~ S p e e d S k a t e W o r l d ~

Robin Osorio, SSW Redesign, ING, MSI Standings, Cartagena, Pics, FB's Round Up, Indy SO, Coaching Fees, Cucuta, RRC Going Insane, Nordic Fox & WIC

2008-03-06T21:10:00.000-05:00

Robin Osorio: I am sad and surprised to read that Robin Osorio has passed away- read more in An old time skater/friend is gone..

SSW Redesign: Click here to view what SSW's new design will look like. I've got a bit of work to do, but it's basically ready to go.

ING: The time has come for you to vote- to decide the winner of the ING Speed Skating Challenge- a chance to vote on Canada's best speed skating story.

MSI Standings: Marathon Skating International's 2007-2008 season is now over. The last event was the Bytown Marathon in Ottawa- see the Bytown restuls. Check out the final 2007-2008 season standings.

Cartagena: Michael Cheek's blog has a report on the Cartagena competition- see Cartagena for more. About the Colombia skaters, he notes 'The Colombians are amazing. There's several things that really stick out. First of which being depth. From top to bottom they're all good. There's no one that just can't keep up. The 2nd thing that really sticks out is they're technique. They all skate right'.

Pics: Here are a few photo albums that may tickle your fancy; Suzanne Dionne's photos from the Bytown Marathon in Ottawa and photo from flickr_photographer (click indoor inline and longtrack sunday).

Photo from Suzanne Dionne

Photo from flickr_photographer
FB's Round Up: Flyin Brian has a nice collection of videos in Round Up- here's one of the videos- Shorttrack Speedskating, Erik Koops & Sander Uitewaal.

Indy SO: The Special Olympics Stage Games for Indiana took place on February 28th. I was informed that the competition was hosted by the IndySpeed Skating Club- click here for photos from Dennis Richmond & Craig Rice.

2008-02 Indiana Special Olympics- photos by Dennis Richmond and Craig Rice
Coaching Fees: Do you wonder what it's like to have the life of a coach? Check out the thread Coaching Fees to get a tiny picture of the dynamics and considerations that come with coaching.

Cucuta: Click for Patin Carrera's report and click for Federacion Colombiana de Patinaje's report on the Transition Campeonato Nacional Interclubes de Patinaje de Carreras.

RRC Going Insane: One of Road Rash Chronicles' recent posts is called Going insane- he writes 'I can totally understand how a broken leg, ankle, wrist or something major can take you out of the game. But a toe? Are you kidding me? What an insignificant body part. Geez'.

Nordic Fox: Check out Team Nordic Fox for WIC 2008. You can check out the Nordic Fox site.

In other WIC news, the World Cup Topics for 2008 topic has a deeper analysis of what you can expect on the women's side of this year's World Inline Cup season.

Marathon Manager, NROC Rules, What A Practice, Arndt's Team & ASSB, Mr B Saluted, World Cup 2008, REL News, NZ Banked Track Champs, 1978 World ST

2008-03-05T13:04:00.004-05:00

Marathon Manager: Last night, I was reading through the prizes that the Marathon Manager competition awarded to the top-30 in the final standings. Between a vacation, tv, lap tops, iPods, and skate stuff... well, I wish I won instead of placing like 300th.

Skate Podium also has a training section that is cared for by Desly Hill- check out the first entry called De voorbereidingsperiode (BTW it's not in English).

NROC Rules: NROC's Rulebook is now online.

What A Practice: Due to an injury and a jam-packed time-crunched schedule, I haven't been skating much this year. I miss skating and I miss my friends. I do pop up to practice once in a while- I'd like to show up at tonight's practice, but due to the viewing of a friend & ex co-worker who passed away, training, and cleaning up the fresh batch of snow that has coated my driveway and side-walk, I'll probably be missing another practice.

Just in case you don't believe me about the snow, check out Sigrid Ziegler's entry called Training update.

Photo from Sigrid Ziegler

Here's outside of my house- SpeedSkateWorld.com world headquarters- this morning before going to work
It seems that last Monday's practice was one to NOT miss- it has received race reviews from Aaron Arndt- In the works... ('...RSC President Wayne Burrett throwing down some awe inspiring passes into a crowd...'), from Candy Wong- Cleaning The Floor ('What a fantastic practice tonight!!'), and from Jacky Shu- Get Off The Mark ('I bet everybody had fun in practice last night').

Arndt's Team & ASSB: Aaron Arndt's post It’s Official! introduces the Team Subaru X-Tech 2008- and who's on the team you ask? Aaron Arndt of course.

Andrew's Speed Skating Blog has some team news & equipment news- see Never Underestimate the Power of the Ex, DblA Interview Sneak Peek and 2008 Wheels and the X-Tech Intersport Team.

I'm looking forward to reading the 2xA interview. In the sneek peak, 2xA says 'After last year, I wanted back. I wanted to race every single WIC race over again. Every course, every turn, every approach into the sprint...'.

Not a bad group of skaters to be associated with
Mr B Saluted: I thought this was a very nice post; MR B, WE SALUTE YOU.

World Cup 2008: The 2008 World Inline Cup's wheels are starting to turn- the season will soon begin. I suspect the World Cup Topics for 2008 will become more and more alive- there is recent news about women's teams and about the Swiss Inline Cup- the 2008 SIC calendar is now up.

REL News: Roller En Ligne's article machine keeps pumping out material for us article seekers- the most recent news inludes France Espoir Indoor 2008 (see the photos here) and a video from the Poussins Benjamin Minimes the Lille.

Photo from Roller En Ligne
NZ Banked Track Champs: Roller Girl: Nicole Begg has new material on her blog- 2008 NZ Bank Track Championships- if you're into checking out pics (which I know you are), then click here and have fun exploring the photos from the NZ Banked Track Championships- here are short cuts- photos 1, photos 2, photos 3, photos 4, photos 5, photos 6, photos 7, photos 8, photos 9, and photos 10.

New Zealand Banked Track Championships 10K Points Elimination- photo from Jun Tanlayco
1978 World ST: Here is a cool historical post from World Masters Short Track- it's called 1978 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships.

Monday, Zen's LT World Masters, Thunder Bay Skate For MS, Time Management For Cyclists, REL News, Tampa Names, USARS Mag, PS News Plug, LT Jr Worlds

2008-03-03T21:48:00.011-05:00

Monday: Good Monday to you.

Time is short, I am in the middle of the teacher-feared report-card writing time.

If there are few updates on my site, well, now you know the reason why.

I'm trying to train as best as I can and, well, trying to avoid the cupboards of cookies and freezers filled with ice cream sandwiches at the school where I work.

Zen's LT World Masters: Andrew Love provided some excellent coverage of the World Master Long Track Speed Skating Championships- see his posts (in order); Preamble, Masters Worlds, Day 1, Masters Worlds- Day 2, and Masters Worlds, Day 3.

These reports are rich with details- funny and inspiring, historical and informational... I can't even begin to capture the breadth of what Andrew Love wrote.

'I wonder if wind-tunnel tests could show an optimal way for an individual like Sylvia to arrange her hair for maximum aerodynamic benefit. '- photo and caption from Andrew Love

'Any day is a good day when you are at an indoor oval, and chatting with fellas like Ragnvald Naess. He is as warm as his smile indicates. Click on this image of him to see a larger version, & so you can see all the detail of the amazing patches on his jacket. He has skated all over the world, and has patches on this jacket from everywhere'- photo and caption from Andrew Love

'There were no official warmup-warmdown bikes at the rink. But there was an area you could set up your own, and if you put a bike there, the honor code said it was 'available for everyone'. For example- here is Russian Sergej Avdejev on a Swiss bike'- photo and caption from Andrew Love

At the end, he wrote 'The closing banquet starts in a few hours-

I will apply one of my life rules tonight, and drink joyously with Italians, Russians, Norwegians, and every other nation that shared this.

I will refill my wine glass repeatedly until I clearly understand every word the Italians with their hands.'.

Thunder Bay Skate For MS: The Inline Skate for MS will be taking place in Thunder Bay on July 27th. You can find some information here, a PDF here, and registration here.

Time Management For Cyclists: I've been following the Fat Cyclist blog for some time, but I lost touch in the last few months. Here's a great post that a friend sent me; Time Management for Cyclists. You can find the whole article here.

REL News: Plenty of good stuff coming from Roller En Ligne today- click here for results from the Lille French Inline Cup... whoooa, hold on. Results already? Oh man. I feel like a big potato right now, sitting in front of the computer in non-race shape while these people in France are racing around the streets. They probably have to dodge palm trees and animals that live in the tropical heat... Am I wrong about that? Probably.

The World Long Track Speed Skating Championships are coming soon to a Nagano near you. REL is reporting that Tristan Loy will be the only French skater present.

Tristan Loy- photo from Roller En Ligne
And how about this; plans to cover the Valence d'Agen track.

Tampa Names: I like this name-dropping post; These are just some of the Elite Skaters racing in Tampa This year...; '...JOEY MANTIA! Anthony Lobello Harry Vogal Kalon Dobbin Stephan Carter Michael Cheeks Justin Stelly Willaim Bowen Kevin Quandt Dallas Hebert Nelson Garzan Andres Munoz Emily Scott Ceciala Beana Briana Kramer...and the list goes on...'.

USARS Mag: Here's a thread that has grown with lots of comments. It will give some USA perspective of how big the speed discipline is in the United States; USARS Magazine- Snow Problem write 'Fish nets and black lips sells...
Like it or not that's where the $$$$ is.

5,583 members - Roller derby
2,188 members - Artistic
1,992 members - Speed (we are low man on the totem pole here...)

I couldn't find hockey, but then I was in a hurry....

It's all about the $$$$$$$$$$ Roller Derby brings it! '.

PS News Plug: This is a plug for the Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter daily facts- they're putting all sorts of fun and interesting little snippets or history as daily facts. I was doubtful that they would keep up their daily facts this long when I first read about them last year, but they proved my scepticism wrong.

LT Jr Worlds: I know I posted the results for the ISU Long Track World Junior Championships, but here they are again in a different format.

