You Read It Here First

Upon first glance, it might seem like the ramblings of a wide-eyed little girl.
Lesley Hawker prefers to think of it as her best work of non-fiction.
So it is that the spunky 26-year-old — a.k.a. Mrs. Doherty, as you'll no doubt recall from The Halifax Chronicles — hasn't given up on the dream of landing a triple Axel in competition. Among other things, that is.
It's not like the TA hasn't been in her mind for awhile. Back when she was "10 or 11 years old," she penned a little book entitled The Day I Won The Olympics. And, well, we'll let Mrs. D. take over from here ...
"That was my dream, to win the Olympics, and in that book I did a triple Axel," said Hawker, who's ninth after the short program at HomeSense Skate Canada. "So it's been in my mind for a long time."
Now, you might ask, what's a 26-year-old doing messing around with the toughest jump in the (ahem) books — at least for women — when she could be getting on with married life?
(and no, asking her the 'what about kids' question isn't a good idea just yet).
"I'm not that old, I'm only 26," she said when the 'age' theme makes its inevitable appearance. "I keep getting better. I can do all the stuff. I want to land a triple Axel, I'm doing triple-triples.
"It doesn't matter if you land the triple lutz-triple loop when you're 26 or you're 18 or you're 16, for that matter."
In other words, old is really about how you feel. And Hawker, make no mistake about it, has every bit as much energy as the teeny boppers she regularly competes against these days.
She'll be around for a few years yet, too. Hawker has committed to skating through to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, taking one last stab at making her tale come true.
"I want to compete with the best in the world, and that's what you've got to do," she said of the quest for the triple-triple.
And on those days when the journey seems to long, Jamie Doherty is there there to be the ever-supportive husband.
"I'll say 'this is long, I've been doing this forever, I've got to quit at some point,' ” she said. "But when I get discouraged, he's the one that says 'no, no, you want to keep doing this.' He's incredible.”
Which is why the sequel to Hawker's original work — The Day I Kissed Tom Cruise — is so yesterday's news. The man who's involved in stem cell research, you see, has clearly won her heart.
"Scientists are where it's at now," she said.
Nothing old about that. Nothing at all.