Top Spot, Torch Bearing & Making the Team - Athlete Blog Watch

The road to the Games is a long one and no one knows that better than the athletes themselves. On their personal blogs, they share the thrill of victory, the agony of their feet and the day to day living, training and perseverance that go into being a top athlete.

Here are a few of the Canadian athlete blog posts that inspired us this week:

Skeleton racer Melissa Hollingsworth became World Champion last week at the World Cup race in Igls, Austria! Congratulations, Melissa!

In her post World Champion!!!, Melissa talks about the series of races that took her to the top and how she (and her sled, White Lightning) needs to focus on her ultimate goal of gold in Whistler:

With all of the battles I’ve had on the Whistler track, crashes, stitches, broken sled and a concussion; the only way I overcame it was to put everything aside and focus on White Lightning, the Whistler track and myself. That will be what I do on Feb 18 & 19, 2010. Put aside the 145km/hr speeds, 12 000 fans trackside, the millions of Canadians expecting a gold medal. For those 4 Olympic race runs I will be completely selfish and it will only be about me, White Lightning and the Whistler track…

In her post The Olympic Flame, freestyle skier Kristi Richards blogs about her journey with the torch in Osoyoos earlier this week and about the presentation of her Canadian Olympic team jacket - she's one of three women to be named to Canada's mogul team!

Wow. What an experience. I have never felt so proud and filled with ecstacy as I ran with the torch at dawn in Osoyoos yesterday. The feeling of being united as one nation and one world was what I felt as my torch was lit by the previous torchbearer on the desolate tarmac of Highway 97. It amazes me that this flame came all the way from the original site in Greece, and travels without extinguishing all across our country. I felt such a strong connection to the spirit of the Olympics.

Snowboarder Justin Lamoureux talks about how he and his teammates qualified for the Canadian team at the World Cup in Stoneham, QC in his post 2010 Olympics!

This past weekend we had our last olympic qualifier event at the world cup in stoneham, quebec. Everyone's goal on the pipe team was to have 2 top fives (out of 5 events) as it meant priority selection for the Olympic team. Coming into this past weekend, i was the only rider with those results. But it by no means meant i was safe. With canada having only 3 spots for the guys pipe team it was still possible for me to get knocked off the team.

Justin also posted a great video of his runs at the World Cup: