Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 13

Lance Armstrong's Tour de force PageB7 Ontario sprinter runs to double gold PageB3 Business SOCCER Sports Calgarf stormsi into final SCOTT CRUICKSHANK Calgary Herald The Calgary Storm's dream season in its debut summer, no less will continue, v't A 3-0 victory Saturday night over the Seattle Sounders ensures that. That de- 0 Vr) 1 cision in the Premier Develop- Storm 3 Sounders 0 in League's Western Conference showdown Saturday night a' soccer tilt that drew a crowd of 45 under the lights of Santa Ana Stadium in Orange County, Calif. pushes the expansion Storm into the PDL championship next weekend in Des Moines, Iowa "We're really thankful to be going," said Calgary captain Mark McKenna, who potted the winning goal in both weekend games. "Obviously, from the start of the season, that was one of our goals. First we won the league.

Now, we've won the conference final To go to the PDL final in Des Moines is something really special We believed we could do it and that was the mam thing amongst ourselves. Maybe the people around us didn't believe it would happen, but within the team, within the coaching staff, we believed it could happen. "We had a lot of faith, a lot of trust in one another." But in the franchise's first year of existence? 2 "At first I don't think we knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into," said goalkeeper Lars Hirschfeld. "But as the season progressed, we thought it seemed like a reasonable goal we could achieve." The Storm had beaten the Sounders, their Northwest Division rivals, three times in four regular-season outings. The teams split a season-opening series in Calgary.

ZZ. "I was glad we played Seattle. They've got a good side," said McKenna. "We played wellHthe whole game. We came out rigfitat the start and we were ready td'go.

We played a great final" ZZZ McKenna broke the ice inhe 53rd minute with a free kick, ajT-yard blast that found the top corner. Fifteen minutes later, 3he Itnrm wpnt- nn 9-n at (Tins reaK Jenelle Schneider, Calgary Herald Pole vaulter Rob Pike practises in Calgary for next week's world championships in Edmonton. After years of pain and pratfalls, Calgary pole vaulter Rob Pike feels blessed to compete in a world championship so close to home iKA GEORGE JOHNSON It was a feeling he vaguely remembered, one hidden back in the deep recesses of his subconcious; a feeling he'd abandoned all hope of ever recapturing. "I felt," says Pike, "pain-free. "I almost didn't know how to react I felt good; too good, if such a thing is possible.

It was like, What gives? How come I don't hurt, don't ache?" "It had been almost io years since I had felt that way. It was odd. It was great" He stops, self-deprecatingly. "Naturally, I no-vaulted." At 31, Rob Pike can either be classified as: A) resilient; B) stubborn; or C) certifiably insane. Who else, his friends wonder, could be cruelly slapped down so often and continue to come back for more? This guy's been around more doctors than Ben Casey, his pole-vaulting career a litany of injury-related missed opportunities, a series of optimistic beginnings plunged into tragic "It was not far from my rectum.

Not, actually, far from death by impalement "But idiot that I am, I kept jumping. I'd won the meet but I wanted to attempt a Canadian record, anyway. So I tried, with blood running down my leg. Raging athlete-ego, I guess. Anyway bad idea.

Dumb idea. I could barely walk for the next two months. And there were compounding problems. I had messed up my lower back and pelvis." In '98, more back problems. In '99, an Achilles tendon blew up after a couple of meets in Europe.

One time, he travelled to California to train, but was injured on the first vault and wound up hanging out hanging 10, acting the surfer-dude for the next six months. Pike's hurt himself in competition, in training, falling into unsatisfactory vaulting pits at a high school in Edmonton. See JOHNSON, Page B3 He quit outright once. "Certainly," Pike sighs, "no could accuse me of being lucky." Yet he'll be there at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton next week, three hours due north of his hometown, representing Canada at the World Track and Field Championships (more last-minute, sadistic acts of fate notwithstanding, of course). And when (if?) he does, all the sacrifice, the pig-headedness and the doubts will have been worth it "Sure there were times I wondered, "Why me? Lots of them.

I wondered whether or not I was cursed. You get tired of telling yourself, Things happen for a But a lot of times, that's about all you have to hold onto." Back and ankle problems ruled out the '95 world championships, '96 and the Olympics were a washout On May 18, 1997 at Harry Jerome Stadium in Vancouver, Pike launched himself into the air, over the bar, and wound up landing, awkwardly, painfully, on the top of his pole. () Lemire, a 17-year-old fromJEd-monton, converted a breakaway" Felix Napuri added the icing with a goal a driving headed in the 90th minute. Calgary opened with a 2-1 decision over the host Orange Coorttjr Blue Star, while the Sounders dumped the Denver Cougars 3HH11 the other semi-finaL In Iowa, the Storm joins refffel sentatives from the Eastern 3StJ Central conferences, as well asjjtig host Des Moines club, in another four-club tournament Calgary starts Friday nighl against an as-yet-undetennirffll opponent A win would vault the Storm into Saturday's championship match. Beginning his assault down the runway at the Francophone Games in Ottawa this past week, after nearly six hours of standing, waiting, in the rain; feeling wet, heavy and wishing he were just about anywhere else on earth, Rob Pike suddenly sensed something different He felt strange.

Somehow liberated. 39GtIlB wmmm AIM S3 uscSEnss? tgSffl sk8- -hum.