Ultra Long Race Updates, Moving On, Steroid Case On ABC, Ottawa Indoor Videos, AA's Tracks, MISC Links, Starting A Race Site, RRC's Random Insanity

Ultra Long Race Updates: The New York 100k's date has changed to September 27th according to the latest posts in The New York City Skate Marathon & NY 100K.

I now if you're planning on regitering for A2A, I think you have until midnight tonight to get the early bird entry fee- read more in A2A Price Increase.

Moving On: Sigrid Ziegler is making a transition from skating to cycling (see A new beginning). In her most recent entry titled Of training, joint, school and chocolate, she is starting to detail her shift from one sport to another, saying 'There is someone at the other end of the programme who actually takes an active part in training and follows up on what I do. It really makes it more interesting and easier to stay on top'.

Steroid Case On NBC: In the thread Steroid / Inline Skating Article in Sports Illustrated, CKmost posted this link; A Father's Choice: Teen Athlete Starts Steroids at 13 which was apprantly aired on ABC.



Ottawa Indoor Videos: Andrew Hegarty has posted some of Mike Garvin's videos from Ottawa- see Ottawa Inline Videos for more.

AA's Tracks: Aaron Arndt's latest entry is called Tracks. Check out the picture below is you can figure out what it's about.


Candy Wong writes about the everything drill in her entry The Everything Drill- she makes some interesting notes, saying 'the drill makes more sense than it did last season...'.

MISC Links: Here are a couple of links that I learned about last Sunday. After skating practice, a few of us went out for lunch. As we waited in line to eat, I grabbed a copy of The Port Credit Crier which is a single page double sided publication. They listed a few neat sites in their Volume 2, Issue 4; see oh, don't forget and Zoho Work Online.

Starting A Race Site: There's some food for though for building websites- in particular race sites- in Options For a Race Web Site (for Beginning Webmasters).

RRC's Random Insanity: Road Rash Chronicles' latest entry is called Random Insanity. I thought some of the comments in response to the entry were interesting- about being or looking like a speedskater, anonymous says 'If it looks like a duck and skates like a duck, it's a friggin' speedskating duck!'.

Where I Will Be This Weekend, St Paul Survery, If I Was FIRS' Prez, Ask Bill Begg, 100k Dutch Natural Ice Champs, 100's Or 110's?, WIC News

Where I Will Be This Weekend: This weekend, I will be in Quebec City to cover the ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup. I expect to have a press pass, so I'll be taking some pretty good pictures and videos that you'll be able to view and relish.

I'll be driving some 800km to get to Quebec and 800km to get back home late Sunday in time for work on Monday morning. I don't know when I will put all the videos and photos online, but I'll do my best to do it as quickly as possible.


St Paul Survery: Help the St-Paul Inline Marathon become a better event by completing this survey.

If I Was FIRS' Prez: Here's an interesting article from SpeedSK8ers.com- check out Utopia: if I was FIRS president. This great fantasy article opens with 'The limos incessantly pull in to the Sheraton. A flock of celebrities step up on the red carpet to take part on Inline Speedskating World Championships’ opening gala, tonight here in Dubai. The jet-set is amassing in the lobby, while paparazzis do their job: everybody wants to be in the picture with the skating stars, a sure bet to appear on the cover of glossy magazines...'.

I like Bill Begg's response in Bont Forum's UTOPIA: If I was FIRS President;'Once again the King of Science fiction stikes again, thak you for the honary position of the ageing CIC president...'.

Ask Bill Begg: The latest edition of the Ask Bill Begg! column is Is My Daughter Skating Too Much and Rounded Backs.

100k Dutch Natural Ice Champs: The 100k Dutch Natural Ice Championships were held today in Austria in Weissensee. Click here for a page that will lead to results. You can access the results directly; men's results, women's results, and masters results. You can read a report thanks to Skate Podium. You can find some more commentary and results in ICE MARATHON NEWS 2007 / 2008.

