Sport Insight: The rule change that revolutionized curling
SIRC’s Sport Insight series features blogs and articles that examine innovation and evolution in the sport landscape. It started as a practice drill between two brothers and grew into the rule that transformed the sport of curling: the Free Guard Zone rule. Russ Howard, one of the best skips in Canadian curling history, is credited…
Appeal to CAS
This week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will hear a scheduled five-day appeal in the case of two-time Olympic 800m champion Castor Semenya. Semenya is appealing a ruling by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that will impose limits on testosterone levels for female athletes with differences of sexual development. The case…
Athlete Perspective: How to manage social media during competition
SIRC’s Athlete Perspective series provides insight and recommendations on key issues from an athlete’s perspective. The collection of blogs and SIRCuit articles profiles Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes and taps into their lived experience. While social media can have many positive uses for athletes, such as interacting with fans, creating a brand, and providing value…
Athlete Perspective – Social Media
While social media can have many positive uses for athletes, from interacting with fans to providing value for sponsors, engagement can also pose risks to performance. In today’s blog, Olympic curler Lisa Weagle provides insight into the steps she and her teammates used leading up to Pyeongchang to control the impact of social media on…
Bell Let’s Talk Day 2019
Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day – a national initiative to promote awareness and action by fighting stigma associated with mental health issues, improving access to care, supporting world-class research, and providing leadership on workplace mental health. In today’s SIRC blog, Audrey Lacroix from Game Plan talks about the mental health challenges faced by high…
We Need to Talk about Mental Health
Life as a high-level athlete has its ups and downs. There is success and failure, stress, pressure, endless doubts, injuries, days where you are surrounded by people and others where you are completely by yourself. It’s a train of emotions, one after the other, almost simultaneously. It can be too much to process. In the…
Athlete Perspective – Christine Girard
On December 3, 2018, Canadian weightlifter Christine Girard received a gold medal from the 2012 London Olympics and a bronze medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, following the disqualification of athletes convicted of doping violations. Learn more about her journey and commitment to clean sport in the SIRCuit.
Why Transgender Eligibility Policies Aren’t Enough
In releasing its transgender inclusion policy in September 2018, U Sports joined an ever-increasing list of organizations, from the community to international levels, that have implemented policies to regulate the inclusion of athletes who identify as transgender. Organizations with trans inclusion policies include, but are not limited to, school divisions (e.g. the Toronto District School…
Winter 2019 SIRCuit
The Winter SIRCuit is now available! This edition is issue-packed, providing evidence-based and experience-informed insight through a variety of timely and topical articles: Increase your commitment to improving sport in Canada through an article on values-based sport. Contemplate the role of policy and practice in maintaining hazing culture, supporting the inclusion of transgendered athletes, and…
Athlete Perspective: My reality as a clean athlete in a not so clean sport
SIRC’s Athlete Perspective series provides insight and recommendations on key issues from an athlete’s perspective. The collection of blogs and SIRCuit articles profiles Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes and taps into their lived experience. I started weightlifting in a small, remote city in northern Quebec when I was nine years old. It was, and still…