'I am angry': Alberta farmers will continue fight over world class motorsport resort
The rolling hills leading to the hamlet of Rosebud are dotted with sprawling farms and cattle pastures -- and a sign sporting a simple message: No Race Track.
A diver's chamois cloth, or shammy, serves an important purpose, but athletes don't always look where they're tossing their towels before they launch from the springboard or platform.
During competition warmups, when athletes are getting out of the pool, climbing the ladders and waiting their turn on the boards, wet cloths falling from a height onto heads and hands below are an occupational hazard.
"A couple times a week maybe, but usually more in competitions because there's so many people," said Calgary diver Caeili McKay, who will make her Olympic debut in Tokyo.
"It's happened a couple of times when it's hit me in the eye and I can't see for the rest of practice."
When a sopping wet cloth was dropped from the 10-metre tower onto Meaghan Benfeito's finger at the pool's edge during training, it stung.
"I look where I kind of throw my shammy," the Montreal diver said. "I try not to hit anybody. It doesn't happen as often as people think, but it really hurts."
Diving is an equipment-light sport with the shammy part of the kit.
If hands and legs are too dry or too wet, divers can't properly grip their upper legs while they're spinning fast in mid-air.
The shammy's purpose is to mop the body to the right balance of dryness and moistness.
"You kind of need your hands to be a little wet so you can grip onto your legs," Benfeito explained. "You want your legs to be dry, but your hands to be a little moist-ish."
There is shammy etiquette that isn't always followed.
Brains are more preoccupied with the upcoming dive than where the shammy falls on the pool deck for quick retrieval after emerging from the pool.
"You tie it in a knot, make sure no one is walking (underneath) and then you chuck it either down or across the pool so no one gets hurt," McKay explained.
Shammy missiles are more common from the 10-metre platform than the three-metre springboard because divers in the latter have a closer view of what or who is below them on deck.
"Usually it's more the people on tower, that they don't see each other and they just throw their shammy down, so they get hit more often," said four-time Olympian Jennifer Abel.
Benfeito, a triple Olympic bronze medallist on the tower, says retrieving her shammy and mopping her body after a dive gives her a little psychological reset in a sport in which she launches herself off the equivalent of a three-story building.
"I think it's more of a comfort zone than anything else. It's yours, right?" Benfeito said. "Nobody else can touch it."
Abel says her shammy isn't a security blanket, but there have been moments where it is special to her.
"A few years ago my shammy was black and I was the only one that had a black shammy," Abel said.
"At the (2016) Olympics, I have a picture with me throwing my black shammy and that picture was everywhere and I love it. It's even in my room."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 19, 2021.
The rolling hills leading to the hamlet of Rosebud are dotted with sprawling farms and cattle pastures -- and a sign sporting a simple message: No Race Track.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
For decades, North Bay, Ontario's water supply has harboured chemicals associated with liver and developmental issues, cancer and complications with pregnancy. It's far from the only city with that problem.
A man who tried to access Drake’s Bridle Path mansion earlier this week returned to the property Saturday and was apprehended again for allegedly trespassing, Toronto police say.
Multiple people at the protest camp torn down at the University of Alberta campus Saturday say police's actions against protesters were "violent" and "disproportionate."
When West Virginia Republicans vote in Tuesday's primary, they will have a hard time finding a major candidate on the ballot in any statewide race who openly acknowledges that U.S. President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday called Donald Trump “clearly unhinged” and claimed that “something snapped” in the former president after he lost the 2020 election.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.