Harm de Boer Fotografie was on hand to photograph the event; click here for the all of the 164 photos placed in one album.


Sweet victory for Arjan Stroetinga- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Women's race- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Covering the race- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
100's Or 110's?: Will this be one of the great debates of the 2008 season? 2008 debate- 100's or 110's???.

WIC News: According to the World Cup Topics for 2008, KIA is not sponsoring the Seoul WIC Marathon- this is from the WIC organization; 'The most important but unfortunatelly bad news is, that the WIC Seoul has been cancelled by the local organizer for this year due to sponsoring problems. We are very sorry for that and hope to have this great event back in 2009'.

Design Canada! Results, RSO Indoor Series, 6 Months In Skating, Inline Skating Notebook News, Here Comes Chad, Skating Sisters Updates

Design Canada! Results: The Design Canada! results are in. The skating community selected 2 entries amongst 22 very good designs- #12 and #20. The #12 design will serve as the Canadian World Team's and Pan American Games Team racing suit and the #20 design can be purchased and worn by non-World Team and Pan American Team skaters. See Roller Sports Canada's website and Il Peloton's website for more.


RSO Indoor Series: The RSO Indoor Speed Series will be taking place this year- all 4 stages will take place at Scooter's Roller Palace in Mississauga. The first competition will take place on Sunday, Ferbruary 3rd. Click here for all the information including forms, waivers, and an information document.

6 Months In Skating: Check out Pixelmech's recent entry 6 Months of Speedskating - Lessons Learned. Good stuff.

Inline Skating Notebook News: Here are a few news items conveniently posted on Inline Skating Notebook. First off, check out this survey called Your Best Average Speed in a Race. The survey actually comes from Roller En Ligne- and they've posted recent results from the PBM de Lille.

This one is not cool; Peter Michael has broken his collarbone. (see the video of Preter Michael winning the St Moritz WIC in 2007).

This is news that you may already be aware of, but in case you're not, see SpiroTiger & ZEPTO WIC Team. You can also read more team news in Rollerblade I..B.U. Speedodrom Team- this team looks pretty good.

The final ISN link I'd like to put is a news paper article about Renee Hildebrand- check it out.

Here Comes Chad: With his 2nd place finish in last weekend's ISU long track world cup, some are thining that 2006 Winter Olympic Games gold medalist Chad Hedrick is due for some more strong results. The thread Here Comes Chad has a link to a site that will feature some video coverage of world cup races. You can also find some press releases.

Skating Sisters Updates: The website Skating Sisters has a few updates that may interest you- check out V.K. indoor from Zandvoorde. You can find photos and results.


V.K. indoor- photo posted on Skating Sisters
You can find a few udpates on the Frieslandcup- see Frieslandcup : zondag and Frieslandcup : zaterdag. You can find photos and results of the Frieslandcup

Cheek's Message, Loy Wins Weissensee, Denny Morrison, Portland Outdoors Results, Flyin Brian, Links, Australian Nationals, AK News, Masters SS News

Cheek's Message: Michael Cheek wrote a good entry on his site; A message to today's youth. He offers a lot of good advice to younger skaters. Before giving his ideas, he first says '...I've been a guy 'that's could be really fast'. I've been a guy that's wasting his time skating. I've been called someone that was really fast but didn't know how to race. Been called the guy that wasn't that fast that just knew how to race. I've won meets that i wasn't the fastest guy, and lost meets that i was the fastest guy. I've gone to regionals and not made it out in division, and I've won a gold medal at worlds. I've asked almost every top level coach in the sport for help(thanks for letting me bug you) and tried to remember everyone that ever helped me(ex. that's right Mr. B i still remember in 99 when you had me skating warm ups with my hand on my hip, even if you don't). Basically I've been everything in this sport except a superstar. And everything I'm about to say i heard from someone before. I'm not perfect and I'm never going to be. So I still do dumb stuff(A lot). But I just wanted to share some stuff that I learned through the years skating'.

