Tuesday, June 1, 2010 Szeged World Canoe Kayak Cup 2010 K1 500m final A. 1. Adam van Koeverden (CAN) Lane 6, 2. Anders Gustafsson (SWE) Lane 5, 3. Tamas Szalai (HUN) Lane 1, 4. Ken Wallace (AUS) Lane 8, 5. Angus Mortimer (CAN) Lane 4.
Sunday, May 30, 2010 
WC2 in Szeged Hungary was awesome. I finished with two golds (500m, and 5000m), and a silver (in the 1000m)... pictured above is the finishing sprint between my old friend Len Jenkins of the Republic of South Africa and I in the 5000m, if the race was 1meter longer it would have been yours Len ;)
The second picture is of Anders Gustafsson (SWE), Tamas Szalai (HUN) and I up on the podium, lamenting the loss of our beloved 500m event at the Olympics, appropriately on the K1 500m podium. Congrats fellas, a pleasure being out on the water with ya!
The 3rd picture is of the 500m finish... after 6 races I was pretty pooped. Koszonom Sepen to Balint Vekassy for the pics.
Thanks to Szeged for an amazing Vilagcupa, always a pleasure to come here, listen to your crowd roar as we paddle as fast as we can...
Final pic is from Kenny Wallace, 3rd in the scrappiest 5000m I've ever raced in, and 3rd in the 1000m as well, with our new buddy Aleh Yurenia from Belarus taking the gold in the 1000m, leading tape to tape. Congrats, (nestrovia?) Aleh!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 
Got my new NELO all decaled up and ready to go... thanks to Nuno for his sticker skills. It's a Vanquish III, and it's mega-fast.
We got the Roots, the Nelo, the Mazda, the Canada (our biggest sponsor for sure!). Plus my favourite charity "Right to Play" - spreading the power of sport and play around the world to the kids who need it most...
Szeged has been great so far, nice weather with just a touch of that familiar right's wind we've all become accustomed to expect here.
You can access the Competition Website right HERE.
Friday, May 21, 2010 
I'm lucky enough to have a ticket to the UEFA Champions League Final tomorrow (which is going to be BANANAS), so I'm flying through Madrid and spending my day and a half off in Spain... and flying to Budapest on Sunday night!
Bayern Munich is playing Inter Milan in the final. I'm rooting for Bayern because Mark van Bommel is the Captain and Arjen Robben is on the team and Louis van Gaal is the coach and they're all Dutch... every four years I bleed Oranje and cheer for them in the World Cup so let's Go Bayern Munich!!
Hej då Sverige! (good-bye Sweden) Thanks for the lovely spring weather!!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 I've decided to re-post this from a few months ago cause I was thinking about it, it's important, and the links are still hot...
In case anybody needed another reason to exercise on the regular, it's here now; it makes you smarter. Recent research has shown that physical activity in a variety of forms has an acute positive impact on school grades. (My guess it that there's a chronic effect too!) Click the link to read a great article from last weekend's Globe.
What splendid timing! Toronto has just won a successful 2015 pan am games bid, the games are coming to Toronto, meaning provincial and municipal funds will be earmarked towards sports infrastructure and facilities. Now instead of headlines about closing pools and skating rinks, and no time for phys-ed in elementary schools, we should be reading about an adoption of a new attitude towards activity. It's not an extra thing to do everyday, it's not too hard or only for those who are sporty and spandex clad. Daily exercise is for everyone, and instead of prescribing drugs for type II diabetes, ADHD, cholesterol, high blood pressure and myriad other lifestyle related illnesses, we need to consider what choices and lifestyle practices can make our communities healthier, fitter, and now - smarter and more productive too! I don't think prescription-exercise is the best solution. Then it becomes work, another obligatory to-do, and not something we're inclined to enjoy, maintain, and pass on to our kids. It's time for an attitude shift, instead.
Build facilities and hire good coaches to run them, they'll get filled because kids like to play.
Phys-ed isn't a privilege for kids lucky enough to attend a school with a yard, gymnasium or proper funding. It's a right, and certainly just as important as math, science, english and the humanities, including the recent headlining "how to be the CFO of kindergarten" save the future economy scheme.
In fact, sport and play opportunities are not just "as important" as every other subject in school, we now know that they're complimentary and symbiotic. Get kids active and you won't only watch their grades go up, watch them become more motivated, productive, proactive, happy, and healthy too.
The bad news is, there is competition. I'm not referring to the variety found in an opposing team, I'm talking about all the reasons not to exercise. There are more out there now than when I was in grade school, and astronomically more than when my parents were. The tv, x-box, and laptop machine is winning this battle, unfortunately. Sure we had video games in the early 90's, but they were pretty boring compared to the ones out there now, you could finish Mario 3 after dinner and still have enough daylight for a rollerblade around the block. Now kids live in these games; they actually are a mercenary killing aliens (illegal and extraterrestrial), they can do impossibly sick skateboard tricks, they can thieve grand autos and drive a Lambourgini Legerra at 200mph, in high def and online. No matter how many hours I logged on sega genesis, I didn't actually think I was a blue hedgehog capable of supersonic velocities - cause it was only 64bits!
Help change our attitude problem; encourage healthy and active living by leading as a good example for our youth. Encourage play, if your school or your kids' school isn't teaching and encouraging phys-ed, complain! At the very least, read that article from the Globe or check out this book.
TV sucks, go outside and ride your bike!
