CBC Beijing The Olympic Games 2008The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic GamesCBC Beijing The Olympic Games 2008

Posted by Anna Rice | Aug 27, 08 07:58 PM

Wow. It’s over.

The sweat, the tears, the endless hours of training, all for these fleeting 14 days and now they’ve come and gone.

But what a fortnight it’s been.

I just left a local bar here in the stunning mountainside Chinese town of Yangshuo, where I watched the closing ceremonies in true authentic fashion: surrounded by locals and drinking Dali beer. It was a tough decision for me to leave Beijing and miss taking part in the closing ceremonies, especially after having missed the opening festivities due to the next day start of my competition. But I chose to prioritize spending a few days with my family instead. After all, they had dedicated the first half of their trip in China to scowering the city for available badminton tickets and being my full time cheering section.

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Posted by Anna Rice | Aug 20, 08 10:20 AM

Now that it’s been a full week since my competition ended, I am now able to look back and evaluate my performance. The wounds are still fresh but seven days later, it’s time to take a look under the bandage.
Each of my three matches represents a different type of Olympic performance.

My first match was the typical “Olympic pressure” match. I was very nervous and unknowingly became consumed by stress midway through the match.

It’s hard to describe what occurs at the physiological level when this happens, but if you’ve experienced it, you know it’s paralysis. Every movement is difficult, nothing feels natural. Simply put, it’s the opposite end on the performance spectrum from what’s commonly referred to as “the zone.”

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Posted by Anna Rice | Aug 9, 08 06:08 AM

I made it, I’m settled in the village here in Beijing, I’ve got my bearings and I’m feeling good.

I’m competing tomorrow at 2 p.m. against Eva Lee from the U.S. It’s going to be a North American showdown and I’m ready for the challenge. After months of training and specific preparation for this event: it’s go time.

Today I’m taking it easy, chilling in the village, doing a light workout at the well equipped Village workout centre. As I write this I’m sitting in a big comfy chair, both feet up, using the wireless computer in the - hold on, I’m not sure what this place is officially called.

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Posted by Anna Rice | Aug 5, 08 02:38 PM

It’s never easy to lose a loved one, but just a day before I leave for Beijing, this is the scenario I’m facing. My wonderful grandma, my only grandparent, is in her final moments. She’s been losing her memory slowly over the past few years and every time I’m back from Copenhagen to visit I leave thinking that this may be our last visit. I try to be prepared, but deep down I always expect to see her on my next fly-by visit.

Now, as I am packing and getting ready to embark on this Olympic journey that in some ways is the culmination of 20 years of passion and commitment, my grandma is also about to take a journey of a different kind. Neither of us know exactly what’s in store, and not knowing is the scary part. But I will be brave as she will be, because that is what we want to be for the other.

When you ask people here in Denmark why they started playing badminton, nine times out of ten they answer, “Because my parents played.” Well, my parents hardly touched a badminton racquet before my sisters and I started, though they both were -- sorry, are -- very athletic. My dad played basketball and football as a UBC Thunderbird and my mom was a Canadian champion highland dancer. (They’ll groan that I wrote that, but kids should also be allowed to brag about their parents, right?)

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Posted by Anna Rice | Jul 21, 08 07:47 PM

While home in Vancouver last week, a local journalist asked me, “Excuse my ignorance, but how exactly do badminton players train?”

Since he’s a sportswriter and didn’t have a clue, I thought this an opportunity to enlighten the non-badminton playing among you of the ways high-performance badminton players train.

Badminton is a very physical sport. It requires the aerobic fitness to be able to last for up to an hour per match (with up to three matches per day), while also demanding the anaerobic fitness of being able to move very quickly and explosively around the court.

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Posted by Anna Rice | Jul 7, 08 09:40 AM

I’m writing this at 30,000 feet, somewhere over the Arctic Circle, en route home from Europe to Vancouver. A close friend of over 20 years is getting married next weekend. The ceremony is taking place on a long pier on the ocean overlooking the city, and the reception is taking place at the multi-sports club where I grew up playing badminton and where I often train while I'm home.

"We booked the party there so you can go train in between the ceremony and the reception," she jokingly told me.

Many of my friends aren't sports people, so they basically see me as a freak of nature who is obsessed with training and all things badminton (which is probably more accurate than I’d like to admit).

There’s exactly one month to go until the big Games officially begin, so I thought I’d use this entry to give you an emotional inventory (can you tell my mother’s a psychologist yet?) on how I’m feeling leading up to the big event.

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Posted by Anna Rice | Jun 23, 08 10:48 AM

I’ve just returned to Copenhagen after two weeks in Asia. I feel like many small hockey nations must feel upon their return from Canada. They must go home and tell their friends: “Wow, that country is crazy about hockey.”

That’s exactly how I feel coming home from Indonesia -- just substitute badminton for hockey.

Even having competed there several times, it’s still hard to grasp the fact that badminton is by far the number one sport in Indonesia, which has an enormous population (fourth largest in the world).

I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven when at breakfast I opened the newspaper to find page after page of badminton stories and analysis in the sports section -- singles, doubles, mixed doubles, the qualification, the main rounds -- it was all there.

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Posted by Anna Rice | Jun 18, 08 09:05 AM

I’m writing this from Singapore where I competed this past week in the Singapore Super Series Badminton Championships, one of the biggest badminton events of the season and a crucial pre-Olympic build-up tournament. There was no funding for this trip so at first I wasn’t sure I would be able to attend.

To make the journey possible, I contacted a friend of a friend who had a cousin with a friend that I may be able to stay with. I was desperate to find alternative lodging because the official tournament hotel cost over $200 a night. I knew I’d have to get creative to make this trip possible.

I emailed fellow Canadians (and Vancouverites) Paula and Dermot, the friends of friends who live and work in Singapore. Within minutes I had a reply from Paula, saying that she and Dermot would be more than happy to host me for the week, that it would be their pleasure to support the Canadian team.

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Posted by Anna Rice | Jun 4, 08 05:02 PM

I have to admit, when I moved to Copenhagen in the summer of 2000 I really didn’t know much about Denmark, other than it was a small European country just north of Germany. Part of me wondered if Denmark wasn’t actually closer to Dominica, since the Danish National team was always so perfectly tanner, even in the middle of February.

Yes, that’s one thing about the Danes: they love their tanning salons in the winter, and they spend every possible moment under the sun in the summer. As I tell my friends back home, for every sushi restaurant we have in Vancouver, the Danes have a sun-tanning salon.

It’s been great living here though, because unlike holidays or extended visits, when you live somewhere you get to see the inside view of the people and the culture. Sure, it’s still a “Western” country and there’s about as much English here as in Montreal, but despite the similarities, I can still feel a significant difference between life in Canada and life here in Northern Europe.

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Posted by Anna Rice | May 18, 08 04:52 PM

Well, it took 12 months and tournaments in more than 20 countries to qualify, but here I am -- going to Beijing. I’m a member of the 2008 Canadian Olympic Badminton team. I can hear you thinking: “Badminton… I love badminton! I ruled my high school phys-ed class!”

We get that one a lot.

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