Loy Wins Weissensee: Ice and inline animal Tristan Loy won last this past weekend's Weissensee Criterium- Roller En Ligne has a report about this called Loy remporte le 1er criterium Weissensee.


Denny Morrison: Denny Morrison (see his fan site) won the men's 1000-meter yesterday in the long track world cup in Norway. See the article Canada’s Denny Morrison wins gold at speed skating World Cup for more.

Portland Outdoors Results: MSI's International Big Rideau Lake Speed Skating Marathon was held this past Saturday in Portland, Ontario. You can find unofficial results here. You can also read a report- see the press release- 'Youri Juteau of Normanville,Quebec and Katie Kathie Zapotocki of Zionsville, Pennsylvania win fifth International Big Rideau Lake Speed Skating Marathon'. Official and full results will be posted on MyLaps.com. Alicia Weiss was on hand to photograph the event- click here for her photos.


Big Rideau Marathon- photo from Alicia Weiss

Flyin Brian: Flyin Brian has a couple of recent entries; check out Dick Ring and Week round up & Chad's back .

Links: Check out Rollerblade I.B.U. Speedodrom. This link contains many skating links that can send you on a website exploration frenzy; POL Roller Skating's links page.

Australian Nationals: Use the following links to find results from the Australian nationals; Road Points, road results, track points, and track results. You can also find many results in the Speed Skaterz Message Board.

AK News: Andrew Kraft's site Andrew's Speed Skating Blog has a recent article called Hannover-Celle Marathon Will Not Continue 2008. He says 'Now I know about every inch of the race by heart, especially the last kilometers (it’s a point to point race from Hannover to Celle). My home town hosts the European marathon championships for master skaters… and somebody involved in the organization placed the big ‘500M to go’ sign 2.35 kilometers away from the finish line!!!'.

Masters SS News: Ross Hanham's website Master Speed Skating News continues to have a flurry of information and posts. You'll find a report on the Ontario Provincial Long Track Championships (see photos from Alicia Weiss) and a report on the Alberta Indoor Long Track Championships (click here for results).

The entry that caught my eye was this one; Lakefield Masters Speed Skating Challenge- Ross Hanham writes 'The Ontario Speed Skating Association has just published entry form and event information for this first-ever competition scheduled for February 2-3, 2008 on natural ice at the site of the future Ontario Speed Skating Oval in Lakefield Ontario'.

Hamar Long Track World Cup, IP Skate Tip- Dinner!, Trans USA Update, NROC, Videos, Aaron's Double, Weissensee Pics, The Science Of Speed, PB News

Hamar Long Track World Cup: Click here for all the results from the Hamar Long Track World Cup. Here are a couple of article from Speed Skating Canada; Gold rush continues for Wotherspoon at speed skating World Cup and Jeremy Wotherspoon wins gold at speed skating World Cup- looking at the results, looks like the Canadian skaters performed quite well, including Denny Morrison collecting the win the 1000-meters. You can dig up all sorts of news on Speed Skating World Online Magazine.

IP Skate Tip- Dinner!: The most recent of the Inline Planet's skate tips is called Grow Your Event With a Pre-Race Dinner. Hehhe, I like dinners. They're good. I had a small dinner tonight though; my girlfriend made me a huge sandwich. Oh and I like the picture they used in the article. Hehehe.

Trans USA Update: Danny Dannels is continuing his trek across America- his latest blog entry is Not again....; he says '...I have run into the same red surface as the road before. I don't understand. The highway is black and smooth, and now the shoulder has changed to this red crap. I know it goes out for at least another 15 miles. I drove that far and have come back to look at some satellite imagery. This stuff is vicious. I need to find out how far it goes. If it goes a hundred miles, I will have to figure out how to route around it.
'. Read more on his blog. Make sure you check out the article Trans-USA Skater Reaches Texas.


