Winter Sports News

The men's World Cup downhill and super-combi races scheduled for Dec. 9-10 were cancelled Wednesday because of a lack of snow and warm temperatures. Organizers said they would soon decide on a possible replacement site for the races. Two other World Cup events have already been cancelled due to warm weather. The season-opening races on the glacier in Soelden, Austria, in October were wiped out because of heavy rain, while ...

Men's downhill World Cup ski training was cancelled Tuesday because of a heavy snowstorm. Organizers called off the session after about 60 centimetres of snow covered the Birds of Prey course overnight. Workers have been unable to clear the snow because of the threat of an avalanche. ``We have avalanche control happening on the course so we can't even have crews on there,'' International Ski Federation official Mike Kertesz said. ...

Erik Guay says the Canadian men's ski team does not enjoy a home-mountain advantage at Lake Louise, even though he won his first ever World Cup medal on this hill. ``Definitely not. That's something they need to work on in Canada,'' Guay said Thursday after a training run for Saturday's World Cup downhill. ``You go to Austria and these guys would have been training on the hill 10 days in ...

The next generation of the world's best biathletes will compete at the Canmore Nordic Centre in 2009 at the youth/junior world biathlon championship. The International Biathlon Union approved the Nordic Centre as the host site Monday. The dates have yet to be determined, but the event will run in either late January or early February. The competition will feature 275 athletes from 30 countries racing in junior (19-20) and youth ...

The 2007 Canada Winter Games are less than five months away and the mayor of Whitehorse is looking forward to the exposure they will bring to the country's north. ``We see it as a bit of a coming out party,'' Ernie Bourassa said Tuesday during a promotional rally for the event at Toronto's downtown Dundas Square. ``The north is not a homogenous unit _ Nunavut has a different geography and ...

LIVERPOOL, England (AP) _ Nina and Paul Carberry are set to become the first brother and sister to ride in the same Grand National steeplechase. Irish jockey Nina Carberry will ride 12-year-old Forest Gunner on April 8 at Aintree, hoping to become the first woman to win the 4 1/2-mile race over 30 fences in the event's 167-year history. Another female jockey, Carrie Ford, rode Forest Gunner in last year's Grand National. She finished fifth to match ...

CESANA PARIOL, Italy (CP) _ Pierre Lueders of Edmonton was fourth after the first two runs of Olympic four-man bobsled racing Friday. The third and fourth runs to decide the medals are Saturday. Andre Lange of Germany was in first place with a two-run combined time of one minute 50.50 seconds on a snowy day in the Alps. Lange, 32, won this event at the 2002 Olympics and he also won the last three world championships. Martin ...

By Brett Martel BARDONECCHIA, Italy (AP) _ The first family of snowboarding's parallel giant slalom wrapped up a second consecutive Olympic gold medal before the final head-to-head duel had even begun. It was only a matter of which Schoch would take the title this time and defending Olympic champion Philipp Schoch pulled it out Wednesday afternoon, defeating older brother Simon. Simon Schoch, 27, has been the stronger racer this season, but slid wide on a gate in the ...

BARDONECCHIA, Italy (CP-AP) _ Montreal's Dominique Maltais survived a crash-filled final to win a bronze medal in the women's snowboard cross event at the Winter Olympics on Friday. Switzerland's Tanja Frieden won gold in the event after Lindsey Jacobellis of the U.S. grabbed her snowboard and fell on the second-to-last jump before the finish line. Jacobellis managed to recover and ...

BARDONECCHIA, Italy (AP) _ Jasey-Jay Anderson of Mont. Tremblant, Que., was disqualified from his semifinal race in men's snowboardcross on Thursday. Anderson crossed the finish line in second place _ good enough to qualify for the final _ but was disqualified after officials reviewed a crash he had with Spain's Jordi Font. It was tough afternoon for the Canadians. Drew Neilson of Vernon, B.C., was the top seed after posting the fastest qualifying time, but crashed in his ...