Canadian olympic gold medallist Chandra Crawford has decided to continue on her own her quest for a medal at the 2014 winter Olympic Games, Skipresse has learned.
She will announce shortly that she is declining her nomination within the canadian national team.
Cross Country Canada (CCC) announced on Wednesday the National Ski Team and National Development Centre Team nominations for 2013-14, adding «An announcement of the athletes who accept their nominations will take place later this spring.» The media knew right away what to look for!
From the information we could gather, Chandra is not shutting the door on CCC, far from that. CCC is still backing her morally. She just decided to work out her own training program leading her to the Games, a little bit like Beckie Scott a few years back. In the process though, she won’t benefit from the substantial technical support CCC offers all its World Cup Team athletes.
Chandra stunned the world with a spectacular victory at the 2006 Olympic Games sprint in Turino. It was a skate sprint, her specialty.
In Vancouver 2010, Chandra placed 26th in the classic sprint, which is not her specialty. It’s like asking an olympic 100 m breaststroke champion to swim the 100 m backstroke at the following Games!
Chandra will be 31 years old in Sochi (she’s already qualified) and she will compete once again in her favorite skate sprint event. Likely her last chance at a medal, since the next sprint skate olympic event will take place in 2022 at… 39 years old!
So after much thought, Chandra has decided that she will be better served by working out her own training schedule and structure. It takes a lot of guts to make such a decision.
But guts is what brought her on top of the podium in the first place.
Skiplus 