Steve Podborski (born July 25, 1957) is a Canadian alpine skier. July 25 is the 206th day (207th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 159 days remaining. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... sport involving sliding down snow-covered hills with long, thin skis attached to each foot. ...

Steve Podborski posing with his Olympic bronze medal.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Podborski started skiing at age 2 and joined the Canadian alpine ski team in 1973. He was a member of the Crazy Canucks. In 1981-82 he became the first North American to win the Alpine skiing World Cup downhill Skiing Trophy and won the Bronze medal in the 1980 Winter Olympics. In total, he won eight Alpine skiing World Cup downhill races, including twice the Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbühel. In 34 more races he finished in the top 10. Image File history File links Podborskimedal. ... Image File history File links Podborskimedal. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Diversity Our Strength Image:Toronto, Ontario Location. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... The Crazy Canucks were a group of Canadian alpine ski racers who dominated the World Cup in the 1970s. ... The alpine skiing World Cup is a circuit of alpine skiing competitions regulated by the FIS. Held at ski resorts across Europe, the continental US, and Canada, competitors compete to achieve the best time in four disciplines: Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G, and Downhill. ... A bronze medal is a medal awarded to the third place finisher of contests (typically athletics competitions) such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. ... The XIII Olympic Winter Games were held in 1980 in Lake Placid, New York, United States of America. ... The Hahnenkamm is a mountain above Kitzbühel, Austria, in the Kitzbühel Alps. ... Kitzbühel is a medieval city in Tyrol, Austria, situated along the river Kitzbühler Ache. ...

In 1982 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Today, he is in the organizing committee of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, responsible for international relations. He also works as a sports newscaster in Salt Lake City. He worked as a commentator for NBC during their 2006 coverage of the winter Olympics in Torino, covering multiple skiing events including aerials. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Order of Canada is Canadas highest civilian honour, with membership awarded to those who exemplify the Orders Latin motto Desiderantes meliorem patriam, which means, Desiring a better country. ... The XXI Olympic Winter Games are the next Winter Olympics, scheduled to be held in Vancouver, Canada in 2010. ... Members of Parliament Libby Davies, Ujjal Dosanjh, David Emerson, Hedy Fry, Stephen Owen Members of the Legislative Assembly Gordon Campbell, David Chudnovsky, Adrian Dix, Colin Hansen, Jenny Kwan, Lorne Mayencourt, Wally Oppal, Gregor Robertson, Shane Simpson, Carole Taylor Mayor Sam Sullivan City Manager Judy Rogers Governing Body Vancouver City Council... The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Salt Lake Citys top tourist draw. ...

Steve Podborski is a member of a charity called "Right to Play" where underprivileged children in underdeveloped countries are taught sports by famous athletes. Steve was in Uganda recently, in a refugee camp speaking and playing with refugee children, most were orphans who had lost their parents in the Rwanda war.

The Orochinga refugee camp in southern Uganda is home to more than 4,000 people. About a thousand of them are children. It's a place where life is hard and not much fun, especially if you're a kid. That's where the Canadians come in, and not just any Canadians, but some who know a thing or two about sports. They're with an organization whose work is play.

It's a long road from a continent of heat and poverty to the land of winter and wealth. Steve Podborski, one of Canada's most famous downhill skiers, is about to find out just how far that journey really is. Podborski is heading to Uganda, a world away from where he has spent most of his life.

Podborski was one of Canada's Crazy Canucks who captured the ski world's imagination in the 1970s and '80s, young daredevils whose high-speed, breakneck style made them heroes of the World Cup ski circuit.

Podborski was one of the most successful of them all, winning a bronze medal at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980. He's the only North American male skier to ever win the World Cup for downhill skiing (What about Bode Miller?).

Podborski retired 20 years ago, but he's still immersed in sports through his business and his role in Vancouver's successful Olympic bid.

Charity Work

Podborski also volunteers his time and image to a Canadian humanitarian group called Right To Play. It uses sport and play to help disadvantaged kids around the world.

"As a ski racer, many people gave a lot of themselves for me to be successful. I know that nobody could have possibly paid for what I received. So I've got to give back. It's as simple as that," Podborski says.

Podborski is travelling with Right To Play volunteers and fellow Olympian Charmaine Crooks. She's an Olympic silver medallist, a Canadian track champion, and member of the International Olympic Committee.

These kids at the Orochinga refugee settlement are some of the thousand children who go to school at the refugee settlement. Most of the younger ones were born in this camp after their families fled the genocide in Rwanda in the mid-1990s.

In spite of their cheerful welcome for the Canadian visitors, life is not great here. Refugee tents have been replaced by more permanent mud huts. They're provided with basic food by aid agencies. But more than 4,000 people live in permanent limbo and crushing boredom. That's where Right To Play comes in. Its volunteers work with kids, teaching them sports and games and skills to cope with their lives. Right To Play has programs like this in 19 countries around the world. It's based on the increasingly popular philosophy that sport can help ease the effects of war.