'Danny and Hillary Dannels on top of Mt. Fagan in Arizona.
'- photo & caption from the Inline Planet
NROC: The National Roller Cup has a new sponsor; Visual Impact. See the article Visual Impact Signs on as NROC Sponsor.


Videos: Here are a few videos for you to enjoy (click play below to view them)- Big T. Records - Speedskating and Greenday- Time of your life (good riddance) T.I.S.C.



Aaron's Double: I love Road Rash Chronicles' latest post called Double Take- they say Aaron Arndt looks like Chester Bennington.


I hope I linked to this one before, but in case I didn't, here's some great advice and perspective; Reality Check for a Newbie.

And now on to Aaron Arndt; he needs help to get to Europe; see Campaign!. He also posted a recent pic from 2007- see Aaron WIC Beil 2007 - Cool Pic.


Photo posted on Aaron Arndt
Weissensee Pics: Harm de Boer Fotografie is the source for many beautiful pictures from an outdoor race in Weissensee- see women's pics, men A pics, criterium pics, veteran pics, and tour pics.


Women- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Men A- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Tour- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
The Science Of Speed: Barry Publow has a new project; it will be ebook titled The Science of Speed. Read more here.

PB News: Pattinaggio Bellusco usually posts news items here- and some recent ones include clubs photos (January 26th entry) and some skaters in the water (see January 25th entry).

Catching Up On Tips, Catching Up On Photos, Catching Up On News

Catching Up On Tips: Here are a few article from the past week that contain tips; Roller En Ligne has an article about custom moulding skates. The following link will take you to an article where Christophe Audoir writes about boot selection.


The Inline Planet posted last week's skate tip from Joey Mantia; Three Keys of Technique.


Joey Mantia after a gold medal 500-meter at the 2007 world roller speed skating championships in Cali, Colombia
Catching Up On Photos: Well there's only one photo album that I haven't linked to- it's from the Scooter's Indoor Speed Club practice from last Sunday- some of the kids- pictures taken by Stephen Fisher.



2008-01-20 Mississauga Scooter’s Kids
Finishing The Catch Up On News: Alrighty, these are the final links from the last week+ that I've been 'holding onto'.

Here are a few news items- Canadian short track speed skater & Olympic medalist Jonothan Guilmette is retiring from speed skating in March- see Guilmette à la retraite for more.


A few good men- myself, Aaron Arndt, Herb Gayle, Jonothan Guilmette, Olivier Jean, and Morgan Williams
Rebecca (Bont) & Mitch had a baby girl named Zara Lily a few days ago- see Congrates Becka for more. That would make Alexander Bont an uncle- welcome to unclehood Alex!!


Rebecca & Zara Lily
Roller En Ligne has posted an interview of Jana Gegner by Vincent Esnault. If you're looking for the Englishe version on Team Rollerblade, click here.


Jana Gegner after the 2007 Rennes Marathon
Team Rollerblade has an interview with Laura Lardani.


Laura Lardani
Many people have been asking me about the TAZ- the Taz is a multi-sport skating faclility to be build in Montreal. Plans include a 200-meter indoor track. It looks like the ground breaking will take place in March. Click here for more.

The World Cup Topics for 2008 thread on Bont's Forum has had a bunch of news items posted in the last week. Most of the news is about teams and skaters.

Speedskating-online has some articles of interest- see Tyler Goff: destined to become a speed skater and also the latest spot news; The World Sprint Championships in Heerenveen.

Catching Up On Results & Reports, Catching Up The Videos

Catching Up On Results & Reports: There are plenty of results and stories to report from last weekend's racing action. There are also links from results for this weekend's races.

