Canadian contenders falter on Day 9

Last Updated: Sunday, February 21, 2010 | 4:20 AM ET

By Brandon Hicks, CBC Sports

Canada 1, piloted by Lyndon Rush with brakeman Lascelles Brown, crashed during its second run. (Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

Bobsleigh pilot Lyndon Rush's second run embodied Day 9 of the Olympics for Canada perfectly.

Challenging for a podium spot, everything turned upside down.

Sitting third after the first run at the Whistler Sliding Centre, Rush was laying down an extremely fast second run with brakeman Lascelles Brown on Saturday.

But Rush just couldn't hold it together, and his Canada 1 sled crashed after coming out of turn 13 and crossed the finish line upside down.

Rush and Brown walked away unharmed, but the result dropped them from a podium threat to 21st. The two are unlikely to race the final two runs on Sunday, instead focusing on the upcoming four-man competition.

"It's the Olympics, right? That's big. Everybody tells me that it's big, [but] more than anything, I like racing and this is a track where I'm good," Rush said. "I had a chance to do well — that's the most disappointing."

The two were ranked sixth in the world heading into the Games, and had the best start time during each of the two runs.

Veteran pilot Pierre Lueders and brakeman Jesse Lumsden in the Canada 2 sled were sixth heading into Sunday's runs.

The pair is 75-100ths of a second behind the leaders from Germany, Andre Lange and Kevin Kuske, who finished their two runs in 1:43.31.

Fellow countrymen Thomas Florschuetz and Richard Adjei are 11-100ths back in second spot. Alexsandr Zubkov and Alexey Voevoda from Russia were in third, 50-100ths back of first.

Shut out in short track

Things turned upside down over at the Pacific Coliseum too, after hopes of a possible 1-2 Canadian finish went up in smoke.

The Hamelin brothers, Charles and Francois, from Sainte-Julie, Que., were both contenders for a medal in men's 1,500 short-track speedskating. And it couldn't have gone any better for the two, as they both advanced to race in the final.

But neither could stop the South Koreans, as Lee Jung-Su and Lee Ho-Suk used team tactics to their advantage and skated to a 1-2 finish themselves.

Charles Hamelin was once again left outside the podium in short track on Saturday at Pacific Coliseum. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

U.S. veteran Apolo Ohno overtook Charles in the final stretch and added to his American record medal haul with a bronze, his seventh Olympic medal.

For Charles, who holds the world record in the distance, it was another case of what could've been. He was shut out of the medals in the 1,000 metres earlier in the Games, when he was also a contender.

Brother Francois was always an outside shot to win a medal, but had high hopes with a loud Canadian crowd behind him and his brother racing alongside him in the final.

The loud crowd is actually what threw Charles off his game.

"At the beginning of the race, I had trouble pacing my speed," he said. "I was going too fast in the beginning and it meant that at the end, I didn't have the legs to place on the podium."

But Canada's powerhouse short-track team was shut out of the medals once again, and had one silver to its credit — won by Charles's girlfriend, Marianne St-Gelais, in the women's 500 — after four individual races were complete.

Medal shortage

By comparison, the Koreans have five, the Americans sport three and the Chinese have two (both gold medals).

Canada was aiming for six medals in short track. There are eight medals total left to win in the competition (two relays plus two individual events).

"Right now, it's going to be a goal that's difficult to achieve … it's still possible, but for that we'll have to be impeccable for the two last distances," said team leader Yves Hamelin, father of Charles and Francois.

Next up for Charles is the men's 500 metres. Canada also has the men's and women's relays to look forward to, as both have chances to win medals.

Nightmare continues for Morrison

In long track, Canadian speedskater Denny Morrison's Olympics were already upended, and it stayed that way after the men's 1,500 metres.

Morrison was using a poor performance in the 1,000 metres as motivation to pull off a great skate in the men's 1,500 metres at the Richmond Olympic Oval on Saturday.

But it just didn't happen, as the Fort St. John, B.C., native again was in contention but burnt out before the finish line, ending up ninth.

Canadian speedskater Denny Morrison had another tough skate in the men's 1,500 metres. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

"In the last lap, you saw, I just lost all my speed and basically, 'exploded' is the term," he said. "It wasn't that I wasn't trying hard, it wasn't that I gave up, I just wasn't technically putting it into the ice the way I should have been.

"And that's something I've lost in the last 12 or 15 months, and it's kind of frustrating to be getting closer and closer to the Olympics and know that I'm skating poorer and poorer, especially when I get tired."

Mark Tuitert of the Netherlands upset runaway favourite Shani Davis of the U.S. for the gold. Havard Bokko of Norway won bronze.

Saturday concluded with Canada failing to win a medal — the first day the home country has been shut out during these Games.

But it could only end up being a one-day blip. On Sunday, Canada has a fantastic shot at speedskating gold in the women's 1,500 metres. It should be a duel between fellow Canucks Kristina Groves and Christine Nesbitt for the title.

Canada also has a medal favourite in men's ski cross, as Chris Del Bosco is heading into the competition ranked third in the world.

But if the Canadian Olympic Committee wants to still hit the 30-medal mark it was hoping for before the Games began, it would need some classic Canadian underdog stories to steal the spotlight in the coming days.