World LT Masters, Cheek's Roanoke, USA Races, 3 Keys To Speed, Skating Budget, REL News, Jeugdmarathon, Link, Enjoy Skating, Italian Indoor Vids, Begg

2008-03-02T15:38:00.002-05:00

World LT Masters: Click here and you'll be able to find all sorts of results from the World Masters LT Championships.

Andrew Love has a couple of more entries leading up to the competition; see Erfurt and 3 years & 500 posts.. Looks like Andrew had the fastest 500-meter time of all skaters.

'I was relieved, with the tightness of the track, to have the inner start/final outer in the 500m'- photo and caption from Andrew Love
Cheek's Roanoke: Michael Cheek posted a report on the Blue Ridge (Roanoke) Challenge. He writes 'Basically the meet lived up to the nickname of 'winter nationals'' and goes on to say 'UGLY-ummm nothing really.. I crashed on the last corner of the 5 lap when that pesky pylon reached out and grabbed my foot. That was pretty ugly'.

USA Races: Here's some USA Roller Sports information; USA Indoor Nationals schedule and a whole bunch of information on the USA Banked Track & Road Championships.

3 Keys To Speed: Here's a super good skate tip from the Inline Planet written by the legenday Tony Muse; Three Keys to Technique.

'Tony Muse is edged out in the skate vs cyle challenge at the Downers Grove Criterium (circa 1995). Winning the race was Olympic gold medalist Steve Hegg'- caption and photo from the Inline Planet
Skating Budget: Here's a good question for many of us; So Whats Your Skating Budget?.

REL News: Here are a few updates from Roller En Ligne; the roller location map of France is quite full- click on the little yellow dots and you'll get more places to skate.

Click here for a report on the French Indoor Nationals in Saint Brieuc.

Photo from Roller En Ligne
Click here for Chapelle-sur-Erdre results.

I found this link thanks to REL; an interview (en Francais) with Ewen Fernandez.

Ewen Fernandez (in the white, blue, and red France colours) at the 2006 Junior World Roller Speed Skating Championships in Anyang, Korea
Jeugdmarathon: Harm de Boer Fotografie posted some photos from the Jeugdmarathon (pages 6 and 7 have photos of all sorts of falls...).

Photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Link: How cool is this? My site is linked on the 2008 World Roller Speed Skating Championships Enlaces de interes (links) page under the Mundo De Patinaje section.

Enjoy Skating: A short post by Jacky Shu and perfect for this time of the year- Still Skating- he says 'but more importantly, I began to have fun in skating'. Also check out today's Enjoyed it.

Italian Indoor Vids: Here are a couple of videos from the recent Italian Indoor Championships (I don't remember if I linked to them or not). I found them on Pattinaggio Bellusco- check them out here and here.

Begg: More endorsments are coming in for Barry Publow's Science Of Speed- one of the more recent positive reviews comes from Bill Begg- in Bont's forum, he writes '...Originally when he was involved as the Canadian coach the results were not forth comming, so that was something which was basically beyond his control.

Myself & many others were judging him on his coaching results, rather than his ability to write a decent book, I am a Great Coach, who can Write, He is a Great Bookwriter who can Coach.

In a similar situation the late Charlie Whalig, said to me when I first went to coach Colombia, that I would be judged on my predecesor Bobby Kaiser's results & achievements.

I told him I had no fear of that, Bobby Kaiser was a skating great, I was not, but I am a great Coach, but he is not. SAme Game, but different areas of speciality expertise.

But What Barry does Very Good & better than I for one & most of the rest of the World do, is gather Specifically Skating Information & utilizing his knowledge & present it in email or Book form to the World.

These people that are good enough to,or auctually do it are very rare & few & Far between, they have to make sales to try & survive, in order to hope they can one day write another book, so if we knock them around to much, they might go down for the count & thats the end of that.

Barry has to overcome the fact that he comes from Canada,which is not a Colombia, Korea or Italy of the skating World, so has to work even harder to coalate his information.

So one advantage is that he is not ingrained in any particular system, with indoctrined ideas, so he can probably have a more subjective view of the overall picture.

Another big advantage for us people, is that it is in English, not Italian or Spanish, where most the material originates from. So English Coaching versions are few & far between'.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for Beggsport Coaching Series information or you wish to ask some questions of the videos, click here.

Across America, Cado 4x100, Love's More Soon, Begg Kiwi Sports Awards, FIC Nimes

2008-02-28T23:35:00.000-05:00

Across America: While some of us freeze in Canada or people are nice and warm somewhere else other than Canada, Danny Dannels in continuing his epic trek across America. Check out his blog- the latest entry called Update from the Wife
- 'Hello everyone! Danny has asked me to update the blog for him while he skates. We are currently just outside of Mobile, AL, getting ready to cross through. Danny decided this morning, after our break, that it would be easiest if he skated across this area solo. That has also given me the chance to find an internet connection to update the blog, and get some cleaning done (laundry mostly).

We have been in no man's land for the past few days, hence the lack of updates. We haven't had much of an internet connection. Danny will be writing full updates soon, I hope. I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still out here, skating hard. We should be across Alabama by the end of the day, depepnding on how much Danny feels he can put his body through today.

Hillary'.

Cado 4x100: Roller En Ligne has a review of the Cado Motus 4x100mm frames.

Love's More Soon: Andrew Love is in Europe, ready to skate the Master World Championships.He posted an update on his site called more soon.... He posted a video called Marty In Erfurt- it's got great skating shots- and I love how Andrew Love shouts 'Marty, you're beautiful!'. The rink is soooo nice-

Begg Kiwi Sports Awards: This is pretty cool; Nicole Begg makes the top 4 at Kiwi sports awards- make sure that you check out the video here- you'll see her in front of what looks like a very nice castle of some sorts and you'll get to see a few skating clips placed in the video.

Nicole Begg- photo from Bont
FIC Nimes: The French Inline Cup in Nimes- Nimes En Roller- will take place on April 13th.

Meanwhile, I suspect on April 13th, most of us Canadians will still be burried in snow and in some sort of deep freeze so severe that elementary schools don't let the students outside for recess to play. That happens. Seriously. It was so cold today that the school I work at would not let the students outside to play.

IP Skate Review, More Spring Fling Pics, ASSB (Arndt, Begg, UFO, Ecoroll)

2008-02-27T22:58:00.000-05:00

IP Skate Review: One of my articles has just been put up on the Inline Planet- check it out; Rollerblade Crossfire 8.0 and Activa 8.0.

More Spring Fling Pics: The rest of the gang of the 2008 Spring Fling pictures by Mark Virtue are now up- have fun browsing through the many photos!

2008 Spring Fling- standard medium race- photo by Mark Virtue

2008 Spring Fling- standard short race- photo by Mark Virtue

2008 Spring Fling- standard short race- photo by Mark Virtue
ASSB (Arndt, Begg, UFO, Ecoroll): Andrew's Speed Skating Blog's latest entry covers a lot of interesting topics- I think the title says it all; Nicole Begg goes Bodypainting? DoubleA is Subaru-Xtech! UFO sightings at X-Race!? Ecoroll Cup next weekend....

Happy Birthday Aaron Arndt, Phillip's Father's War, 2008 Spring Fling Pics, Francesco Zangarini Interview, Loy In Kuopio, Quarter Life

2008-02-26T22:01:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday Aaron Arndt: Happy birthday to you Aaron Arndt.

Phillip's Father's War: The following is non-skating-

I suggest you read My Father's War by Mississauga's Phillip Morris.

Here are a few of my thoughts after I read My Father's War- maybe they don't make sense...

You think you know someone.

Maybe it's a friend or a family member.

Then, for some reason, you experience a shift in your relationship with that person. Maybe you read something they wrote. Maybe time that you spend with that person changes you... or changes them. Maybe things outside of your relationship with that person change- and in turn alter the nature of your relationship.

Things change, and afterwards, you think you know that person a little bit better.

We all have our layers; our depths that we sometimes share with others. Secrets that may eventually come out when they're ready to come out, maybe when it's too late or when it's too early or at just the right time.

I have my depths-

The following text is from Phillip Morris' writing called My Father's War. The piece was published in the Gazette on June 2nd 2007- '...My father never glorified war. He said that a lot of young men died for nothing. He never encouraged anyone to go to war to solve their problems.

On Remembrance Day, just before he died, my brother and I dressed Dad in his blue blazer, medals and beret and sat him in front of the television. His mind occupied by morphine and approaching death, he didn’t pay attention. Then the bugler played Last Post. In a desperate voice, he whispered 'get me up.' He never spoke again'.

2008 Spring Fling Pics: Beautiful pictures by Mark Virtue; 2008 Spring Fling, Skateland, Bremerton Washington. Some of the albums aren't working for me at this time, but I hope they work for you.

2008 Spring Fling Novice short race- photo by Mark Virtue

2008 Spring Fling 2 mix relay- photo by Mark Virtue

2008 Spring Fling 4 person relay- photo by Mark Virtue

2008 Spring Fling 4 person relay- photo by Mark Virtue

2008 Spring Fling- photo by Mark Virtue
Francesco Zangarini Interview: Click here for an interview (in French) with Italy's Francesco Zangarini.

Loy In Kuopio: Roller En Ligne has an article about Trisant Loy's 3rd place finish in Kuopio, Finland from a few days ago.

You can find all the results here and the final Essent Grand Prix standings here.

You can view a video of the race here. The video is 30-minutes long and opens with a great bird's eye view of skaters.

Quarter Life: I've been a fan of Quarter Life since December. The site features many different things including an online show- two episodes are released each week. Quarter Life is making its network television debut on NBC at this moment. Good stuff :)

More On RSO #2, A.S.CO. Skating, Love: PB's & Beard & Masters, Cornering, ING Speed Skating Challenge: Round 2, South-West German Indoor Champs

2008-02-25T22:40:00.000-05:00

More On RSO #2: Jacky Shu put a file together tracking RSO Indoor Speed Series times over the last couple of seasons.

Check out Candy Wong's comments on her improvements at yersterday's RSO Indoor Series #2- Okay, That's More Like It.

A.S.CO. Skating: Here's a site for you to explore; A.S.CO. Skating. Amongst other things on the site, you'll find pictures from the Italian Indoor Championships- have fun browsing through the photos (I know I linked to them a few days ago).

Love: PB's & Beard & Masters: Three entries from Andrew Love's website Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating; in PB’s + Germany!, he writes '...I can’t control how anyone else races, just myself.

Travel across the world to race other people, and just find a mirror staring back at you...'.

In Beard Poll, you can vote and decide on his beardedness. Finally, Masters in Calgary contains nice images & commentary from the Masters international Canadian open in Calgary.

'Just in case you didn’t know this, it’s a good tip! Ha!!'- photo & caption from Andrew Love
Cornering: Roller En Ligne has a new tip/ article about pushing in the corner. It's en Francais, but check it out; there's a video.

FICHE A4 : phase de propulsion en virage
Uploaded by teamrollerenligne

ING Speed Skating Challenge: Round 2: Only 4 entries left; some of the ING Speed Skating Challenge videos have been cut and others have moved on to round 2- make sure you vote for Canada's best speed skating story.

South-West German Indoor Champs: From Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter's news; 'Last weekend the south-west german indoor championships took place in Darmstadt. On the very slippery 162m track with high corners were some really fast and exciting races. With Martin Matyk and Felix Rijhnen Powerslide PHUZION had 2 guys at the start who ruled the whole competion! They were first and second in every single event and won also the relay.

The dominating wheel was Matter XG EMT 110mm!'.

Okay, okay, check out the track on the video Hessische Hallenmeisterschaft 2008- how awesome is that??!

RSO Series #2, Weekend Results, Race On Base Pics, Great ESkate From Above, REL Stuff, Mundo Reports

2008-02-24T22:28:00.001-05:00

RSO Series #2: The RSO Indoor Speed Series took place earlier today at the Scooter's Roller Palace in Mississauga. Use the following links for all the results; 300-meters, 500-meters, 1000-meters, and stage 2 rankings. Wanna see my pictures? Click here.

Aaron Arndt talked about today's RSO (and many other things) in Study Sunday- here's the relay program skaters did at the practice after the race; '(5×1lap)+(1×2laps)+(1×3laps)+(1×4laps)+(1×5laps)+(1×4laps)+(1×3laps)+(1×2laps)+(5×1lap)+(3×2laps)+(1×3laps)+(3×2laps)+(5×1lap)'- what's amazing is that Aaron told the program once. Everyone was confused except for Mister Pauley who recited the entire work-out word for word. Impressive.

Andrew Hegarty was the trusty lap counter- and he did relatively few mistakes. Notice the poor little feller's broken wrist? It hapenned at practce last Monday- he wrote a very clever entry on his website, but his site recently succumbed to a virus...

Jay Brown and Wayne Burrett timed the skaters

Ericka Melin, Jake Maas, and Alex Maas

Cleaning wheels really helps skaters maintain traction in the corners

Keep moving

Gillian Clarke and Deb Melin kept scores

Aaron Arndt was the referee

Schankel's Jesse Pauley is surrounded by the Toronto Inline guys including Mister Pauley and Morgane Williams. Meanwhile, Mister Pauley is surrounded by the Schankel guys including Jesse Pauley and Travis Shaw

Group 3- Ericka Melin, Candy Wong, and Alex Maas leading

Group 2- looks like Eric Maas false started

Group 2- Jacky Shu leads Shannon Hegarty, Eric Maas, Sarah Hopkins, and Ed Leung

Weekend Results: For all of the weekend long track results, make sure you stop by and browse through SpeedSkatingResults.

The long track junior world championships are now compelte with the team time trials. Check out all the results here. You can find some photos (mostly of Netherlands people) here.

Click here for the results from the Finland Ice Marathon 100k.

Canada's Justine L'Heureux from St-Tite- remember my entry about the Festival Western de St-Tite? That's where she's from
The Essent ISU long track world cup finale is now over. You can check out all the final results here. Speed Skating Canada has a few articles- Golden pursuit for Canadian women at World Cup final, Kristina Groves of Ottawa wins World Cup season title, and Jeremy Wotherspoon wins 500-metre clinches World Cup title. You can find some nice photos from Sunday's racing action thanks to Meijco. I hope that DESG puts up some day 3 photos.

Anni Friesinger- photo from Meijco

François Olivier Roberge in his 1000-meters- photo from Meijco

Shani Davis- photo from Meijco

Justin Warsylewicz, Denny Morrison, and Arne Dankers in the team time trial- photo from Meijco
Racing action at the Copa Internacional Salvemos todos a Bolivar is now over- you can browse through all the who's who results here. Here's a couple of articles for you; Nelson Garzón vuelve a ganar en la Copa Internacional Salvemos todos a Bolívar and Rosero y Jardines en lo más alto. Patin Carrera's got quite a few photo albums- check them out; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.

Cartagena- Men's marathon- photo from Patin Carrera
Race On Base Pics: Click here for some Race On Base pictures.

Race on the Base- photo from Blues Haven

Race on the Base- photo from Blues Haven

Race on the Base- photo from Blues Haven

Race on the Base- photo from Blues Haven

Race on the Base- photo from Blues Haven
Great ESkate From Above: This is a really cool video that a friend sent me; Great eSkate 2008 from high up- lots of skaters going across the bridge.

REL Stuff: Here's some Sunday night reading material for you from Roller En Ligne; EO Skate Frame test and 2008 World Inline Cup rule changes.

Mundo Reports: Mundo Patin's got a couple of new reports up, and they're loaded with photos- check out Asturiana League #2 (see the photos) and School Race #3 (see the photos).

Asturiana League #2- photo from Mundo Patin

Who's That?, Weekend Results, RRC: I Agree, Coaching Ethics, Tips, Pics- Italy & Roanoke, Vlaamse Champs

2008-02-23T22:06:00.002-05:00

Who's That?: Check out ASSB's Subaru XTech's 'Ace Card'. I wonder who they're talking about...

Speaking of wondering who they're talking about, check out Aaron Arndt's latest website entries Memorable Quotes 6: and Campaign 2- he is starting to give a little bit of a historical perspective on races.

'on the topic of ‘96 JWC, here is a pic from one of the distance races:... in front of me are two Chileans and an Argentinean, beside is a French skater, and behind an Australian... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I was just talking to Ruben Martinez... He says that’s him!!! ahahahahahahaahahahahaha!!! how awesome is that?? :)'- photo & caption from Aaron Arndt
Weekend Results: There are three 'big' competitions taking place this weekend-

Let's kick it off with the world junior long track championships- results from day 2 can be found here thanks to DESG- just in case you're confused, use the links in blue.

Long track world cup results from today are all up- check them out. SSWOM has some reading material for you; Bob and Carl, H'veen World Cup Final 5000m men, H'veen World Cup Final 1500m ladies, Timmer on the false start, H'veen World Cup Final 500m men (2), and H'veen World Cup Final 500m ladies (2).

Meijco.nl has a whole bunch of pictures from today's racing. DESG also has lots (355) of photos from day 2-
- All distances
- 500m men
- 500m ladies
- 1500m ladies
- 5000m men
- All other images
- Unknown faces

Shuang Zhang- photo from Meijco.nl

Kyou Hyuk Lee- photo from Meijco.nl

Kristina Groves- photo from Meijco.nl

Holland fans- photo from DESB

Judith Hesse- photo from DESB

Mika Poutala- photo from DESB

World Cup- photo from DESB
The final event that I am reporting on is the the Copa Internacional Salvemos todos a Bolívar- check out Patin Carrera's latest update called Yercy Puello y Andrés Muñóz son los reyes de la velocidad en Cartagena.. Make sure you check out all the results from the competition.

RRC: I Agree: The the people at Road Rash Chronicles, I agree with this entry; Ants in our pants.; you'll see that there's quite a few 'I can't wait 's'.

Another entry on the side today is called Indoor Recap- you'll find a bunch of pictures.

Hugh 'Hot Dog' Xie- photo from Road Rash Chronicles
Coaching Ethics: I just thought I'd being the thread Coaching Ethics to your attention- it's been getting quite a few comments- lots of thoughts and ideas.

Tips: Here are a few tips for you; the Inline Planet has this one written by Barry Publow- How to Handle a High Speed Descent on Inline Skates.

Here are a couple of articles posted on London Skaters;
- How to bend your knees on skates
- Muscle Memory and Skating

Pics- Italy & Roanoke: Pattinaggio Bellusco has got more pictures from the Italian Indoor Championships- A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H- I don't really understand Italian, but I think 'Per un totale di 4064 fotografie!' means for a total of 4064 pictures.

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco
Check out Kevin Osborne's pictures from Roanoke. I can't even begin to count how many pictures there are. They're still loading at a furious rate as I type this.

Roanoke- photo from Kevin Osborne

Roanoke- photo from Kevin Osborne

Roanoke- photo from Kevin Osborne
Vlaamse Champs: Skating Sisters has some coverage of the Vlaamse Short Track Championships- click here for the results, click here for a photo gallery, and see the Skating Sisters photos (237 photos).

Vlaams Kampioenschap- photo from SkateFoto.be

See the skate in the air? Vlaams Kampioenschap- photo from SkateFoto.be

Vlaams Kampioenschap- photo from SkateFoto.be

World Junior LT Champs, Heerenveen LT World Cup, Roller En Ligne, Mundo & Cartagena, Hughes' Crazy Week, SB's SLC World Cup Pics, Vids, MISC Links

2008-02-22T21:05:00.001-05:00

World Junior LT Champs: The World Junior Long Track Championships are taking place this weekend in Changchun, China. Click here for women's cumulative results and here for men's cumulative results. You can also use this page to view the results. You'll also be able to view the results on SpeedSkatingResults.com. I think that between those 3 sites, you're bound to find something you're looking for.

Canada's Jordan Belchos placed 4th in the 3000-meters and USA's is sitting in 9th after the first day of competition.

Click here for KNSB's page which has some pretty good information on the championships.

Heerenveen LT World Cup: Just in case it's not a busy enough weekend in long track speed skating, ISU's long track world cup finale is taking place in Heerenveen- click here for the results so far. The men's 1500-meter A results have flags that looks alike between positions #4 and #10- they're either from the Netherlands or from Russia. Check out Germany's Jenny Wolf's nearly perfect record in the 500-meter world cup standings.

