Jean makes the Olympic grade Speed skater channels his inner Chuck Norris to earn a spot on 2010 Olympic team during qualifying event in Vancouver
Sean Gordon
VANCOUVER — Globe and Mail Update
Last updated on Monday, Aug. 17, 2009 03:19AM EDT
www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/jean-makes-the-olympic-grade/article1254005/Olivier Jean, right, of Montreal, Que., looks over Francois Hamelin, 2nd right, of Montreal, Que., during a 1000m race at the Canadian Olympic short track speedskating team tryouts in Vancouver, B.C., on Saturday August 15, 2009. Jean won the race and qualified for the Olympic team. At left is Liam McFarlane, of Medicine Hat, Alta. Sixteen men and sixteen women are competing to be on the Olympic team at the five-day camp which wraps up August 18. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck Darryl Dick His black race day T-shirt reads “Chuck Norris has two speeds: WALK and KILL” and features the action hero brandishing a gun; it seems an accurate, if hyperbolic, mission statement for short-track speed-skater
Olivier Jean.The native of Lachenaie, Que., a suburb northeast of Montreal, is an easy-going, oddball presence away from the rink, but as he says, “when I'm on the ice, I'm there to kill.” And that's what he's done, in a metaphorical sense, to rivals who are vying for a place on Canada's Olympic short-track team.
With two days of competition to go in the Olympic trials, Jean and women's skater
Kalyna Roberge have already punched their tickets to British Columbia next winter.
Both will now aim for a sweep of the 500-, 1,000-and 1,500-metre distances with finals in the 500 and 1,500 today.
When Jean was wandering the streets of downtown Vancouver last week in search of new accoutrements for the national short-track speed-skating trials, he popped into a comic-book shop to inquire “who's your fastest superhero?” He emerged with a red The Flash T-shirt that could make its competitive debut in today's finals.
“He's fast, and he's kicking ass just like me … it was my goal four months ago, it was my goal a year ago to skate all three distances at the Olympic Games,” said Jean, whose regular rotation of competition undergarments includes Sylvester Stallone's muscle-bound rogue soldier John Rambo (“that's the one for big occasions”), Norris, Rastafarian icon Haile Selassie and martial arts legend Bruce Lee.
“Maybe I'll wear Bruce Lee [today],” he said.
In a sport that prizes its iconoclasts, the flamboyantly dreadlocked Jean stands out with his intricately sculpted facial hair, fondness for chop-socky movie vigilantes, and penchant for practical jokes. (He once showed up for a team picture with grotesque fake teeth and an implausible bulge in his pants.) Beyond the carefully crafted image – “I know two weeks before a competition what I'm going to wear, what attitude I want to bring” – the 25-year-old is emerging as a force on the ice.
After winning a bronze medal at the most recent world championships, Jean is gearing up for his turn under the Olympic spotlight next winter.
At the short-track team's Olympic selections, Jean has been dominant by winning four of his six races in the absence of world champion sprinter
Charles Hamelin, the unquestioned leader of the team and one of Canada's brightest medal hopes at the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Hamelin earned his pass to the Olympics at the worlds, and injured veteran
François-Louis Tremblay, the only current Canadian skater to own an individual Olympic medal, is effectively assured a berth if he is healthy in time for the Games.
Jean's dominance in the men's races to this point – the trials mirror the 10-day Olympic competition schedule and will conclude tomorrow – was matched on the women's side by fellow Quebec skater
Roberge.The diminutive Roberge, who suffered a serious thigh injury last year and had an inconsistent World Cup season, was at her explosive best and demonstrated why she, too, is a serious contender for one or more medals at the Olympics.
“A perfect day, I'm really happy,” said Roberge, who qualified by winning the 1,000-metre race on Saturday.
As shy and retiring as her male counterpart is flamboyant, Roberge will try to lock up the title in the 500 today, and wrap up the 1,500 this evening.
Because of the aggregate-results format, the competition for the remaining Olympic slots – there are two up for grabs on the men's side and three on the women's – is furious and could come down to the final race.
Women's skater
Tania Vicent, who has been to three Olympics and is the elder stateswoman of the team at age 33, is vying for a chance to try and win her fourth Games medal.
But she's in tough against former Olympian
Amanda Overland, and rising stars such as 21-year-old
Jessica Gregg, 19-year-old
Valerie Maltais, and
Marianne St. Gelais, the reigning world junior champion in the 500 metres.
On the men's side,
François Hamelin – Charles Hamelin's younger brother – thought he'd pipped Jean at the line in the 1,000-metre finals, but a photo finish showed otherwise; he will have another, albeit marginal, chance to qualify today. Northwest Territories skater
Michael Gilday will surely have something to say about that, as could Quebeckers
Guillaume Bastille and
Marc-Andre Monette.
