By Dan Marshall

Five Vancouver Island athletes part of 225 member Canadian Olympic team

Feb 9, 2018 | 9:12 AM

PYEONGCHANG — The Olympics are now underway with curling, skating and skiing events already started.
 
The opening ceremonies featured 225 Canadian athletes and 87 coaches, which was the largest ever contingent for our country at a Winter Games.
 
Of that group there are five athletes connected to Vancouver Island.
 
Snowboarder Spencer O’Brien is from Courtenay and the 30-year old will compete in the Ladies Slopestyle on Sunday and then the Ladies Big Air event on Feb 19.
 
O’Brien has six career X Games medals to her credit and reached as high as second in the World Snowboard Tour slopestyle standings in 2012-13.
 
Freestyle skier Cassie Sharpe will have to wait awhile for her event.
 
The 25-year-old spent out of Comox honed her craft in her younger days at Mount Washington.
 
She’ll hit the slopes for the Ladies Ski Halfpipe qualifying on Feb 19.
 
The 2017-18 World Cup season opened with a victory for Sharpe in New Zealand, and she also had a podium finish in Colorado last month.
 
Campbell River product Teal Harle will compete in Mens Ski Slopestyle on Feb 18.
 
The 21-year-old has two World Cup event victories including one just a fews ago in Colorado.
 
On Friday Feb 16 Carle Brenneman will take to the slopes in the Ladies Snowboard Cross.
 
She was an alternate for the Sochi games in 2014 and the 28 year-old has been a member of the national snowboard cross team since 2011.
 
Brenneman was the top Canadian at the 2017 World Championships with an eighth place finish.
 
The exact event schedule isn’t out yet for Victoria born Megan Tandy in the Biathalon.
 
This will be the third Olympic Games for Tandy who competed in 2010 and 2014.
 
In Sochi she was a part of Canada’s best-ever eighth-place finish in the women’s relay.
 
The 29-year-old has been a part of the World Cup team for most of the last decade, but does most of her training in Germany.
 
The Olympics will continue through Feb 25 in South Korea.
 
 
dan@nanaimonewsnow.com
 
On twitter: @danmarshall77