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north sh

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ckridge to host

karate tournament ,s

Andrew McCredie
Sports Editor andrew@usnews

DANIEL Lo is a big believer in
balance.

As an owner of a martial arts studio, this
should come as little surprise. After all, good
balance is a prerequisite in the ancient disci-
plines, The kind of balance Lo refers to, howev-
er, is one of unison; the harmony and inner
peace only achieved, when all things work
together.

It was in that spirit that Lo opened The
Unison Way in North Vancouver iast February.

“Ifyou have a martial art which only empha-
sizes the physical side, you are promoting vio-
lence,” says Lo, who began his own education in
the.ancient arts as a youngster‘in Hong Kong,
“against my parent’s wishes.”

His school’s philosophy, he says, is to offer
students a way of life, “and how to find your way
in life and your role in the universe.”

Lo’s schoo! intends to spread that message
on its first anniversary with the establishment of
a North Shore karate tournament.

The Unison Way has joined forces with West
Vancouver Parks and Recreation, the North
Vancouver Recreation Commission and Shito
Ryu Seiko Kai to host the First Annual North
Shore Sato Cup Invitational Karate Tournament
this Saturday at Rockridge Middle School in
West Van (5350 Headland Dr.).

The Sato Cup itself will be contested by the
B.C.. Provincial Karate Team and the
Washington State Karate Team.

Event organizors expect more than 300 par-
Ucipants to take part in the Karate BC sanc-

’S an easy solu- -
' tion to all the troubles
besetting the Olympic
Games as we head into
- the new century — kili
_them off.

Dr. Kervorkian, where are
you when we really need you?

tioned competition. According to Karate BC
executive director James Johnson, the “sane-
tioned” aspect of the event should not be over-
looked. Too many tournaments, he says, fall
under the unsanctioned banner,

“The big issue is one of accountability and
credibiliy,” Johnson explains. “That's why
(Karate BC) has very stringent rules for admis-
sion to the association.”

Johnson says these rules include certified
training of instructers, police background check
of all instructors, and mandatory sign-up for
national certificate coaching courses.

“As well, they have to abide by our code of
conduct and our bylaws,” he adds.

Karate BC was established 25 years ago by
the provincial government in an attempt to
establish standards for safety, instruction and
competitions. Today, according to Johnson,
there are 110 accredited clubs in the province,
boasting a membership roll in excess of 5,000.

Drive around the Lower Mainland and you'll
see many of these clubs. You'll also see schools
which have no accreditation; so many in fact
they have become the waterbed stores of the
°90s. Like those long gone strip mall denizens,
martial arts schools run the gamuc of credibility,
from fully sanctioned to fully fly-by-night.

The Unison Way's Lo agrees totally with
Karate BC’s philosophy.

“It is better to be under a system which has
consistency,” Lo says. “Instead of learning from
One person, you are learning from a proven
school of style.”

The Sato Cup tournament begins at 9 a.m.
on Saturday. The official opening ceremony is
slated for 3 p.m., with demonstrations and final
medal rounds to follow.

winner, A revolt in the
Argentine camp was one of
the features of the 1932
Games at Los Angeles. The
Argentine athletes overthrew |
their leader; chen, on the ship
going home, were confined to
quarters when they wouldn’t
stop fighting cach other.

The 1936 Games in Bertin

They are too big, ton com-
mercial, too costly, too polit’:

“. cal and too corrupt. They are
- mot what they were created to
be '-- simple, joyful athletic

“contests — and are about as
nationalistically non-partisan
as the United Nations.They’ve
become one of the great
dinosaurs of our times.

When France’s Baron
Pierre de Coubertin revived, in
1896, the ancient Greek sport
festival, he brought it into a
world where the constraints of
transportation and communi-
cation made it impossible to
get the athletic youth of the
world together more than
once every four years.

Passenger jets and televi-
sion weren't even the stuff of
dreams. The combination of

the two have made it possible
for virtually every sports disci-
pline to hold its own world
championship wherever and
whenever it wants.

The big, all-inclusive spec-
tacle no longer is necessary.
There are places all over the
world that could never aftord
to stage an Olympics. But
they have sufficient financial
heft to host an occasional
world meet.

Back in the beginning de
Coubertin said the Games
were supposed to bring

together periodically the
youth of the world for “ami-

cable agility.”

A quick review shows that
agility has been far from ami-
cable, starting 99 years ago,
when American athletes
wouldn’t take part in the
opening ceremonies at the
1900 Paris Olympics because
they were held on a Sunday.