Good news for photos seekers; Meijco.nl has photos- check them out!

Vincent Labrie's skate- photo from Meijco.nl

Podium photo with podium Denny Morrison, Shani Davis, and Enrico Fabris- photo from Meijco.nl

Ok, talk about perfect timing... 'de Noorse starter Jan Wiggo Oxholm liet de atleten wel erg lang wachten - met als gevolg veel valse starts'- photo & caption from Meijco.nl
Even better news SSW fans; DESG is also putting photos up! Yea! Check them out from day 1;

- All distances
- 500m men
- 500m ladies
- 3000m ladies
- All other images
- Unknown faces

China's Shuang Zhang- photo from DESG

Mike Ireland- photo from DESG

Dmitrij Lobkov- photo from DESG

Hiroyasu Shimizu- photo from DESG
Speed Skating World Online Magazine is covering the event. Here are a few entries; Shani Davis won't skate the 5000m, dq Valkenburg, H'veen World Cup Final 1500m men, H'veen World Cup Final 3000m ladies, H'veen World Cup Final 500m men (1), and H'veen World Cup Final 500m ladies (1).

Roller En Ligne: Roller En Ligne's got some good stuff for us all to check out- Bont frame information, a Diego Rosero interview, and tips (with video) on the skate recovery.

FICHE A3 : retour de la jambe / phase pendulaire
Uploaded by teamrollerenligne

Mundo & Cartagena: Mundo Patin's website was recently redesigned. Looks pretty good.

Here's an article on the upcoming Cartagena competition; Las pruebas de eliminación cierran las jornadas de Circuito y empiezan con la Pista. I don't think I need to inform you that it's written in Spanish...

Click here for results from the Copa Internacional Salvemos todos a Bolívar competition.

Here are a couple of articles & reports; En un gran final, Alexandra Vivas se quedó con el triunfo en Cartagena and La magia del patinaje ya se vive en Cartagena de Indias.

Click here for photos of the event.

Racing in Cartagena- photo from Patin Carrera
Hughes' Crazy Week: Here are a couple of entries from Canadian long track speed skater Clara Hughes' website; 2 YEARS, 2 DAYS UNTIL VANCOUVER- ON THE ROAD TO THE 2010 OLYMPICS and THE CRAZIEST WEEK OF MY SPORTING LIFE. Interesting reading material.

SB's SLC World Cup Pics: I don't remember if I linked to SB's pictures from the Salt Lake City ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup. The pictures are quite nice.

Salt Lake City ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup- photo from sb
Vids: Here are a couple of videos for your enjoyment- mundial de patinaje venezuela (2003 worlds 200-meter sprints)- check out the leg speed! Also check out the massive crash in caida en el mundial de cali- I was standing in the corner where it took place. Check out the slow-motion replays too... eek.

Click play below to check out the videos.

The race continued and the refs tried to control the situation while medics helped the injured and fallen skaters
MISC Links: Let's get ya started with a blog- it will cover two skaters' quest to compelte the Mans 24 hour skate- DUO Dément.

This link comes out of France- RollerSisters.

Here's another one for you; Skate-Connection.

This is from Denmark; Skatenews.dk.

Final link for today; Stadler Racing Team.

2003 Worlds 500m, Ottawa Archives, US Champs, Silver Skate Results, Aaron's Quotes, Lots Of Italy Pics, Cartagena, Colombia Results, Nat'l Marathon

2008-02-21T15:04:00.002-05:00

2003 Worlds 500m: This race has it all; 4 fast skaters going for 3 world championship medals, loads of fans, an enthusiastic tv announcer, a fight- but what impressed me the most was Venezuela's Fabian Arcila's use of the bank to pass Italy's Luca Presti going into the final corner- see mundial patinaje venezuela 500 mts or press play below-

Ottawa Archives: The Ottawa Inline Skating Club now has their newsletters archived- they're a good source of information.

US Championships: Now this is bound to be a hot topic; United States Champs- it's about non US citizens competing at the USA's National Championships.

Silver Skate Results: The Silver Skate Festival race results are now online- see 25km results and 50km results.

Aaron's Quotes: Aaron Arndt has been posting memorable quotes- he put up a few today; Memorable Quotes 5:, Memorable Quotes 4:, and Memorable Quotes 3:.

Arcton Landcaster leads Aaron Arndt and Marc Griffin at the 1996 Canadian championships- photo posted on Aaron Arndt
Lots Of Italy Pics: Yeppers, that's right- your next tast is to sift through and admire pictures from the Italian Indoor Championships that were posted on Pattinaggio Bellusco. Use the links below to access the galleries.

- Thursday pictures (A - B - C - D - E - F - G)
- Friday pictures (A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - L - M - N - O - P - Q)
- Saturday pictures (A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - L - M - N)

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco
Cartagena: Patin Carrera is continuing to offer coverage of the Copa Internacional Salvemos todos a Bolívar 2008- a couple of recent articles include Comienza el patinaje en Cartagena and Las figuras y los medios dieron el sí en Cartagena- you can find some photos here.

In Cartagena- photos from Patin Carrera
Colombia Results: Here are a few sets of recent results coming out of Colombia; Resutlados Regional Manizales febrero and Resultados Regional Menores Medellin.

Nat'l Marathon: Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating has a nice new post called National Marathon Champs.

'They have the old Zamboni from the John Rose oval out there making some really nice ice. It looks like a pretty wide track'- caption from on Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating and photo by Joe Von Drase

WIC Rulebook Updated, Vincent Henry On TV, Toronto Inline Skating Club's Annual General Meeting, More On Science Of Speed, Rollershots, Italy

2008-02-20T12:20:00.007-05:00

WIC Rulebook Updated: The World Inline Cup's 2008 rule book has been udpated. [World Inline Cup Technical Rulebook 2008 as PDF (1.9 MB)]

Vincent Henry On TV: Click here for a really well-done report featuring Britain's Vincent Henry- it's from just before the 2007 world championships.

Toronto Inline Skating Club's Annual General Meeting: The Toronto Inline Skating Club (TISC) will be having its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on March 16th. Gillian Clarke is stepping down as TISC's president and board of directors positions will be voted on. Click here for more.

More On Science Of Speed: Barry Publow's latest project, , is getting a lot of endorsments- the latest comes from Bill Begg- in The Science of Speed eBook - NOW AVAILABLE!, he says '...With the Beggsport Coaching video series on www.bonttv.com & Barry's book, only someone deaf & Blind would not learn.

All it means now is excuses are no longer Valid, for a small investment,you can tapinto all the Theory'.

Rollershots: A quick browse through Roller Shots and you'll have a small world of very nice roller speed skating pictures at your fingertips. Recent albums include Merced (Saturday and Sunday).

Italy: Here are lots of awesome photo albums from the Italian Indoor Championships; Galleria pubblica di Cristiano;
- Feb 13
- Feb 14 (1)
- Feb 14 (2)
- Feb 15
- Feb 16
- Feb 17

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Galleria pubblica di Cristiano

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Galleria pubblica di Cristiano

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Galleria pubblica di Cristiano

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Galleria pubblica di Cristiano

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Galleria pubblica di Cristiano
You can also find some nice pictures on Patinlandia- check them out.

Italian Indoor Championships- photo from Patinlandia

Roller Sports Canada, Cheex's Blue Ridege, Across America, Italy Indoor, France Indoor, Cartagena, Zen's ST Women's Races & Ottawa, Chicagoland & NROC

2008-02-19T20:19:00.000-05:00

Roller Sports Canada: Roller Sports Canada's website is now being updated on a regular basis with Canadian speed content. A few new sections with resources include;
- achievements
- coaching & training resources
- links
- contacts
- calendar of events

Cheex's Blue Ridege Report: Michael Cheek put up a new post; Pro Men Blue Ridge Challenge- he writes about 'the whole "controversy" started when myself and 2 of my teamates were DQ'd for team skating following a 15 lap race'.

Across America: Danny Dannels is keeping tabs on his own journey to skate across from one side of the USA to the other- check out his daily postings. He offers a lot of insight into the different places that he visits- his latest post is called The Many Colors of Hate- he writes 'Lifestyles are just as quickly judged. Joining the status quo may actually be a survival tool here. Fitting in is important for safety. Wearing a bright red and yellow skinsuit and having long hair draws taunts and verbal harrasments from all walks of life. It's not even limited to any age group. From the young to the elderly, hatred is instilled in all facets of life'.

The Inline Planet posted an article; see Battered But Not Beaten- he starts off writing 'My state, my home, my Texas ... nearly ate me alive!'. Woa.

Italian Indoor: Skate Podium has a report on the Italian Indoor Championships. You can check out a 1000-meter video here and a 2nd video of a 1000-meter race here- looks like they got good skaters and a good crowd. You can find all the results here.

Italian Indoor Championships podium- photo from FIHP
France Indoor: The first ever indoor French championships took place this past weekend in Saint Brieuc. Click here for a report. You can find photos, reports, results, and videos. Click here for a video.

France Indoor Championships- photo from Roller En Ligne

France Indoor 2008 Finales Vitesse roller vitesse
Uploaded by teamrollerenligne

Cartagena: The Copa Internacional Salvemos todos a Bolívar has a special home on PatinCarrera- according to the site, skaters from South Korea will be attending the competition- read more in Corea del Sur también se suma a la Copa Salvemos todos a Bolívar Cartagena 2008.

Zen's ST Women's Races & Ottawa: Stop by Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating and check out two of the latest posts; ST women’s races and Rideau Canal. Here's one of Andrew Love's videos; Short track world cup 1500m Salt Lake city- press play below to view-

Chicagoland Joins NROC: NROC now has a 7th race in its 2008 series; read more in Chicagoland Inline Marathon Joins NROC. 'NROC is a race series that will rank skaters and teams over the course of the U.S. outdoor inline skating season. It will also provide a way for skaters of all levels to chart their individual progress'.