Shannon Duff is a volunteer from Saskatoon. She's worked in the Orochinga Camp for six months.

"It takes the children's mind off of any trauma that they've been through," Duff says. "They laugh. They play. They have fun with each other. They have fun with us. So really I think it's the smiles, it's the happiness. It keeps them busy, as well, which keeps them out of trouble."

It keeps them out of trouble by keeping them involved, like this soccer game between two refugee camps.

Right To Play provides the equipment and the training, and it uses sports events like this to pass on health messages to young kids about HIV/AIDS. But it can be as basic as providing skipping ropes and playgrounds, simple tools for play.

"It gives them something other than the rebuilding that they have, the basic needs, the necessity, food, the water," Duff says. "You need something else to occupy your mind and to be involved with, to be active with, and just to be passionate about. I think that this gives them something."

The refugee volunteers are at the very heart of what Right To Play is trying to accomplish. They're trained as coaches, taught to run the sport programs long after the Canadians have left.

Today the volunteer coaches have a big challenge: give their Canadian visitors a workout, a taste of the typical games kids play in the settlement.

In an African field, Steve Podborski, who spent much of his life competing, learns something about sport he never realized in Canada.

"It's much more powerful than I thought it would be," Podborski says. "I thought sport was about playing. But it's not about playing. It's about something greater than that. I remember when I lost that game. The girl put the cloth behind me. She was looking at me. She was trying to give me the signal. Get it, you crazy dude! I put the thing behind your back! Where do we connect? Where do Steve and this young black kid from Uganda get together? It's in the middle of a playing field and it's nowhere else."

Even sports can't bridge every cultural gap.

"Hello, my name is Podborski, and I used to be... I am an Olympian," he says. "Do you know what snow is?… I went very fast, faster than the cars can go on the road and ended up being an Olympian and being the best in the world."

Some things just don't translate. Podborski, the Crazy Canuck and incorrigible show-off wins a few new fans anyway.

"We're just looking at the zebras in the game park here, which is pretty much a first for yours truly here," he says.

Podborski is heading back to Canada with some souvenir pictures and a new perspective on sport.

"What I realize, that there's this total universal thing of playing together. Like, let's go, let's get in a big circle and we'll play together. We'll learn things together. It's going to be fun," he says.

Perhaps that's the simplest lesson of all, to come from these warm hills in Africa, that even people from opposite sides of the world can play on the same team, if only they're given a chance.

Origins

Steve Podborski was born in Don Mills, Ontario (a suburb of Toronto). He grew up skiing on the slopes of Southern Ontario and racing in the local programs. In 1973 at the age of 16 he was named to the National Alpine Ski Team to race in the Can-Am Ski Series, the North American tour. In his first race on that tour in Whistler, B.C. he brought home a Silver Medal.

Podborski after winning a World Cup event.

The following year, 1974, he was promoted to the World Cup Tour where he raced for ten years. Steve was the first North American male to win an Olympic Medal in Downhill Skiing, capturing a Bronze in the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid. In 1982 he became the first (and still only) non-European male to win the World Cup Downhill Title. During his career Steve was ranked number one in the world for over two years and won 8 individual World Cup Competitions, more than any other Canadian man, including two years in a row in the most notorious and treacherous downhill race of all, the Hahnenkamm in Kitzbühel, Austria. Steve retired in 1984 at the age of 26 after 11 years on the Canadian Alpine Ski Team as the most successful and decorated male Downhill ski racer in North America. He remains that to this day. During his career Steve has established a virtually unmatched record of 44 top ten places and 20 podium finishes out of 89 races run. Add to that eight individual World Cup victories, leaving him ranked as one of the best ever. Steve was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982, inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1985, the Canada Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Canadian Ski Museum in 1988. He has received many other honours including Canada's Athlete of the Year twice, and Ontario Athlete of the Year twice. He is a Member of the Canadian Olympic Committee Steve lives in Whistler, B.C. with his wife Kathy, son Ben and daughter Maddi, where he runs a successful business dividing his time amongst numerous projects. He was Executive Director International Relations for the successful Vancouver 2010 Olympic Bid. On camera Steve works as a play by play host and as an analyst for NBC and CBS. He has worked for them in the last two Olympic Winter Games in Nagano and Salt Lake, and will cover the Games in Athens for NBC. Steve works with a variety of sponsors and suppliers including; Don Docksteader Subaru, Atomic ski equipment, Descente Ski Wear, and Wilson Golf equipment. Steve is also a keynote speaker on a range of topics, focussed on innovation, teamwork, mastery and team building. He is currently involved with Right to Play as an Athlete Ambassador. http://www.righttoplay.com Steve also has a passion for Mountain Biking (on his Canadian-made Rocky Mountain), Skiing, Snowboarding, Golf, Diving and especially playing all the above with his family. Image File history File links Podborskicup. ... Image File history File links Podborskicup. ...