Latest news with #NorthAmericanCup
CTV News
7 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Ice climbing in June: Athletes preparing for international climbing competition
The hot weather is here to stay, but that isn't keeping ice climbers away as they prepare for the North American Cup Series. In Louise McKinney Park, an eight-storey climbing wall is offering ice climbers an ice-free training space. 'Athletes train year round on wooden structures, they use the ice axes on rock climbing type holds, and they use the crampons to kick into the plywood,' said Adam Luciuk, the owner of Climb YEG. 'That's the actual competition style of ice climbing that you see internationally. 'It's actually more challenging to climb than ice, you can create overhanging features, and it's also equal, the holds remain the same for every athlete.' Climbing wall A climbing wall being set up in Louise McKinney Park on Monday, June 2, 2025. (Sean McClune/CTV News Edmonton Edmonton is one of the only places in North America where athletes can train at a high level for ice climbing, according to Luciuk. 'Some of the best countries, including South Korea, have training venues all over the country and it's seen in the results that you see worldwide on an international level,' he said. 'We're trying to support the Canadian team as they grow and as the sport grows into potentially becoming an Olympic sport.' The June event is a continental cup, just below the world cup level, Luciuk said. Competitors are at a skill level where they can climb 15 metres in around five seconds. Louise McKinney Park won't be home to the wall forever, Luciuk said they plan to move the structure after about a year to another location in the city. Climbing wall A climbing wall being set up in Louise McKinney Park on Monday, June 2, 2025. (Sean McClune/CTV News Edmonton Keeping it outside will allow the city to host more climbing events in the future, as it can be difficult to find space indoors for an eight-storey wall and thousands of spectators. The North American Cup Series, hosted by Climb YEG, will run June 20 to 22 and is free for the public to attend. After the competition, the wall will be open again to climbers of all skill levels. In the winter, ice will blanket the wall for a chillier experience.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
USA Dominates North American T20 Cup Opener
The USA cricket team dominated the North American T20 Cup that began over the weekend in the Cayman Islands. In the tournament opener, hosts USA, batting first, posted 186/6 in their 20 overs. Led by a knock from Monank Patel, he scored 76 off 45 balls and was named Player of the Match. In response, the Cayman Islands managed 107/7, handing the USA a 79-run victory. Advertisement Later the same day, Canada took on Bermuda but managed 105/8 in their 20 overs, and despite some resistance, Canada chased down the target in 18.1 overs with five wickets in hand. The action intensified on Sunday, April 20, as the USA produced a batting masterclass against the Bahamas, where they piled up 217/4 before reducing the Bahamian side to a mere 68/9, winning the match by a staggering 149 runs. In the final game of the weekend, Bermuda bounced back strongly. After limiting the Cayman Islands to 107/8, Bermuda chased down the target with a composed 137/5, winning by 30 runs. The tournament continues this week with several key matches scheduled: Advertisement Monday, April 21 Match 5: Bahamas vs Canada – Starts at 16:00 Match 6: USA vs Bermuda – Starts at 20:30 Wednesday, April 23 Match 7: Cayman Islands vs Canada – Starts at 16:00 Match 8: Bahamas vs Bermuda – Starts at 20:30 Thursday, April 24 Match 9: Cayman Islands vs Bahamas – Starts at 16:00 Match 10: USA vs Canada – Starts at 20:30 The North American Cup is a collaborative effort among the cricket boards in the region to boost their international exposure and offer a more competitive match experience to associate nations. The limited-overs tournament will be played in the T20 format, and teams will compete in a group stage, followed by playoffs to determine the champion.
BBC News
04-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Cricket Canada monitoring arrest of captain Kirton
Cricket Canada says it is "actively monitoring" the situation after captain Nicholas Kirton was arrested in the reports say the 26-year-old was detained at Barbados Airport on Sunday on potential drugs charges."We are actively monitoring the situation and closely following developments as they unfold," Cricket Canada said in a statement. "We take this matter seriously and remain steadfast in upholding the highest standards of integrity and accountability within the sport."BBC Sport has contacted Barbados police for was born in Barbados but is eligible to play for Canada through his represented West Indies Under-19s before emigrating to Canada, making his international debut in a T20 match against Oman in batting allrounder, who has played 21 one-day internationals and 28 T20Is, was appointed as captain in July are preparing for the inaugural North American Cup - also featuring Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Bermuda and the United States - which begins in the Cayman Islands on 18 April.