Aaron's Real Deal, Best Footage, Silver Skate, Mar Del Patin, Blue Ridge, What A Plug, ING Challenge, Theresa Cliff, Weekend LT Results, NY 100k, Vids

2008-02-18T15:14:00.002-05:00

Aaron's Real Deal: I think the entry Memorable Quotes 1: [+Training; real deal] by Aaron Arndt is one of the most honest and deep postings I've seen in a very long time. It's worth a read and a re-read.

Having spoken with Aaron recently and knowing him quite well, I understand what he is doing. Here are some snippets of what he wrote; '...Talk is cheap; lies are expensive. So is equivocation, indecision, procrastination, hell; call it laziness, indiscipline, self-sabotage, personal-limitation-infliction and even self-destruction. 'F' it. Here is me... I came off the WIC 2007 on the best form of my life... well, since my snowboard accident... Then it snowed, a whole bunch, and kept snowing.

It really is tough to train properly here in Canada. We’ve been under snow basically ever since, and skating outdoors (or trying to) basically sucked...

Over the next while, I will be publishing some rather revealing, honest, untouched, un-flattering, and self-exposing pictures of myself to; in a round-about way, help keep me motivated. I don’t claim to be in shape right now, but I will be. give me a little time. I am not, and this is not about saying 'I look great', or 'look at me'. If you think that’s what I am doing, you clearly don’t know me at all, and I would probably hate you if I knew you. That’s really not the point. I’m not completely out of shape, just not where I want to be. Bare with me. This is about self-dicipline and motivation. I am taking some pretty serious risk here. Support my ass. Be critical sure, but not about my intentions.

...Maybe use it to motivate yourself. You know, symbiosis. What the hell? give me a call! Haha, ask me what I’m doing, and if it’s not ‘training, studying, eating, or sleeping’ yell at me...'.

Best Footage: Andrew's Speed Skating Blog has posted an entry with links to wonderful race videos- Best Inline Speed Skating Footage Online- the work of Isaac Papadopoulos. He writes 'If you pay attention you can see technique, style, team tactics, mistakes, crashes, interviews, ... point sprints, finishes ... and so much more'.

Silver Skate: The Silver Skate Festival is a long track event that took place this past weekend in Edmonton. PThe event, which is part of the MSI series, was won by Steven Elm with a large margin of victory on the men's side, while Paisley Perrie had to fend off two other female skaters in the last 500-meters to take the top women's spot.

Mar Del Patin: Check out Mayra Arias y Guillermo Servián fueron los últimos ganadores del Mar del Patín for some Mar Del Patin news. You can find results, updates, news, and photos in Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter's news. They write 'Today was the marathon of Mar del Plata, the marathon was held on the water front under a beautiful sunny sky.

It was a great day for the Powerslide family as they took out frist and second in the Men's and Women's events.

In the Women's event it was Sandra Gomez who took the win by a wheel over fellow PS skater Natalia Artero, third place went to Ornela Vicoli.

Results
1st Sandra Gomez (Spain/PS)
2nd Natalia Artero (Matter/PS)
3rd Ornela Vicoli

On the Men's side of things, Kalon and Kepa come home First and Second for P.S, while Chile's Jose Guzman took the third placement.

Results
1st Kalon Dobbin (Matter/PS)
2nd Kepa Caballero (Alessi/PS)
3rd Jose Guzman (Chile)

Hope you all enjoyed the photo's and results, until next year'.

The next big South American race will take place in Cartagena- you can read more in Corea del Sur también se suma a la Copa Salvemos todos a Bolívar Cartagena 2008 and check out the site that should post results and all sorts of news;

Women's marathon- photo from Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter
Blue Ridge: You can find more results and some thoughts of cheating and officiating at the Blue Ridge Challenge in Blue Ridge results.

You're probably interested in viewing photos and videos from the event- check out Linda Wood's photos and view a video of the pro men's 500-meter sprint- you can press play below. You can view more videos from various categories in PICTURES/VIDEO - Blue Ridge Challenge.

What A Plug: the thread The Science of Speed eBook - NOW AVAILABLE! contains a plug for the ebook like none other that I've read before; 'I just finished browsing the copy of 'The Science of Speed'...if 'Speed on Skates' was a narrative book, this could very well be its sequel. To be honest, the humongous amount of information contained in Publow’s new publication perfectly complements the contents of his previous Speedskating’s Bible, reaching far beyond its encyclopedic intent. I’ll happily endorse this valuable publication and definitely recommend it to advanced skaters and coaches alike, as I regard it an absolutely unmissable investment: for only 30 bucks (about 20 euros, 4 pints of ale) you’ll get an overly priceless compilation of studies and articles written in plain, non-academic English although taking a sober, scientific approach. A truckload of tips&tricks, a whole lot of useful and interesting information plus a few bonus tracks and remixes meshed in makes “The Science of Speed” the other essential volume any serious adept to this sport must keep in their bookshelf'.

Blogs: Recent entries from different skating blogs and sites- check out Road Rash Chronicles' Marathon Apprehension, stop by an read Flyin Brian's DNS, and Charlie Brown On Skates' My First Marathon: 2007 St. Paul Inline Marathon and Stretching 101.

ING Challenge: It is time to vote for Canada's best speed skating story- check out all the voting and videos at the ING Speed Skating Challenge.

Theresa Cliff: Theresa Cliff is posting some very strong track cycling results- 'Theresa Cliff-Ryan made a new step toward her goals this weekend with upgrading her best results from 6th in a world cup to 2 bronze medals. Theresa raced a brilliant scratch race to take equal 3rd place with Russian Anastasiay Chulkova behind world champion Marianne Vos of Holland and the current world cup overall point score champion Jarmilla Machavova of Czech Republic'. Check out Team Des for more.

Weekend LT Results: For many of this past weekend's long track competition results, make sure you stop by SpeedskatingResults.

NY 100k: More information on the NYC Skate Marathon & NY 100k can be found here. The recent information clears up information about the jacket and lists age divisions.

Vids: Lots of videos for you to check out thanks to Skate Podium. You can use the controls below
- Borlanger Sweden start men
- Borlanger Sweden start women
- Borlanger Sweden men A- 10 laps
- Borlanger Sweden women's finish
- Borlanger Sweden men's finish

Inzell LT WC, Aaron's Pics, Frame Selection, RSO Indoor #1 Results, Nick's Twin, SLC ST World Cup Pics, Can't Wait To Skate, Germany Explained

2008-02-17T12:19:00.001-05:00

Inzell LT WC: The Inzell Essent ISU World Cup results are complete. Check them out. The men's 500-meter day 2 results are interesting; five ties- one for 2nd and the other for 4th and a 3-way tie for 7th, one for 11th and one for 16th.

Speed Skating Canada's got an article for us; Canadian speed skaters collect three World Cup medals.

For some beautiful images from the world cup racing, check out DESG's photos.

Canada's Tamara Oudenaarden- Inzell Essent ISU Long Track World Cup- photo from DESG Photo

Aleksandr Zjigin and Artur Was- Inzell Essent ISU Long Track World Cup- photo from DESG Photo

Hiroyasu Shimizu- Inzell Essent ISU Long Track World Cup- photo from DESG Photo

Anni Friesinger, Ireen Wust, and Shannon Rempel- women's 1000-meters- Inzell Essent ISU Long Track World Cup- photo from DESG Photo

Inzell Essent ISU Long Track World Cup- photo from DESG Photo

Inzell Essent ISU Long Track World Cup- photo from DESG Photo

Jeremy Wotherspoon- Inzell Essent ISU Long Track World Cup- photo from DESG Photo
Aaron's Pics: Who woulda thunk that pictures from some-12 years ago would send me down memory lane. 12 years brings us back to 1996-esque. That's not long ago in my mind. It feels very recent. But looking at the pictures, they don't look recent. Check out Aaron Arndt's recent posts called Picture Quiz and 'Cause it’s cool....

Sexy beasts- I remember taking this picture; I put my camera on a tv and set it on the timed function. After the picture, we all hurried back to the pool for more wheel throwing and diving
Frame Selection: Roller En Ligne has an article about frame selection- see Bien choisir ses châssis de vitesse for more.

RSO Indoor #1 Results: The Results from the RSO Indoor Series #1 are online- see 300-meter, 500-meter, 1000-meter, and stage #1 & overall rankings. The series' next race will take place this Sunday.

Nick's Twin: You cannot tell me that Gunther Van Hoogten doesn't look like Nick Zacchia.

Gunther Van Hoogten

Nick Zacchia
SLC ST World Cup Pics: Here's some eye candy for a beautiful Sunday- I was checking out Ohno Zone and found this; Jerry Search photos from SLC. You can access Jerry Search's album directly where all the pictures will soon be posted.

Salt Lake City ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup- photo from Jerry Search and posted on Ohno Zone
Can't Wait To Skate: Candy Wong's latest post is called Planning For 2008 Outdoor- she is planning her 2008 season and her event calendar looks quite full. After reading her enrty, I can't wait to start skating outside... once all the snow melts away...

'One of my favourite pictures from The Great EsSkate. I was so excited before the start of the big skate on Saturday!'- photo and caption from Candy Wong Germany Explained: In World Cup Topics for 2008, Thor explains the difference between the GBC and the GIC.

LT World Cup- Inzell, Essent GP #3, Mar Del Patin, Italy League, Planet News, Andrew's Tunnel Vision, Blue Ridge Results, World's Longest Journey

2008-02-17T00:32:00.000-05:00

LT World Cup- Inzell: Click here for all the results from this weekend's Essent ISU Long Track World Cup taking place in Inzell, Germany.

Essent GP #3: Results from today's Essent Grand Prix #3 in Borlange, Sweden, can be found here.

Harm de Boer Fotografie was on hand to photograph the event- there are few pictures in the albums (as of right now)- I hope more are added later; womens pictures and men's A pictures.

Essent Grand Prix #3 men's winner Ruud Aerts- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Mar Del Patin: More news, photos, & results from the Mar Del Patin competition can be found here; Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter news.

You can find a report thanks to Patin Carrera- check out Kalon Dobbin ganó en Mar del Plata.

Mar Del Patin- photo from Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter news

Italy League: Here is a report from Italian indoor racing- Rebagliati sorprendió a todos en Italia- you can see photos here.

