " It's awesome to be here but I know that she should be here, too. She's been on my mind a lot this week." Dorey also weighed in on his former teammate. " She'd be so proud of it," he said. " We made it, we're here. This was probably her biggest dream to see our sport in the Olympics and we did it. So just that in itself is a small victory for all of us here." Riddle's silver was the seventh medal for the national freestyle team and 17th overall for Canada. - The Canadian Press Snow doesn't throw Riddle on halfpipe Newest combo lifts Canadian to a silver By Gregory Strong JONATHAN HAYWARD / THE CANADIAN PRESS Canada's Mike Riddle soars during halfpipe competition on his way to a silver. Inset, he watches his score come in. SOCHI, Russia - Canada is still in the mix for the most overall medals at the Sochi Olympics after capturing a pair of silvers on Tuesday, but the leaders may be starting to pull away. Canada has a goal of winning the most medals in Sochi, and silvers from halfpipe skier Mike Riddle and the women's short- track relay team helped keep the leading Dutch and U. S. teams in sight. But time may be running out, with just five days of competition left. Like Canada, the U. S. will win a medal in women's hockey, and will likely at least match the Canadian team in men's hockey and women's bobsled. The Netherlands has dominated in long- track speedskating, and with three more medal events to go are likely to add to their total. Canada could make up a couple of medals in curling, where the men and women's teams will compete in today's semifinals. Neither the Dutch nor the Americans are factors in those events. Canada can also move closer to a men's hockey medal when they play 11th- ranked Latvia in today's quarterfinals. Latvia shocked Switzerland 3- 1 Tuesday to set up a favourable matchup for the defending champion Canadians. Canada has 17 medals ( four gold, nine silver, four bronze) through Day 12 of the Games, good for fifth place. The Netherlands and the U. S. each have 20, while host Russia has 19 and Norway 18. Germany leads the gold- medal table with eight. Riddle's silver increased Canada's medal count in freestyle skiing to an Olympic- best seven ( three gold, three silver, one bronze). While Canada's freestyle ski team has exceeded expectations in Sochi, its short- track speedskating team has been a disappointment. The women's 3,000- metre relay team won just the second short- track medal for Canada with Marie- Eve Drolet of Chicoutimi, Que., Jessica Hewitt of Kamloops, B. C., Valerie Maltais of Le Baie, Que., Marianne St- Gelais of St. Felicien, Que., and Jessica Gregg of Edmonton finishing second behind South Korea. Silver seems to be Canada's destiny lately, with the women being bumped up from third to second after China was disqualified for not clearing the track fast enough after passing the baton. It was a welcome result for Canada's team, which seemed poised for a medal haul after Charles Hamelin won gold in the men's 1,500 metres early on but has suffered bad luck since. " The medal helps take away some of the pain," St- Gelais said. The result came after Hamelin fell in qualifying in the men's 500 metres, an event in which he was the defending champion. " I don't know what happened. I could feel my skate give out a little bit," said Hamelin. " It's like the ice was breaking under my blades just then, but everything up until that moment was really smooth. " Short- track can be a cruel sport. It doesn't take much to make a person fall." Canada may yet win another medal in short- track, as Maltais advanced out of the heats of the women's 1,000 metres with an Olympic- record time of one minute 28.771 seconds. Canada is also poised for a medal in women's bobsled, with Calgary's Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse of Summerside, P. E. I., sitting in second place after two runs. - The Canadian Press Canada has shot at most total medals Pair of silvers gives a fighting chance TORONTO - A Team Canada men's hockey game and controversial judging in the ice dancing short program helped convince 23.5 million Canadians to tune into Olympics coverage on Sunday, a high for the Sochi Games so far, says the CBC. And social media also had something to do with the ratings spurt. Canada's tense 2- 1 overtime victory over Finland had an average audience of 5.1 million viewers, while 12 million caught at least part of the action. As many as 4.7 million Canadians saw part of the ice dance short program event, with Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir facing off against American rivals Meryl Davis and Charlie White. CBC's executive producer Chris Irwin says it's " no coincidence, by any means" that audiences have peaked during the most exciting and critical moments of each event, and credited social media with pushing extra viewers to their nearest screen. Sunday's CBC ratings tops so far KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia - After doing everything right for nearly 15 kilometres, Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen almost threw away his first biathlon gold medal at the Sochi Olympics in the final inches. What could have been a comfortable victory turned into a photo finish after the Norwegian started celebrating the win on the final stretch, seemingly unaware French rival Martin Fourcade was catching up fast behind him. As Svendsen cruised towards the finish line with his hands in the air, Fourcade made one last attempt to grasp victory with a sliding finish, pushing his left ski ahead to come within one- tenth of a second of stealing first place. Svendsen admitted he may have started his celebrations too early. " But I actually had pretty good control even though it looked very, very close." Hotdogging nearly costs biathlon gold SERGEI GRITS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Gold medallist David Wise of the U. S. ( centre) celebrates with silver medallist Mike Riddle of Canada ( left) and bronze medallist Kevin Rolland of France. C_ 03_ Feb- 19- 14_ FP_ 01. indd C3 2/ 18/ 14 11: 25: 46 PM ;