CBC
14-03-2025
- Sport
- CBC
It's not just Jamaica with a 'Cool Runnings' story. There are sliders from all over the world now
Social Sharing It doesn't snow in Jamaica. Or Malta. Or Ghana. There's been a maybe dusting reported on rare occasions in parts of Thailand and Malaysia. And nobody thinks of Spain, Colombia, Israel, Brazil and Taiwan as winter sports superpowers. They're all sliding anyway. Those 10 nations — with a combined five Winter Olympic medals between them over the years, all won by Spain — were part of a record turnout of 38 nations over the last two weeks at the world bobsleigh and skeleton championships in Lake Placid, a sign that the sports are still growing. It's expected that some of the athletes from those nations, even without a sliding track in their homelands and not within thousands of miles of those countries in some cases, will compete at the Olympics next winter. "I'm really happy that more nations are here, and this sport is growing," said Adanna Johnson, a 17-year-old women's bobsleigh pilot from Jamaica after she finished the monobob race in Lake Placid last week. "I think one of the reasons is for the Olympics, they only allow for three sleds from the bigger nations to compete and that kind of allows smaller nations to get bumped up in the rankings." True, there are spots set aside at the Olympics for nations that are developing teams to compete on the sport's biggest stage. That's why there have been sliders from American Samoa, Bermuda, Greece, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga and the Virgin Islands in the games over the years. Skeleton athlete Jonathan Yaw wants to add Malaysia to that list. He's a former handball player from Australia who slides for Malaysia — the country where he was born and his father's homeland — in large part because of a legacy program established in southeast Asia to promote winter sports after the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Yaw finished 29th at the world championships last week. Out of 29 sleds, that is. He wasn't bothered and showed some progress; for example, he beat 2018 Olympian and 2026 hopeful Akwasi Frimpong of Ghana in their final run of the event. "We have some good ambassadors for our sport," Yaw said. "And, you know, in sport, sometimes you get the arrogance and the cockiness. I want to show people that you can be humble. You can just put your head down and work hard and still achieve good results and be a good role model for kids." Yaw has had some success, and there's a young girl in Lake Placid who has proof of that. She's the owner of the first medal Yaw ever won in a North American Cup race and wore it to the event's opening ceremony last week. He gave it to her to plant a seed, he hopes. "She actually started skeleton in Lake Placid because of that medal and because she met me," Yaw said. "That brings me to tears. If I can do that for one kid, then on a platform like the Olympics or world championships hopefully I'll be able to do much more." Shannon Galea — who works for the Canadian Olympic Committee — is now a skeleton slider representing Malta through the heritage of her father and grandparents. She trains when she can in Lake Placid now and has athletes from Malta and other places reaching out for guidance on how they can try to become Olympians. Like Yaw, she was last in the women's worlds race. WATCH | Canadian bobsledder Cynthia Appiah reflects on World Cup silver and the season ahead: Canadian bobsledder Cynthia Appiah reflects on World Cup silver and the season ahead 22 days ago Duration 14:29 "Last place is not fun," Galea said. "But I'm fortunate. A lot of athletes in the field are supportive." She was a star athlete in a slew of sports growing up. Softball was probably her best game; she was a pitcher throwing at high speeds, and now she finds herself sliding headfirst down mountains at even faster speeds — she topped out in Lake Placid last week around 72 mph — to chase that Olympic hope. "I played five varsity sports," Galea said. "This is not a varsity sport. This is, `go out there and be psycho."' The sliding sports have some traditional powers. Germany has long been the world's most successful nation, whether the sport is bobsleigh, skeleton or luge. The U.S. — with Kaysha Love in monobob and the mixed skeleton team of Austin Florian and Mystique Ro — was the lone nation to win more than one gold in Week 1 of the world championships. Austria, Italy, Britain, Switzerland, Latvia and Canada are also among the nations that are traditionally strong. China is coming, bolstered by massive investment in its programs around the 2022 Beijing Games. Brazil had a slider — Nicole Rocha Silveira — win two women's skeleton World Cup medals this season and finish fourth at the world championships. Ukraine nearly got its first skeleton medal at a world championships this year as well, with Vladyslav Heraskevych finishing fourth. "We're showing what can happen if you believe," Heraskevych said. "And if you fight." This phenomenon of sliding-sport dreamers might have really taken off as a novelty when Jamaica sent a bobsleigh team to the 1988 Calgary Olympics — a story that was turned into the 1993 movie "Cool Runnings." The movie is largely fictionalized but is still the most recognizable part of the Jamaica bobsleigh story. Johnson was a gymnast when she was recruited into sliding. She didn't know what "Cool Runnings" was. And now she's living her own version of the story, after finally seeing the movie.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
