A Couple Of Pictures From This Past Weekend, TAZ Indoor 200m Track, Philippe Boulard Interview, Cross Overs, Fayetteville Photos, SWPSL4 Results, Link

A Couple Of Pictures From This Past Weekend: I wish I could share a picture of me running in and around St-Tite- St-Ttite is a small town of 5000 or so brave souls who live in the heart-land of Quebec. It is near Shawinigan and Trois Rivieres. When I was running, there was snow all over the place; you can see the wind blowing over the hills of the mountains and rolling hills. I was running by some farms on winding roads- roads that share their horizon with fields, forests, and scattered houses. Perhaps I just painted a picture of that for you?


On Saturday morning, I went to skate at the VRL Club in Laval (just North of Montreal)- the following skaters are left to right: Morgane Echardour, Robert Mitchell, Brian Jalbert, Gabriel Girard, and Guy Ethier

My little nephew Sebastien Doucet takes a well deserved nap after being held and tickled and sung to by my whole family!
TAZ Indoor 200m Track: The TAZ project in Montreal has gained a lot of speed recently. The TAZ is a facility that will house an indoor 200-meter skating track and a skate park. The developers have been trying to get some information about the track specifications from FIRS- the most important being the width and length of the track so that the planners can decide how much space to leave for the track inside the building. Without a few basic numbers, the developers are left to use specifications that are probably not the ones that FIRS is using.


The TAZ back in 1998- I can't wait to show you pictures of the new facility!
The money to finance the project is now in the bank account (millions of dollars)- the project is going ahead, and I’ve been informed that the TAZ could be completed within a year. There’s a good possibility that the track will be banked, but again, hopefully there can be a few more ‘hard’ numbers that come from FIRS. The planners are planning on putting up the 1000 euros for the plans that FIRS is asking for and they are prepared to have the track certified by FIRS.

I hope the track will be a FIRS standard one. I know that the Montreal and Canadian skating scene will benefit and flourish a great deal as a result of the facility, and that the USA skaters will also have some use for the track. Current plans will have the track open to skaters on a daily basis.

I think that the most important thing to happen from at this point is the establishment of a more open/ consistent dialogue between FIRS and the planners so that this facility will be in check with the future world standards. A few people have built their own tracks, including Alex Perrie and his CITC, only to have their facilities (which are fantastic) become non-standard facilities. We now have a chance to have an indoor facility in a great city and province that supports athletes.

I was asked by the planners to querry speedskateworld.com readers about their experiences/ descriptions of 200-meter racing tracks. Please tell me about the tracks you know about/ that you’ve skated on: Are they flat? Parabolic? Banked? How high is the banking? What is the width, radius of the corners, length of the straights?

Philippe Boulard Interview: Have you ever faced France’s Phillipe Boulard in a long race like the New York 100k? He’s a beast; he’ll make you hurt, and he’ll place well while doing so. Roller En Ligne posted an interview (in French) with Phillipe Boulard.


Left to right: Kenji Takai, Sergio Almeralla, Phillipe Boulard, and me at the 2002 New York 100k
Maybe he’ll come down and take me on at this year’s New York 100k- you can see a list of registered skaters here and check out the New York 100k on MySpace.

Cross Overs: Cross overs are very technically demanding and require specific and accurate knowledge to develop. It also takes time to develop them, especially if you’re encrusted with bad habits- well good news is that the Skate Log forum thread Cross Over Assistance has some information that you might find useful in trying to improve your cross overs (some people call them cross cuts hehehe that sounds pretty funny).


Cross overs at their best! We can all probably learn a thing or two from these skaters
Fayetteville Photos: Click here for some really good pictures from Fayetteville thanks to dhuffman2.


Fayetteville- photo from dhuffman2

Fayetteville- photo from dhuffman2

Fayetteville- photo from dhuffman2

Fayetteville- photo from dhuffman2
SWPSL4 Results: Click here for the results from the Southwest Pacific Speed League Contest #4.

Link: Dirk VanZoest- from there, you can go to Dirk’s Skeeler Website.