Various photos from Vancouver, Toronto and Singapore have been added.

Click on the photo below to view the full gallery.

Check back soon for a journal from KK!

Canada’s women’s national team has nominated its roster for the 2008 Women’s Olympic Football Tournament. Coach Even Pellerud made his selections today in North Vancouver, BC, less than a week before the soccer players and staff depart for Asia. The Canadian soccer team will compete in the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament from 6-21 August in Beijing, China.

Canada’s soccer team qualified for the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament for the first time in Association history earlier this season. Canada qualified by finishing second at the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualification Tournament in Juarez, Mexico. The clinching victory was a 1:0 win over hosts Mexico in the tournament semi-final. Melissa Tancredi scored the decisive goal while goalkeeper Erin McLeod kept the clean sheet.

Canada will play Argentina, China and Sweden in the opening round of the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament. Canada plays Argentina on 6 August, China on 9 August and Sweden on 12 August. From the 12 teams in the women’s tournament (three groups of four teams), eight teams advance to the 15 August quarter-finals. Four teams then advance to matches on 18 and 21 August: first the semi-finals and then, depending on the outcomes, either the gold-medal final or bronze-medal final.

Every player nominated to the roster for the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament has also represented Canada at the national or national-youth level. On the world stage, Canada was most recently ranked ninth in the FIFA Women’s World Rankings. The Canadian team finished second to the world’s number-one ranked United States at the 2008 CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualification Tournament. At the youth level, Canada recently won its second CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, this time defeating the United States 1:0 in the 2008 final.

Canada 2008 :
1 Karina LeBlanc | G | Maple Ridge, BC
2 Amber Allen | F | Pitt Meadows, BC
3 Emily Zurrer | D | Crofton, BC
4 Clare Rustad | D/M | Salt Spring Island, BC
5 Robyn Gayle | D | Mississauga, ON
6 Sophie Schmidt | M | Abbotsford, BC
7 Rhian Wilkinson | F | Baie d’Urfé, QC
8 Diana Matheson | M | Oakville, ON
9 Candace Chapman | M | Ajax, ON
10 Martina Franko | D | Squamish, BC
11 Randee Hermus | D | Langley, BC
12 Christine Sinclair | F | Burnaby, BC
13 Amy Walsh | M | St-Bruno, QC
14 Melissa Tancredi | F | Ancaster, ON
15 Kara Lang | F | Oakville, ON
16 Jonelle Filigno | F | Mississauga, ON
17 Brittany Timko | D/M | Coquitlam, BC
18 Erin McLeod | G | Edmonton, AB

Alternates / Remplaçants :
Kristina Kiss | D/M | Ottawa, ON
Stéphanie Labbé | G | Stony Plain, AB
Jodi-Ann Robinson | F | Richmond, BC
Amy Vermeulen | F | Saskatoon, SK

Staff / Personnel :
Head Coach / Entraîneur-chef : Even Pellerud
Assistant Coach / Entraîneur adjoint : Ian Bridge
Assistant Coach / Entraîneur adjoint : Robert Birarda
Scout / Dépisteur : Paul James
Goalkeeper coach / Entraîneur des gardiens : Paul Rogers
Team Manager / Gérant d’équipe : Les Meszaros
Equipment Manager / Gérant d’équipement : Maeve Glass
Medical Lead and Team Doctor / Avance Médicale et Docteur : Dr. Andrew Pipe
Physiotherapist / Physiothérapeute : Marc Rizzardo
Physiotherapist / Physiothérapeute : Judy Russell
Therapist / Thérapeute : Garret Kusch
Massage Therapist / Massothérapeute : Nicole Stephen
Strength and conditioning coach / Entraîneur de force et conditionnement : Andrew Clark
Sport Psychologist / Psychologue Sportif : Kirsten Barnes

Hello everyone,

Thanks for checking in once again. I’ve added more photos up from our trip in Suwan, South Korea.