Photo posted on Patin Carerra
Planet News: Here are a couple of good things for you to read from the Inline Planet- check out Nicole Begg's blog and the skate tip of the week- http://www.inlineplanet.com/08/02/training-express.html- making the most of your workouts.

'Bill, Nicole, Wayne and Cheryl, Hastings, NZ World Champs 1989'- photo and caption from Roller Girl: Nicole Begg
Andrew's Tunnel Vision: Here's a nice little read from Andrew Hegarty about what athletes like to put themselves through; Tunnel Vision- I like the end, where he writes 'The funny part? We rode it again about a week later. It was a bit easier because I knew what to expect but still… who would willingly do that more than once?'.

Blue Ridge Results: People have started posting some results from Blue Ridge- click here for more. Hopefully you can find more on FAST.

World's Longest Journey: Check it out; the World's Longest Journey on inline skates caught on tape- 6088km's on skates from Vietnam. Here is one of the videos- SBOR - World's Longest Journey on Skates- you can view it below-

Speed Skating Science, Tax Credit, NROC Gets A Boost, New 1/2 Marathon, Essent GP 2, Mar Del Patin, New Love ST Vid, German Inline Cup, Heyoo Team

2008-02-15T17:15:00.003-05:00

Speed Skating Science: Check out Inline Skating- The Science Of Speed, Barry Publow's latest project. Looks pretty good.

Tax Credit: If you file your income taxes in Canada and you have children under 16 years old of age, there is a children's fitness tax credit; 'the Government of Canada allows a non-refundable tax credit based on eligible fitness expenses paid by parents to register a child in a prescribed program of physical activity'. Click here for more.

NROC Gets A Boost: How about this good news for NROC; Bont Sweetens the Pot!... with $5000.

New 1/2 Marathon: It's always good to see a new race pop up- this one in St Michael, MN on August 16th- see St. Michael Daze & Knights for more.

Essent GP 2: The 2nd Essent Grand Prix race took place yesterday in Borlange, Sweden - you can view all the results here.

Harm de Boer Fotografie was on hand to cover the event; check out the women's and the men's A pictures.

Borlange Essent Grand Prix #2 women- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Borlange Essent Grand Prix #2 men- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Mar Del Patin: The Mar Del Patin competition is taking place in... you guessed it... Mar Del Plata. Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter's daily news has some coverage of the event (again, you may have to use the archives to find results later).

Patin Carrera has an article- see Comenzó el Mar del Patín 2008.

Junior boys' 500-meter final- photo posted on Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter's daily news
New Love ST Vid: Andrew Love posted a new short track speed skating video from last weekend's ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup in Salt Lake City- see World Cup 1000m for more. Andrew's introduction to the video is succint and to the point; 'This race has a lot of what makes short track exciting, crashes, contact, a fast, close finish, and one of the best skaters of our generation, Apolo Ohno, winning in front of the home crowd'.

German Inline Cup: Check out the German Inline Cup's site for dates and information on the series. There's a pretty cool video on the site with a good song. The series opens April 6th with the 28th Berliner Half Marathon.

Heyoo Team: Check out the Heyoo Team.

Renault Car For Skaters, Twin Track, Great EsSkate, Penan Interview, 24h With PUC Girls, Italian Inline Cup, ASSB GIC & PP, Tampa & Stars, SLC ST Pics

2008-02-14T13:48:00.000-05:00

Renault Car For Skaters: This is really really cool; Renault's Car for Skaters. Now you know what to buy me for Valentine's Day.

Twin Track: This is an interesting site; Twin Track- make sure you check out the video.

Great EsSkate: Candy Wong posted reports & photos of the Great EsSkate on her site- see Here Come The Pictures... (lots of links to photo albums), Video From Day 2, New Member Of The Sockless Club, and Here's My Proof. If you'd like to see her video, click here.

Penan Interview: I know I linked to the Catherine Penan interview yesterday, but here it is in french; Catherine Penan interview.

24h With PUC Girls: Roller En Ligne has an article and video out- see 24 Hours With PUC Speedy Girls.

Italian Inline Cup: Click here for dates for the 2008 Italian Inline Cup.

ASSB GIC & PP: Andrew's Speed Skatign Blog has a couple of recent updates; IGUANA Germany annoues the German Inline Cup and Powerslide Phuzion Teams 2008.

Tampa & Stars: How's this for a list of skaters who will be attending this year's Tampa Classic; KALON DOBBINS- ALEXIS CONTIN-CHECHY BAENA-MORE ALL IN TAMPA!. People are starting to talk- there's a definite buzzz!

SLC ST Pics: Pretty sweet stuff coming from last weekend's Salt Lake City ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup; Day 2 photos from Stepho- you can view the gallery here.

RSC & RSO, I Love Skating, Across America, Cycling A-Z, REL Tip & Interview, Rollerblade 2008, Mexico Champs, Fastforward Pics, Asturiana, Bont TV

2008-02-13T14:18:00.001-05:00

RSC & RSO: The dates for the Roller Sports Ontario Speed Championships and Roller Sports Canada Speed Championships have been announced. Click here for more.

I Love Skating: Very simple words from Aaron Andnt, and how true those words are for many of us, no matter what type of skating we do and no matter what level we do it at; I love skating..

Across America: Click here for Danny Dannels' chronicling of his trek to skate across America- you can get behind him and support him by writing comments in posts like TRANS USA ATTEMPT - ALMOST TO LOUISIANA!!!!!

Cycling A-Z: Every letter, from A to Z, is cleverly written in this article; A cycling widow’s survival guide- a few of these apply to speed skating. I kinda wish I wrote this piece.

Here are some exerpts;

'Holidays. Depending on how serious your cyclist is, you can expect some or all trips away to be related to cycling races or competitions...

L - Legs. Cyclists really like their legs. The whole shaving thing is only partly about practicalities such as smooth skin making for easier wound cleaning and better 'aerodynamics'. It’s also because hairless legs show off the muscles better. The downside is that the night after a hard ride you may find that you’re awakened when those muscular pins start twitching and spasming in protest.

Q - Quarter past five. This, or a similarly inhumane time will be what your alarm clock will be set to so that he can get in a training ride before work. Expect to be woken up at 5.15 every morning (including Christmas day) for the duration of the relationship.

Z - Zebra crossings. These sometimes mark the finish line for impromptu sprint races on training rides. Show some hustle if you’re crossing and see a bunch of guys in Lycra coming towards you'

REL Tip & Interview: Roller En Ligne has an article with tips. The article includes a video of skaters demonstrating drills. See pushing and rolling for more.

Roller En Ligne also posted an interview with Simona Di Eugenio.

Simona Di Eugenio
Rollerblade 2008: Inline Skating Notebook has an article called Rollerblade World Team 200- if you scroll some, you'll uncover interviews with Laura Lardani, Catherine Penan, and Jana Gegner.

Mexico Champs: You can find Mexico National Championships results on Powerslide, Racing, News, Core, Matter- you'll have to scroll down the new section (or use the archive).

Click here for the full results. To find more coverage of the event, check out Patinaje De Velocidad.

Mexican National Championships- photo from Instituto del Deporte del Estado de Yucatán

Mexican National Championships 500-meter final- photo from Instituto del Deporte del Estado de Yucatán
Fastforward Pics: Click here for some photos from kevin osborne of the Fastforward meet.

Asturiana: Mundo Patin posted a report with photos & results of this seasons's first Asturiana league race.

Asturiana league- photo from Mundo Patin

Asturiana league- photo from Mundo Patin

Asturiana league- photo from Mundo Patin
Bont TV: Bont TV has a whole bunch of new videos, a few of them from Bill Begg- BEGGSPORT 10, BEGGSPORT COACHING 10, BEGGSPORT COACHING 8, SPLIT POWER TRANING EXECERSCISE. By SK8_9, BEGGSPORT COACHING 9, JuniorB Girls Elimination, skating the great wall, JuniorB Girls Points, Kids Obsticle Course, Junior A Mens Elimination, Junior A women 15 lap relay, and JuniorA and Mens 21 lap relay.

Italian Videos, Austrian Inline Cup, NROC Page, Salt Lake City ST World Cup Wrap Up, ISU All Round LT Worlds, San Francisco Mantia, Triple Challenge

2008-02-12T11:44:00.000-05:00

Italian Videos: User mauriziolollo from Italy put up four videos of photos on YouTube- 3 of the videos are from the ISU Long Track World Cup in Italy...and you can really see the snow, no wonder they cancelled some of the races! Plus you get to hear some what I think is Italian music- Check them out;
- Essent ISU World Cup Speed Skating Baselga di Pinè #1 of 3
- Circolo Pattinaggio Cappuccini Civitavecchia
- Essent ISU World Cup Speed Skating Baselga di Pinè #2 of 3
- Essent ISU World Cup Speed Skating Baselga di Pinè #3 of 3

Austrian Inline Cup: Check out the Austrian Inline Cup's website.

NROC Page: The National Roller Cup now has a homepage- check it out. You can get all the latest NROC results, news, and calendar.

Salt Lake City ST World Cup Wrap Up: Ohno Zone has a few more links to news and other items about last weekend's ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup. For more, see Day 3 press roundup, Results from SLC, day 3, and Day 3 observations from SusanG.

Apolo Ohno- photo posted on Ohno Zone and from Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning News
ISU All Round LT Worlds: Click here for some WCSN coverage of last weekend's ISU Long Track Speed Skating All Round World Championships from Berlin.

San Francisco Mantia: The word on the message boards is this; Are you doing San Francisco? Joey Mantia is!. You can find the San Francisco Inline Marathon website here.

Triple Challenge: This seems like a pretty cool event taking place in Brooklyn, NY- Triple Challenge (Skate/Bike/Run) - Brooklyn, NY.

TISC Update, Weekend LT Recap, RRC's Weekend Randomness, WIC Rollerblade, NZ On Ice, ASSB's Drug Search & Training, Skate Podium Videos,

2008-02-11T12:45:00.000-05:00

TISC Update: The Toronto Inline Skating Club is looking for a new webmaster. Read more about maintenance, changes, and more changes in Inline Skating Community.