In 1908 at London, the
USS. and Swedish teams

. Claimed they were insulted

when the British didn’t fly
their flags at the stadium.
They and other nations
protested just about every-
thing the British did and
threatened to pull out. One
US. protest was to protest the
British attitude to U.S.
protests.

Hailed by the king of
Sweden as the world’s greatest
athlete during the 1912 event
at Stockholm, Jim Thorpe was
stripped of his medals by the
International Olympic
Committee when it discovered
he had played some semi-pro
baseball earlier in life. Enmity
was well on its way to replac-
ing amity.

In 1924, at Paris, French
spectators distinguished them-
selves by booing the national
anthems of every non-French

were used as a Nazi propagan-
da tool. The IOC refused to
allow Isracl to compete in the
1948 Games at London, thus
averting a boycort by Arab
nations.

Soviet Russia made its
Olympic debut in 1952 at
Helsinki. The Russians built
their own Olympic village.
Their athletes weren’t allowed
to mingle with the youth of
other nations. So much for
amity.

At Melbourne in 1956
Communist China walked out
when the Aussies flew the
Nationalist Chinese flag in the
village. The Hungarians
ripped the Communist

NAME: Colin Clay
SPORT: Badminton

Wednesday, February 3, 1999 — North Shore News — 33

NEWS photo Julie Iverson

UNISON Way head instructors Aikara Sate (left) and Ron Bagley, show their stuff dur-
ing a karate demonstration at Rockridge Middle School. The West Van schoo! hosts
the First Annual North Shore Sato Cup Invitational Karate Tournament this Saturday.

emblem from their banners
and, in the water polo final,
made sure the pool ran red
with Russian blood. Amity,
wherefore wert thou?

The 1960 Games in Rome
featured the first recorded
Olympics death since 1912.
Danish cyclist Knut Jensen
collapsed and died during the
road race. It was determined
he had used a blood circula-
tion stimulant. Banned sub-
stances have been part of the
Olympic scene ever since.

Ten days before the 1968
Games in Mexico City, the
army opened fire on 300,000
unarmed protesting students,
killing several hundred. The
IOC dismissed this as “an
internal affair,” but later sus-
pended two black American
medal winners for their black
power salute on the winners’
podium. That’s IOC perspec-
tive for you.

Munich and 1972 are still
mostly remembered for the
Arab massacre of 11 Israeli

YEAR: Second-year commerce student

HIGH SCHOOL: Sentinel

Colin is the top male player on the
high calibre Blues, and has posted a
number of first place results at BOCAA
tournaments this season in both singles
and doubles. Colin is also an ace of the
court, earning an impressive 3.64 GPA
last term at the North Vancouver cal-
lege. He is a strong contender for a
medal at the B.C. Championships.

An Olympic size job for Dr. Kervorkian

athletes. Then-LOC boss
Avery Brundage declared:
“The greater and more impor-
tant the Olympic Games
become, the more they are
open to commercial, political
and now criminal pressure.”
Prophetic words.

Four years later Montreal
staged the first billion dollar
Games. Twenty-four African
countries walked out when the
IOC refused to toss out New
Zealand for playing rugby, a
non-Olympic sport, against
South Africa. Canada refused
to allow Taiwan to compete,
despite IOC approval. -
Trudeau's Liberals didn’t want
to jeopardize wheat deals with
mainland China.

* Then the tit-for-tat
Olympics in 1980 at Moscow
and 1984 at Los Angeles. The
Americans (and several other
nations, including Canada)
boycotted the former because
of the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. The Soviet bloc
retaliated in kind four years

NAME: Wendy McGill
SPORT: Badminton
YEAR: First

HIGH SCHOOL: Sutherland

later. ;
The Ben Johnson scandal
and bribed boxing judges at
Seoul in 1988 and the fatal
bomb explosion of 1996 in
Adanta now are followed by
what everyone has suspected
for halfa century: IOC mem-
bers taking — and Olympic
sites giving — bribes. :
Salt Lake City and Sydney
have admitted as much and the -
IOC, in response, has thrown
out a few of its members, This,

- however, is merely a scratching

of the surface. [fand when the .
full extent is revealed, a won-
derful opportunity to kill the -
Games altogether.

The ancient Olympics were
killed off in the fourth century
because they kad become so
corrupt. Will history repeat?

Given everything that’s
happened in the last 100 years;
the Games have proven to be a
hardy survivor, As long as ©
greed and hypocrisy continue
to flourish, so — unfortunately
— will the Olympics. Pity.

Wendy and doubles’ partner Alison
Paterson have twice won gold at
BCCAA tournaments this season, and
this past weekend placed second iia a
BCIT competition behind a2 Douglas
College duo. The McGill-Paterson
combo is considered an early favourite

to medal at the nationals,