Some are random so you can just get an idea of what is going on around us and some are pictures I may have missed in my last Korea update.

View my photos here!

I am heading to bed now as most of you are starting your day. We play the US tomorrow in what should be an exciting final as we topped off New Zealand 2-0 two days ago.

It really has been a great tournament with Amber Allen being back with us, Brit scoring her first international goal and as usual Sincy is on fire. We are excited about the game and the final tomorrow so till then….

Bonne Nuit or have a great day for you guys

KK

Toilet Explosion Revisted

Right after Becky finished taping my ankles for the game I hopped off the table and made my way to what I thought was the bathroom.

Turned out it was the shower so I called out to the few girls in the change room at the time to find out where it was. JAR yelled from another part of the room that is was by her, but I turned the other way by accident and ran into Kara who lead me towards JAR and where the bathroom actually was.

Thankfully I wasted about a minute and a half searching because just as I turned the corner and chatted with Nicole for a second while she was filling up a cooler with water I heard an enormous explosion type sound kind of like a forceful waterfall. We peered around the corner and the last toilet stall was bursting out water like crazy.

Nicole and I immediately bolted out of the washroom area and watched as the water gushed toward us. We were met by Jodi-Ann and Kara and we were all hysterically laughing and watching through the glass door we had just closed as the water raged. The water started seeping out from under the door and we scrambled to move all of our bags and belongings onto the tables and chairs while the security guards came in to try and solve the problem.

Soon all the stadium staff were in their bare feet with mops and towels attempting to turn the water off and get everything under control. By this time the majority of the team had returned from the field where they were watching a bit of the game before ours and came in to the mayhem. JAR and I burst out with roaring laughter as we retold the story to Amy Walsh and a few others.

The best part of it all was that if I had found JAR sooner and thus gotten to the bathroom quicker I would have had the best bidet experience of all time…

Photos from the 2008 Peace Queen Cup in South Korea.

Click on the photo below to view the full gallery.

Photos from trip to Australia, May 2008.

Click on the photo below to view the full gallery.

Well the days post celebration were rather low key. Here is how I spent my time.

Click on the photo below to view the full gallery.

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates since Olympic Qualifiers!

KK has, however, sent over a bunch of photos to catch everyone up on what has happened since Mexico, so check them out! Be sure to read the captions–they’ll serve like journal entries!

Thanks,

Elaine

Hi all,

As you can see, KarinaLeBlanc.com has gone through a complete redesign. I was inspired to make some changes after the team’s qualification for the Olympics and I thought a change of layout would be good! I think this layout will be more “functionable” for KK to make more journal and photo updates in the future–plus, it looks pretty!

With that said, some things to note about the new design:

• The ability to leave comments are back up and running…the old system was being hit hard by spambots and I do believe that problem has been solved now. Old comments, unfortunately, have been lost.
• Photos have moved to a new system to manage…it’s pretty straight forward and user friendly. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that.
• All of KK’s journal entries have been transferred to this new site while the majority of “news” entries and press releases have been moved too. I chose not to transfer all entries simply becuase I didn’t think they would be relevant anymore.

Please feel free to contact me or reply to this post if you have any comments or see any issues with the site. I’m still working on adding and fixing little things over the next few days.

In the meantime, enjoy the site!

My best,
Elaine

Waw, what a rush.

I still don’t think it has completely hit me yet that we are going to the Olympics but little things keep making it become a reality.

Our entire team has been flooded with emails and phone calls (those who do get service out here) from so many people congratulating us. It was been a day filled with smiles and so much pleasure. It is a joy to be on this team today and we have so much to look forward to.

Yesterday we lit our torch to the Olympics with our, today we absorb it, and tomorrow it is back to work.

We enjoyed the celebration with the parents back at the hotel…it’s all about the parents…We had pizza and music and dancing and entertainment. It was a night you just didn’t want to end. Read the rest of this entry »