Weekend LT Recap: For all of the recent long track speed skating results, make sure you stop off at SpeedskatingResults.com.

RRC's Weekend Randomness: Road Rash Chronicles' latest entry is caleld Weekend Randomness- you'll be treated to a few photos.

Oh and about Speed Skate World, they write 'I also want to give props to Peter at SpeedSkateWorld. I find myself checking that site daily for pics, videos and articles. I have no idea where he finds the time to coordinate that site but it is sure worth the visit'. I agree, I think you should for sure check out Speed Skate World. Plus, I hear Speed Skate World's president is quite the handsome fella!

'Pain Train start line'- photo & caption from Road Rash Chronicles
WIC Rollerblade: Bill Begg wrote about the 2008 Rollerblade line-up in World Cup Topics for 2008- he says 'It appears as if Rollerblade in an all out quest to get to the top, they have thrown this once known as the family set up right out the door...

After Arnaud Giquel was moved sideways, Alain brought in some young French skaters, Fabien Rabeau, Alexis Contin & Fabian Hascout, but this year,none of the usual French or New Zealand skaters, can be found in the Zug based team...'.

NZ On Ice: In ICE MARATHON NEWS 2007 / 2008, there's a recent post about Wayne Begg and Shane Dobbin; 'The N.Z. winter sports have been monitoring the Progress of Shane Dobbin & Wayne Begg, with the possibility of support from SPARC ( THe Government sports agency ) if the 2010 winter Olympics are a distinct possibility'.

ASSB's Drug Search & Training: Andrew's Speed Skating Blog's latest entry is called Drug Search, Team Training in Wilhelmshaven.

Skate Podium Videos: Here are a few recent videos from the Podium Video Dump; some of the videos are beautiful. Use the links below or press play even more below-
- Ruitenberg op de Weissensee
- Goesting.nl schaatsteam op Lipno
- Clinic Renee Hildebrand
- WEISSENSEE 2008
- Indiaans jongentje stunt op rolschaatsen

LT All Round Worlds, ST World Cup, USARS Inline To Ice, Trans USA Update, More Quebec City ST WC Photos, Spot News, Lots Of Videos, Plenty Of Tips

2008-02-10T18:24:00.000-05:00

LT All Round Worlds: All the results are in; check them out.

Speed Skating World Online Magazine has some coverage of the champs; see Victory ceremony and some more tidbits, The last time... , 10k men (part 2), Ireen Wust, losing champion, 10k men (part 1), 5k ladies, 1500m men, and 1500m ladies.

Speed Skating Canada has posted a few articles; see Kristina Groves wins all around bronze at world speed skating championships and Canada’s Christine Nesbitt in title hunt at speed skating worlds.

I suggest you also venture over to DESGphoto's pictures from Sunday; all distances, 5k ladies, and all other images- I suspect more photos will be uploaded soon.

World All Round LT Champs- photo from DESGphoto
ST World Cup: The ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup came to a conclusion today- see all the final results here.

Andrew Love always puts it best; Short Track Eruption!. I was really hopeing he'd come up with something for this event! He posted a video- check it out- Short Track world cup 500m Salt Lake city, -ERUPTION!. I love his description of the battle between Canada’s Charles Hamelin & Korea’s Si-Bak Sung (see the result)-

Ohno Zone's got some pretty good coverage; see Day 2 press roundup and Results from SLC, day 2.

Click here for the WCSN photo gallery of the event.

USARS Inline To Ice: Looks like USA Roller Sports is putting together an Inline to Ice Transition Camp; 'The purpose of the camp is to introduce or re-introduce inline skaters to both long and short track ice skating'.

Trans USA Update: Danny Dannels is still making his way across America- see his journal here. Here's an update for you; Trans USA Record attempt - report from the crew chief

More Quebec City ST WC Photos: Check out the comment from Ohno Zone posted last week; it has links to a few very nice short track speed skating photo galleries; More Quebec City photos.

Quebec City ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup- photo from Charles-Éric
Spot News: Speedskating-online's latest Spot News was posted a couple of days ago- I love the quotes;

'Some quotes:

Attack the corner
Go do your job!!
Hips, Hips, Hips, Hips, Hips
Skate, skate… come on skate'

Lots Of Videos: If you're looking to find all sorts of skating videos, then you've come to my site at the right time- you can use the links or press play under each linked video- enjoy!

The first video is a short track skating video called A Sticky Situation- it's a perfect name for this video of a few short track skaters who fall, and two of them are, well, stuck together.

This next video is a really good short track speed skating video with all sorts of racing and behind the scences footage- it's well put together- Wide eyed look at a Ponys first Nationals- Go to the Start-

This video is, well, strange- Rollerskating Monkey. I still don't think it's real.

Here's a video from Salt Lake City's ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup- it features Steve Robillard winning his 1000-meter heat- ST World Cup 1000M Heat-

Here's another video from the Salt Lake City ST WC; ST World Cup 1000M Heat Ryan-

Next video is awesome; it is from last weekend's Quebec City ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup- 07/08 6th ISU World Cup Short track (1500m Final A)-

The final video is just plain nuts; I thought it was going to be really really cheezy, but it's just insaine; An autobot on rollerblades. It also look really cool & fun...-

Plenty Of Tips: Looking for advice for your training program? There's always more and more resources popping up on the web.

The latest Inline Planet's Skate Tip Of The Week was written by Dan Burger- he's an animal; I've raced with him many times. See How to Build Your Core Strength.

The Inline Planet's Ask Bill Begg! has a new addition to its expanding library; Kick the Ball and Buying Skates.

Here are a couple of more videos from the Begg Sport Coaching- Specific Offskate Plyometrics (you'll see Nicole Begg demonstrate plyometric exercises) and Technical Position Follow up. You can view the videos below-

Loss of a GT Speed Skater, LT World Champs, ST World Cup, REL Articles, Blogs, World Inline Cup, Inline Planet Survey, Essent GP 2, Inline In The News

2008-02-09T23:35:00.000-05:00

Loss of a GT Speed Skater: From Loss of a GT Speed Skater; 'Scott Storey 24 years old was killed in a head on collision Monday afternoon around 4pm, while riding his motorcycle. He was struck by a 19 year old young man that was driving while doing drugs and ran a stop sign. Scott started skating and competed in 95' with GT Speed in Columbus and in Atlanta. He was still part of our team and practice with us to stay in shape. It is so sad that we now have to add Scott's name to a memorial plate that we have at the skate center for his Dad that passed away in December of 2000. Please take a moment to pray for Scott's young wife and his mother. GT Speed Coaches and 4 other skaters will carry his casket at his Funeral...'.

LT World Champs: The ISU Long Track World Championships are taking place in Berlin, Germany. Day 1 racing is over- see all the results here. Canadians picked up a couple of wins. As predicted, DESGphoto has posted a few albums from Saturday racing- see all distances, 500 men, 500 ladies, 5k men, 3k ladies, other images, and unknown faces.

Ladies' 500-meter podium- photo from DESGphoto

Canada's Steven Elm in the 5k- photo from DESGphoto

World LT Champs- photo from DESGphoto

Crowd at the World LT Champs- photo from DESGphoto

USA's Shani Davis on his way to a 2nd place finish in the 500-meter- photo from DESGphoto
Here are some links to the SSWOM coverage; 500 ladies, 500 men, 3k ladies, 5k men, and What's wrong with the ice?.

Speedskating-online posted an article earlier this week called Clear goal for Denny Morrison at upcoming World All-rounds. And guess what? Denny Morrison won the 500-meter world championship earlier today- see the results.

You should also be able to find some updates on the TVM site; click here for the TVM World Long Track Championships page.

ST World Cup: The ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup will enter its final day of competition tomorrow. Catch up on all the results here- looks like USA ladies came 2nd and 3rd in the 1500m. USA came 3rd and 4th in the men's 1000m and Canada's Charles Hamelin won the 500m.

Here is a Speed Skating Canada article; Hamelin brothers shine in qualifying at short track speed skating World Cup final. Hmm, you know what's funny? One of the Hamelin brothers recruited me in the Pirates vs. Ninjas Facebook game. I'm a ninja. A Speed Skate World ninja.

Flyin Brian has some coverage of the event; see SLC ST World Cup- in the video below, watch the Korean AND listen to the commentary. Hehehe, it's really good stuff!

Here are some Ohno Zone links; Day 1 observations from SusanG, Photos from SLC (if you want to go directly to the album, click here), and Salt Lake City day 1 press roundup.

Salt Lake City ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup- photo from
REL Articles: Roller En Ligne's site was down for a few days. Now it's back online and there's tons of articles and links for you to click through;
- Photos Course indoor Agen 2008- to go straight to the album, click here
- Indoor Agen report
- Indoor Agen video
- Article on Cado Motus 100/110mm frames
- an article with a video about direction of push
- Team X Tech France
- France Senior Gross Gerau team
- AM Wing SP+ 110mm 85A test

Indoor Agen - photo from Roller En Ligne

Roller indoor vitesse Agen 2008
Uploaded by teamrollerenligne

Fiche A1 : roller vitesse : phase de poussée et de roulage
Uploaded by teamrollerenligne

Blogs: Candy Wong is in Florida- she's been putting updates that make me drool; 73km In One Day and In Miami. The food looks way too good. I'm glad I'm not there. Actually, I wish I was there...

Flyin Brian's got an update called Age Group Long Track Nationals 2008 Lake Placid.

Road Rash Chronicles' latest entry is called Speed vs. Strategy.

World Inline Cup: The 2008 World Inline Cup team form and single registration is now online.

Find out what the deal is with the planning of this year's World Inline Cup and Swiss Inline Cup in World Cup Topics for 2008- in a recent post, Bill Begg wrote the bad stuff and also the NOW THE WARM & FUZZIES; 'Well some might think that things have been tough leading into the 2008 season I have to agree. But in spite off that 2008 will be the best contested event ever, In the mens & especially in the womens grade, lets just run the comb through where things are at.

1/ Management changeover, with no real experience in a sport specific Business, always going to be a tough assignment, at the best of times.

