LT Suits, De Boer, Italy & Olympics, Short Track World Cup #5

LT Suits: Looking at the suits in these pictures made me drool. Don’t get me wrong, I love the look of inline suits, but you do have to admit that the designs of these pictured suits are fantastic.

De Boer: I haven’t linked up to his pictures from the Essent race in a while, but I think that now would be a good time to link up; Harm de Boer takes fantastic pictures of roller and ice speed skating races. Oh and if you want to see the long track ice marathons live, then don’t forget this site: Marathonschaatsen.


Rob Hadders (blue and white) during the Essent 3 Daagse on January 13th in Heerenveen- skating in group A (that's the group that would take, oh let's see, maybe 6 laps to lap me!) (photo Harm de Boer)
Italy & Olympics: Here’s a couple of videos from the Italian Indoor Championships that recently took place. There’s not a lot that I can say about the chaos in the 300-meter sprint (first video)- press play or click here to view the first and here to view the second video.



The Italian Indoor Championship 2007 300mt JM thread on RaceReports.net contains some comments that I think are worth reading. The comment that caught my attention is by speedcoach: ‘In every other sport, there are UNIVERSAL rules governing EVERYTHING from equipment …to rules of play are set and standardized throughout the world for Championship competitions. This is how the sports that get into the Olympics get organized so they have a shot. I can't think of a single sport that is in the Olympics that has less of a universal standardization that Roller Sports when it comes to indoor and outdoor OR EQUIPMENT! We can wear 110mm wheels indoor, but not in World Championships; heck, I can wear 150mm wheels if I want. You can't do that in bicycle racing. If your tires are too big, you don't race in a sanctioned race.....period. If your skis are too long; you don't race. Boots too high, no racing. Bicycle is too LIGHT, you don't race. The point is, there are limits that must be adhered to and that's it. We have none or very few of these in our sport.

Perhaps when we standardize ourselves and stablize our sport, we can grow (as we will quit raising the cost of participation) and finally get into the Olympics.

OK, sorry about the soapbox, but this thread brought up some very interesting points that are interwoven into what I believe is the core issue preventing growth and entry into the Olympics. Until then, we'll continue to see the exodus to ice grow (my opinion) and our numbers dwindling. It's happening world wide as the better skaters seem to be moving to ice in the US, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. What's next?’

Short Track World Cup #5: Looks like OhnoZone.net and KNSB.nl (World Cup Short Track) are going ton have kick ass coverage of this weekend’s world cup short track in Heerenveen, Netherlands. You’ve got access to a whole heap of results here on CyberScoreBoard. I kinda wish they had this results software for inline! If you’re a hardcore results junkie, then click here for more live results.


I love this photo of the oval in Herrenveen (from OhnoZone.net)


Jordan Malone earlier today in front of France’s Maxime Chataignier (from OhnoZone.net)

USA’s Travis Jayner leading the pack (from martindejongfotografie@home.nl)
Want more pictures like one above? Then click here!

Since we’re on the topic of ice speed skating, here’s a link that will take you to the results from last weekend’s long track sprint world cup which took place in Heerenveen, Netherlands.