ISU Long Track World Cup- Hamar, Norway: [Results (updated as the competition progresses] [KNSB Cup Site With Information] [Browse SSWOM For Reports & Results]

World Long Track Speed Skating Sprint Championships: [Live results] [Jeremy Wotherspoon second overall at world sprint championships] [Canada’s Jeremy Wotherspoon leads after first day at world sprints] [Browse SSWOM For Reports & News (use the archives)]

Miami International Inline Marathon: [World Class Marathon Results] [Advanced Marathon Results] [Advanced Half Marathon Results] [Joey Mantia, Brigyte Mendez Win in Miami] [Inline Planet thread with results] [PatinCarrera Report]

European Short Track Championships: [Results] [Skating Sisters Jan. 20th report] [Skating Sisters Jan. 20th report] [Skating Sisters Jan. 19th report]

KNSB Cup Finale- #13: [Results] [Live Updates]

Canadian Short Track Speed Skating Trials: [Roberge Dominates Once Again at the Canadian Open Championships, and Robillard Wins on the Men’s Side] [1500m ladies results] [1500m men results] [500m ladies and men results] [1000m ladies and men results] [Final results]

West Palm Beach Challenge: [West Palm Beach in Hyper Forum includes results]

Friesland Cup(Leeuwarden, Netherlands): The Friesland Cup is taking place this weekend and ShorttrackOnLine.info has live results.

Catching Up The Videos: A few videos have been posted or linked up over the last few days.

To get to some videos from last weekend's LT World Championships, check out these links- Jermey Wotherspoon after his 1000-meter, Pascal Briand wants to go to Vancouver, and Wotherspoon and Wotherspoon- brother-sister combination.

SkatePodium has posted 3 videos from last weekend's KNSB Cup #13- men A, men B, and women.




Roller En Ligne has a couple of recent videos- one is the women's marathon at the Rennes WIC and the other video is an interview with Rennes race organizer Maryvonne Ermine.

Make sure you check out the most recent of the BeggSport - Plyometrics videos.

Catching Up On Pictures

Catching Up On Pictures: There lots of pictures for you to browse through. Let's start with last night's pictures that I took at the Scooter's Indoor Speed Club practice.

For those of you wondering on the state of my knee, it's getting better slowly. I skated the warm up without any pain or incident. I'm focusing on skating low that can put a lot of pressure on the knee and its surroundings. Aaron Arndt ran the practice- and in today's entry Re: Wednesday repeat..., he wrote 'To the community outside of Toronto: Peter Doucet has been back on skates this week! Hey now! Bro-ham! He has been off his skates for ~two months, taking care of a chronic knee injury. on the bright side, his website is possibly the most current and updated news feed on the web. Anyway, it is nice to have you back in the mix. Take it easy and take care of your knee. Don’t rush the comeback. Remember, Spain isn’t till August'.


Coach Aaron Arndt leading the way

Herb Gayle leading the way with Aaron Arndt close in tow

Dean Arndt pushing Travis Shaw- relays are always a great (and sometimes confusing) part of practice


2008-01-23 Mississauga Scooter’s Indoor Speed Club Practice 53 photos
Click here for some photos from Jeff Foster's rink from January 22nd by Kevin Osbourne.


Photo from Kevin Osborne
ISU's World Long Track Sprint Championships took place this past weekend. You can see some sweet pictures on the official race site- they're taken by Huub Snoep.


Canada's Kerry Simpson- photo by Huub Snoep

Jan Bos' 500- photo by Huub Snoep
You can find more photos from the LT world sprint champs thanks to Speedskating-online- check them out here- day 1 and day 2.
You can find even more LT world sprint championships pitcures thanks to DESGphoto- check out the photo album here- you'll find a ton of pictures .


Jelena Myagkikh- photo from DESGphoto

Fans- photo from DESGphoto


Joji Kato- photo from DESGphoto
Harm de Boer Fotografie has a ton of pictures to browse through- check out the Alkmaar KNSB Finale; men A, women, veteran, and Men B.


