Saturday, January 19, 2013

MOCA Presents: The Canadian Athlete Series

Inspired by Andy Warhol: The Athlete Series, The Museum of Contemporary Art Calgary has decided to create it's own 'Athlete Series' collection. It will feature 10 Celebrated Canadian athletes paired with 10 high profile local artists. I love the concept and I'm honoured to be included…

The first two portraits of the MOCA Canadian Athlete Series are complete and I got to see them last night. Lisa Brawn painted Clara Hughes and Chris Cran painted mine. WOW! My painting brought me right back to that moment in Athens - I can vividly remember the click of the camera that took the photo Chris used for inspiration. 

Eight more portraits will be unveiled over the next few months and the entire collection will be displayed at MOCA Calgary at the beginning of June.






Friday, January 18, 2013

Lance Armstrong

I met Lance Armstrong in 2005. He was a nice enough guy…


But I am pretty disgusted with all the attention he is now getting for admitting that he CHEATED all those years. I'm also disappointed to admit that I'm just as intrigued as the next person... 


What's a really sad reflection on our world, to me at least, is that he'll have a "Tell All" book out soon, it will sell millions and everyone will soon forget about the lies and deceit of the past and hail him as a hero and advocate in the fight against anti-doping in the future. That's total bullshit. What's also bullshit is that he probably got paid a lot of $$$ to exclusively tell Oprah.


The REAL heroes are the athletes who train(ed) and compete(d) clean their entire careers. The ones who don't cheat to get to the top. The ones who are honest and don't look the world in the eye and blatantly lie on multiple occasions. I think we should be putting more resources into celebrating them. 


And I think Lance owes more than just an apology to the world - I think he can take most of his $100 Million and put it back into the system that he so cowardly (and now openly) deceived...

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Look what I can still do!

I just spent a couple of days in Toronto and had a visit at Kelly's new gym: Manjak's Gymnastics!


I did some playing around and could still manage a double layout off the good ol' fast track.

It felt pretty awesome to be in the gym. Sometimes I don't realize how much I miss it until I start fooling around again…

It's actually a bit funny  - I've been having a lot of gymnastic dreams and flashbacks lately. While I was running the other day, I had a total out of body experience where I was immersed in the moments right before I competed in Athens. How in the world did I handle that pressure?? The butterflies were fluttering so quickly in my stomach, but I also felt so grounded, confident and ready in my mind.

I'm starting to feel like I need to get back to my roots and spend some more time in the gym. I was born to flip, swing and tumble - I need to start feeding that part of me again.

Congratulations on your new gym Kelly. I'm so proud of you!