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