Alkmaar KNSB Finale Men A- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Alkmaar KNSB Finale Veteran- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Alkmaar KNSB Finale Women- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

The Big Catch Up, Blogs, Forums & Inspirado

The Big Catch Up: I'll be catching up SSW with all sorts of cool and interesting links over the next couple of days. I've got tons of information to put up, and I'll get to it. This week has been really busy- I still have to help a friend renovate his new home, meet with the President of Roller Sports Canada, and make a trip to my coach who has been making me suffer lately with tough programs on the bike.

I will post a series of entries on SSW over the next few days that will include all the recent links in categories such as blogs, forums, reports & results, photos, & videos. So here we go...

Blogs: I think my favourite recent blog entry is from Cheex Skating Blog- Michael Cheek gives an account of the West Palm Beach event in West Palm Review. He wrotes about many topics- he wrote 'To me the biggest story of the outdoor part had nothing to do with the speed. A lot of people in the US aren't accustomed to the rough style of racing that usually goes on outdoor. I'm not really a big fan of the tough fighting style of racing. But it's the way it is. So if you saw a lot of grabbing and pulling outside, just realize that was nothing compared to the way international races are run. However in the last few yrs the US team has been a little less aggressive than a lot of other teams. And i think it has cost us a lot of races. I think with the return of Harry Vogel to the scene things might just get a little more rough. A lot of people probably aren't going to like it, but I think it's gonna help in the long run. Harry raced in the old days with Chad, Keith, Derrick, etc.. And he defiantly races at a rougher style then we're used to. He absolutely refuses to be bullied on the track...'.

This is a cool link from Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating- check out Desktop Friendly #1. It's on my desktop.


Road Rash Chronicles has a cool entry called Drenched and one from a few days ago called Il Peloton Design Contest. About the Drenched entry, I was on the bike today and I was completely soaked! Lately, I've been bringing a change of clothes to the gym so that I don't freeze to death while doing push ups, V sit ups, pull ups, and boxing after I've sweated buckets while cycling.

Andrew's Speed Skating Blog is more like a news website- but it's called a blog so I'll talk about it here. The webmaster has been putting a lot of GBC-related news, more specifically about the teams- see Zepto 2008 World Cup Team, Orthomol-Sport Rollerblade and Etap-Race Team, and Team Speedlager 2008 finally out of the closet.


Zepto's Mathias Schwierz out in front- photo from Andrew's Speed Skating Blog
Candy Wong's site Dream Chaser On Wheels really lives up to its motto; 'On The Road To Become An Inline Speed Skater' with entries like It's Only A Practice and Jab And Run.

Jacky Shoe's site Passion On Wheels - he's got all sorts of stuff for us to read- see New Warm Up, Snoopy, New Passing, and Two Links- I liked this last one.

Aaron Arndt's blog is one of my favourites out there. I think he's got a lot to say and he commands a captive audience. His recent entries include Wednesday repeat... and One Picture (where amongst other things, he talks about Andrew's Speed Skating Blog).

Forums & Inspirado: I like Jack Black & The D (Tenacious D). That's where I got the word 'Inspirado' from. I got a few 'D' DVD's and I've spent many hours listening to and watching JB & JD's antics.

Let's get naked...part III?- maybe this will inspire more men to join the sport? More people? Check out We Love To Skate.


There are many tips about developing leg speed in the thread Developing Leg Speed.

Here's another topic that may interest you; Questionable qualites of good coaching????.

This one's good- it's by Bill Begg- Promoting Speed racing??????- and I like these words; 'The winners allways got applause, as they were either a young Hero who had held off these fast finishing super stars, or A backmarker hotshot, who had overcome all odds & gained a remarkable Victory, always to a lot of applause'.

Canadian Short Track Team Trials- Day 3 Videos

Canadian Short Track Team Trials- Day 3 Videos: Don't wprry; I haven't been neglecting my site- I've just been really really busy over the last couple of days with driving back home from Montreal, working, suffering like hell in a couple of work outs, and going to indoor practice and hanging out with the gang until midnight at Tim's.