It's not just Jamaica with a 'Cool Runnings' story. There are sliders from all over the world now
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) — It doesn't snow in Jamaica. Or Malta. Or Ghana. There's been a maybe dusting reported on rare occasions in parts of Thailand and Malaysia. And nobody thinks of Spain, Colombia, Israel, Brazil and Taiwan as winter sports superpowers. They're all sliding anyway. Those 10 nations — with a combined five Winter Olympic medals between them over the years, all won by Spain — were part of a record turnout of 38 nations over the last two weeks at the world bobsled and skeleton championships in Lake Placid, a sign that the sports are still growing. It's expected that some of the athletes from those nations, even without a sliding track in their homelands and not within thousands of miles of those countries in some cases, will compete at the Olympics next winter. 'I'm really happy that more nations are here, and this sport is growing,' said Adanna Johnson, a 17-year-old women's bobsled pilot from Jamaica after she finished the monobob race in Lake Placid last week. 'I think one of the reasons is for the Olympics, they only allow for three sleds from the bigger nations to compete and that kind of allows smaller nations to get bumped up in the rankings.' True, there are spots set aside at the Olympics for nations that are developing teams to compete on the sport's biggest stage. That's why there have been sliders from American Samoa, Bermuda, Greece, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga and the Virgin Islands in the games over the years. Skeleton athlete Jonathan Yaw wants to add Malaysia to that list. He's a former handball player from Australia who slides for Malaysia — the country where he was born and his father's homeland — in large part because of a legacy program established in southeast Asia to promote winter sports after the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Yaw finished 29th at the world championships last week. Out of 29 sleds, that is. He wasn't bothered and showed some progress; for example, he beat 2018 Olympian and 2026 hopeful Akwasi Frimpong of Ghana in their final run of the event. 'We have some good ambassadors for our sport,' Yaw said. 'And, you know, in sport, sometimes you get the arrogance and the cockiness. I want to show people that you can be humble. You can just put your head down and work hard and still achieve good results and be a good role model for kids.' Yaw has had some success, and there's a young girl in Lake Placid who has proof of that. She's the owner of the first medal Yaw ever won in a North American Cup race and wore it to the event's opening ceremony last week. He gave it to her to plant a seed, he hopes. 'She actually started skeleton in Lake Placid because of that medal and because she met me,' Yaw said. 'That brings me to tears. If I can do that for one kid, then on a platform like the Olympics or world championships hopefully I'll be able to do much more.' Shannon Galea — who works for the Canadian Olympic Committee — is now a skeleton slider representing Malta through the heritage of her father and grandparents. She trains when she can in Lake Placid now and has athletes from Malta and other places reaching out for guidance on how they can try to become Olympians. Like Yaw, she was last in the women's worlds race. 'Last place is not fun,' Galea said. 'But I'm fortunate. A lot of athletes in the field are supportive.' She was a star athlete in a slew of sports growing up. Softball was probably her best game; she was a pitcher throwing at high speeds, and now she finds herself sliding headfirst down mountains at even faster speeds — she topped out in Lake Placid last week around 72 mph — to chase that Olympic hope. 'I played five varsity sports,' Galea said. 'This is not a varsity sport. This is, 'go out there and be psycho.'' The sliding sports have some traditional powers. Germany has long been the world's most successful nation, whether the sport is bobsled, skeleton or luge. The U.S. — with Kaysha Love in monobob and the mixed skeleton team of Austin Florian and Mystique Ro — was the lone nation to win more than one gold in Week 1 of the world championships. Austria, Italy, Britain, Switzerland, Latvia and Canada are also among the nations that are traditionally strong. China is coming, bolstered by massive investment in its programs around the 2022 Beijing Games. Brazil had a slider — Nicole Rocha Silveira — win two women's skeleton World Cup medals this season and finish fourth at the world championships. Ukraine nearly got its first skeleton medal at a world championships this year as well, with Vladyslav Heraskevych finishing fourth. 'We're showing what can happen if you believe,' Heraskevych said. 'And if you fight.' This phenomenon of sliding-sport dreamers might have really taken off as a novelty when Jamaica sent a bobsled team to the 1988 Calgary Olympics — a story that was turned into the 1993 movie 'Cool Runnings.' The movie is largely fictionalized but is still the most recognizable part of the Jamaica bobsled story. Johnson was a gymnast when she was recruited into sliding. She didn't know what 'Cool Runnings' was. And now she's living her own version of the story, after finally seeing the movie. 'They made us watch it,' Johnson said. 'I had no idea what it was like.' ___ AP sports: Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
