Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Gentle Giant keeps rolling despite controversies

As Jim Armstrong continues to lead his Canadian team towards another gold medal at the Paralympics in Sochi, he's getting more attention.

The skip, who has appearances in six Briers, has won gold in the last two Paralympics, but since his 2010 medal, he's had a brush with the law and been sidelined with a doping charge. And the stories of his disability have always haunted him as this story by Gary Kingston outlines.

Armstrong has been through a lot since the gold medal win at Vancouver in 2010. The arrest in the U.S. was embarrassing. He was fined $30,000, while his son Gregory, who shared the family mailbox in Blaine, Wash., was sentenced to a year in jail.The drug suspension on the eve of the 2012 worlds was a result, he maintained, of mixing up some of his late wife’s Tamoxifen pills with the similar-looking ASA pills that he took to help prevent heart attacks.“He paid the price (for being careless) . . . and nobody felt worse than Jim,” said Rea. “We’ve accepted it, he’s accepted it and we’re past it.”
As the article also points out, Armstrong is one of the funniest and warmest individuals you will ever meet on a curling rink. Even throughout the troubles, I cheered for the guy. He's just a good soul.

Canada continues to lead the standings in Sochi with the last round-robin game on tap for later today.

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