I have tons of really cool and interesting links that I will put on the site over the next couple of days- make sure you come back.

In the meantime, I hope you're interested in checking out the fruits of my weekend, late night, and early morning labours- my 2nd video from the Canadian short track speed skating national team trials in Montreal- this one from Sunday. You'll get to see behind the scenes footage, 1000-meter races including finals, and some really great and exciting relay action.


Here's an article Roberge Dominates Once Again at the Canadian Open Championships, and Robillard Wins on the Men’s Side from Speed Skating Canada.

As a fan of speed skating, I'm impressed at the talent that these skaters display- and to think that there are only Canadian skaters competing in the event that I watched over the weekend. Wow. If any of you are reading this, I'd like to tell you that I think you've got some amazing talents.

Simon Clement posted a video of an incident after a fall that took place in a 1000-meter race- T t'un osti de malade toé!- you can clearly hear one of the pissed off skaters saying 'T t'un osti de malade toé! '- it basically means 'you're freaking psycho you'.

Canadian Short Track Team Trials- Day 3- 1000's & Relays

Canadian Short Track Team Trials- Day 3- 1000's & Relays: I spent a good part of today catching the Canadian Short Track Team Trials action at arena Maurice Richard in Montreal. The arena is located right beside the infamous Stade Olympique- one of the venues for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games.

The racing action was superb! From what I can tell, Canada has a lot of short track speed skating talent and depth to boast. Each race- from battle for the win in the the A final down to the 36th place skater provided fast racing and great excitement.

You don't believe me? Well check out Simon Clement's video (500m Selection nationale courte piste) from yesterday's 500's- his video is full of 500m sprints including a couple of cool falls at 4:37 and 4:43.


Make sure you go and see my video from yesterday's 500's- click play below. Yesterday's video includes all sorts of footagge including an interview with Olivier Jean, with Pete Dykstra, Youri Juteau and Olivier Jean talking about video software (Darkfish) while I kindly translate, 500m race footage including 500-meter A finals (women and men) at the end of the video, Zamboni and cafeteria footage, and skaters warming up. I think my video's from yesterday's racing (and more stuff) is pretty good so I hope you view it and enjoy it!!


The video from today's 1000's and relays will feature some awesome footage because I was able to get to ice level and get some super good footage. I'll post that video once I've edited it- maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.

I took quite a few pictures today (click here for my album with 174 pictures!), and again, today's pictures are way better because I was able to get to ice level thanks to my friend Benoit Vaillancourt- he lives in Argentina, and I hung out with him at the 2005 Pan American Championships in Mar Del Plata.

While I was hanging around at ice level, I had the opportunity to speak with a few people and get a lot of insight on the politics of short track, the support and work that goes into building a strong Canadian team, and I got a glimpse into the world of how skaters react to their success and failures.

I think that how skaters react to and deal with their respective performances is an indication or assessment of the ammount work, spirit, energy, time, sacrifice, team effort, knowledge, development, and risk goes into preparing for events of this calibre and beyond- and this one was just for skaters from within the borders of Canada...



2008-01-20 Montreal Canadian National Short Track Speed Skating Team Trials- 174 pictures!

Women's 1000-meter- one of the many finals

The media was on hand to cover the racing action. These guys with long lenses were taking pictures that I would like to put on Speed Skate World

Men's 1000-meter final action- one of the many finals

The guy slamming into the Cheerios sign was pretty mad and started fighting with the skater who, I think, caused the crash. After some pushing and words, tempers cooled quickly- there's a lot riding on these races from what I've been told; funding, training opportunities, travel, support, sponsorship, pride; results

Smiles early on in the women's relay- but the action got fast and serious real quick, or got quick and serious real faaaaast- skaters were placed in relays teams based on their rankings; the top-16 female and male skaters were placed on as even as possible teams. The outcome was a couple of really exciting relay races

Men's relay

Men's relay

Men's relay

Steve Robillard a-top the men's 1000-meter podium