The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 44

D4 IK VANCOUVIU SUN. SATURDAY, JANUARY 10. 2004 TRAVEL Maui wedding was blissful trip for Lori Fung Canada's Olympic gold medallist says most of her travel has been to competitions, which did not make for relaxing vacations A series based on the habits of notable travellers. BY KEVIN GRIFFIN VANCOUVER SUN ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER provincial title and was ready to compete nationally. In 1983, she won her second straight Canadian title but still hadn't qualified for the 1984 Olympic team.

In the course of a year, she improved her world ranking from 23rd to ninth, made it onto the Olympic team, competed in the first ever rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics, and won the gold medal. In the course of her career, she was a seven-time Canadian Grand National champion and won the 1986 Four Continents title as well. She retired in 1988 prior to the Seoul Olympics. Fung is a recipient of the Order of Canada. Now a director of Club Elite Rhythmic Gymnastics (www.eliterg.com), she is also the founder of Sportivity, which raises money to send underprivileged children to summer sports and activity camps.

She and her husband Dean Methorst have three children. What's the best vacation you've ever been on? That would be in 1996 when we went to Maui for two weeks that's when I got married. I've travelled around the What's your next trip? Next week I'm going to Los Angeles to be a judge at a rhythmic gymnastics competition. Our club, Club Elite Rhythmic Gymnastics, will be taking a some girls down there too. We're hoping to go to a training camp in Russia this summer and to a competition in Japan in September.

What's your favourite spot in B.C.? Crystal Waters Guest Ranch at Bridge Lake near 100-Mile House. We've been going there for years. We ride horses, we swim, we hike. It's just an awesome place. My kids love it.

It's like you're roughing it, having the outdoors right there, but you're living in a heated cabin with showers and meals cooked for you. What's the most overrated destination you've been to? I would have to say Paris. I've been there maybe a dozen times. Everyone says, 'Wow, I find the city a bit dirty. In the summer, it's so hot.

I just don't find it a great place. What can't you leave home without? My curling iron. This week: Lori Fung Born and raised in Vancouver, Fung started off on her road to an Olympic gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics when she was about 11 years old at Chief Maquinna elementary school. She was in the school's gymnastics club but found herself a little scared by some of the riskier, aerial exercises. Penny Tonge, her Grade 6 teacher, saw that Fung had skill and contacted her parents to suggest that she might like to try this new sport called rhythmic gymnastics.

What Fung loved about her new sport were the performance elements, especially the floor routines and the dancing. Although Fung started off behind other girls, she soon leapt ahead of the pack by committing herself completely to the sport. Within a few years, she had won the world but I'd never been to Hawaii before that trip. It was relaxing a great trip because everywhere else I've gone, it was always connected to gymnastics which tends to be stressful. My hus-nand Dean Methorst and I got married at the Renaissance Wailea on this grassy area overlooking the water.

We had 45 friends and family there. It was beautiful. What's the worst vacation you've ever been on? It was this one time I was on a trip to a competition in Czechoslovakia. I was 19 years old and all I remember are these long train rides. We were travelling for about 30 hours and we had to compete on the same day we got there.

It was a long and arduous trip and my first international competition. It was also a Lori Fung is not a big fan of Paris. turning point for me because of what happened on the train: one of the sliding doors slammed shut on my finger, my baby finger on my right hand, and broke it. I did terrible at the competition, but realized if I could get through that, I could get through anything. I came back to Canada and won my next 5 Nights Luxurious MS Angel Canse Cabin For 2 Visit our web-site for details 6 ENTER TO WIN ffinrtB The Changjiang Cruise Overseas Travel Corporation is the biggest most professional Cruise Company in China.

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