2/ Our long term Seoul Korean Sponsor Kia comming to the end of there sponsorship term., unfortunately between the game of Chess with management change arounds, no Focus could go on finding a new sponsor.

3/ With the European football cup in Switzerland, the security issues have made it very Difficult for Iguana to work around, with many date alterations required.

4/ Then we had the ill-advised wisdom of trying at the last minute to change the mens team numbers to 4 instead of 5,
lucky they listened to slow down the groundswell of discontent from many team owners & skaters alike.

5/ Now we only have the problem of a finalized program, as they still strive for possible other Asian events, utilizing the same trip & have to fine tune the Swiss Calender

NOW THE WARM & FUZZIES.

a) More teams than ever, not National back up teams,but real
contendors.

b) Holland & Italy on Board, as new venues a real big factor.

c) Live Internet TV coverage of Europe WIC events with
Podium as a partner.

d) The Best ever Sports Insider Magazine, to show off our
Sport to others.

I believe the best racing ever,lets hope we can slip a few primes in to liven up the action'

Inline Planet Survey: You can help the Inline Planet become a better site by participating in the Inline Planet User Survey.

Essent GP #2: The Essent Grand Prix #2 took place earlier today in Lipno (Tsjechie)- you can find all the results here.

Inline In The News: The website Inline Skating In The News has a couple of new recent link to news articles;
- Cheyenne Chapter of Rocky Mountain Racing Wins 29 Trophies At Wichita Speed Skating Classic
- Speed skating: Denton's Malone looks to finish strong

This Weekend, Long Track World Championships, Short Track World Cup Finale

2008-02-09T00:54:00.000-05:00

This Weekend: Today's update won't be too long; I had a long day at work and I trained hard. Before I head to bed, I'd like to share a few links to events that you may want to keep your eyes on this weekend.

Long Track World Championships: The World Long Track Speed Skating Championships are taking place in Berlin, Germany. You should be able to find all the results here. I hope this next link also works for all of us; live video coverage of the world LT champs.

More good news; you can expect some very nice photos of the competition thanks to the fine folks at DESGphoto. You can probably expect some coverage of the event thanks to Speed Skating World Online Magazine.

Short Track World Cup Finale: The ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup is having its final stop in Salt Lake City- you can find live results here.

Ohno Zone has some pre-event and day 1 coverage- see Salt Lake City, day 1, Pre-World Cup press roundup, Live webcast of Salt Lake City World Cup, and Deseret News.

About the live webcast of the racing action, you should be able to use this link and find the competition you'd like to watch live. This weekend's live races are free to watch.

There's also videos of all sorts of competitions- both long and short track speed skating! Yeahh! There's a fee though, so be prepared to pay if you want to watch the videos on demand.

Simon Pichet's ST World Cup Pics, Equipment News, Team News, Training Tips, Event News, Skater News

2008-02-07T18:49:00.000-05:00

Simon Pichet's ST World Cup Pics: Simon Pichet really knows how to take pictures. Need proof? Check out his pictures from last weekend's ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup.

Quebec ISU ST World Cup- photo from Simon Pichet

Quebec ISU ST World Cup- photo from Simon Pichet
Equipment News: Andrew's Speed Skating Blog has an AM-Wing SP+ Review.

Andrew Hegarty wrote about his thoughs on 110mm wheels in his entry 110. He also talked about some of the recent changes in roller speed skate wheel sizes.

Team News: There's been a whole bunch of discussions about the WIC's decision to limit the number of skaters per team from 5 to 4. It was (wisely) decided to revert back to 5 skaters per men's team and 4 for the women's team- read more in World Cup Topics for 2008. I liked Aaron Arndt's response to this news; in WIC, he writes 'The very fact that this decision was left until 22 days before the team registration deadline is an ebarrassment to me as a skater, but creates a disturbing image of the organizers of the largest and most competitive inline racing series in the world'.

You can check out who is on the Powerslide/ Matter USA's 2008 line-up- see Introducing the 2008 Powerslide USA Racing Team (and special Announcement!). The website can be found here- Powerslide USA.

Zepto Skate Team's site is up an running- you can read about their 2008 line-up, or at least probably recognize some of the names by using this link. If you'd like to read a press release in English, click here.

Check out the TEW Skating Team. Lots to look at here. If you'd like to see the team's blog, click here.

Training Tips: Bill Begg's latest video can be found here on Bont TV. Bill Begg uses a really cool over head shot to describe different phases of the push- you can press play below.

Event News: The Marathon Skate Montreal will take place on May 11th, 2008 on the Gilles Villeneuve Track, site of the 24 Hours Inline Montreal relay.

The French Inline Cup is a series with a very good reputation; good races, good turnouts, good race courses- check out the latest press release that talks about this year's FIC.

The Gros Gerau Criterium is a multi-distance and multi-day event in Germany. This year's race will take place in April on the 25th to the 27th. If you like good skating and promotional videos, make sure you check this one out from GG- you'll see roller and ice skaters like Alain Gloor and Jordan Malone.

Inline-Speedskating der Spitzenklasse in Gross-Ger… - MyVideo
I am curious to see what will come of this; PodiumOrganisatie.com

Skater News: You can read the 2nd part to the Alexis Contin interview here.

Speed Skating Nation has posted an entry a couple of weeks ago frmo Olivier Jean; see Olivier Jean réfléchit sur ce qui est vraiment important.

Olivier Jean in the grey and red at the top-right of the screen (you can see his big hear coming out of his helmet)- he shares his advice here

Check out Martin Matyk's site- he's got a few videos that you may like- POWERSLIDE Team Training and SAT1 17:30 Live! Bericht von Martin Matyk- lots and lots of good shots in this video.

I only found this recently; Ottawa Inline Skating Club's 2007 Award Recipients.

Stephan Tremblay (in red) won the 2007 Outstanding Skater award
Gavin Pollock's site is alive! That means Gavin is alive too. How do I know that? He's got 2 recent entries; Terras do Infante: Lagos, Portugal and My new 110s.

Recent Pics, Recent Results

2008-02-06T20:46:00.000-05:00

Recent Pics: Lots of pictures from the last few days for us to check out-

Let's kick it off with pictures from Calgary- CRISC's pictures from an indoor practice in January.

I know this isn't picutres, but it's close enough; Simon Clement's video from last weekend's Quebec City Samsung ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup- see ISU Quebec World Cup Short track speed skating- I think he really capture the energy of the event in its glory with the noisy crowd cheering on the Canadian skaters when they are introduced. You can hear the crowd, see crashes, hear the announcer, watch some amazing racing, and then you get to hear the pump-me-up song Eye Of The Tiger. As I type this, the video is playing LOUD in another window... I'm going to train..NOW!!- it's true, this is the last thing I typed for today's update.

Click here for photos from the NorthWest Invitational at the Skate Connection in Auburn, WA. When the album loads, click on the pictures you see, and you'll have acess to hundreds and hundreds of really good pictures... mind you they're not all perfect; there's a blurry picture on this page.

NorthWest Invitational- photo from Mark Virtue

NorthWest Invitational- photo from Mark Virtue

NorthWest Invitational- photo from Mark Virtue
Harm de Boer Fotografie came through with some great pictures from last weekend's 200km outdoor marathon in Austria (Alternatieve 11 Stedentocht)- check out women's pictures, men's A pictures, and the TNT press conference.

Women's Alternatieve 11 Stedentocht- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Men's Alternatieve 11 Stedentocht- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Men's Alternatieve 11 Stedentocht- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Skating Sisters has put up a photo album of short track racing in Brugge.

Photo from Skating Sisters
Pattinaggio Bellusco has a few recent photo albums, including pictures of their team, tons of pictures from Roncadelle (A, B, C, D), and 2 albums from the Corsi Di Avviamento (here and here).

Recent Results: Now I will post a some results & reports- mostly from various races that took place this past weekend.
For all sorts of long track results, I suggest you click your way and browse through SpeedSkatingResults.com. For example, I was browsing through a few minutes ago and noticed the Manitoba Olympic Style Championships results. Looks like Randy Plett had quite a weekend with some wins.

The Essent ISU Long Track World Cup took place last weekend in snowy Baselga di Piné, Italy. I don't know if you knew, but you could have checked out live results. Speed Skating Canada has a few reports; Canada fourth in men’s pursuit at speed skating World Cup and Ottawa’s Kristina Groves wins gold medal at speed skating World Cup. Speedskating-online provided some reporting, You can find all the results by clicking here.

The Essent Grand Prix 1 200km took place last weekend on lake Weissensee in Austria. You can find full results here. There is some news and reporting of the race in ICE MARATHON NEWS 2007 / 2008. Skate Podium kindly posted a report; see Lars Hoogenboom de sterkste op de 200.

If you'd like to find some results from the Argentina National Championships, click here- you'll either have to scroll down or use the archives (if they have some).

Click here for a report on this past weekend's Terras do Infante 2008 from Spain.

Aaron Arndt reported on last weekend's RSO Indoor Speed Series race in The Weakerthans. He says ' think the highlight had to be the crowd during Marco Frusteri’s races. There was a great energy, and I have to say thanks to the crowd for the energy. That was truly great'.

Traffic Explosion, Quebec ISU ST World Cup Wrap-Up, Stories From The Past Few Days

2008-02-05T22:45:00.000-05:00

Traffic Explosion: Ever since I first started Peter's Inline Racing Web Page, reborn last year under the more flexible name Speed Skate World, I've watched my webstats grow hit by hit. First it was 2 or 3 visitors per week, then for a few years, 10 people per day. In the last few months, there's been some 260 people visiting my site on a daily basis...

...and then this; Photos from Quebec City on Ohno Zone; that single entry on Ohno Zone has generated a huge peak of visits, numbers that to me are out of this world- see my webstats here.

You know, every time I speak with short track speed skaters, supporters, and fans about the internet, Ohno Zone usually comes up. Everyone who mentions Ohno Zone do so with such respect & admiration for the site and they attribute a great deal of importance to the website.

If you're visiting my site for the first time, welcome to Speed Skate World- in the house, wooooo!!

Quebec ISU ST World Cup Wrap-Up: Want the results but can't find them? Don't worry, click here.

Ok, now that we solved the results problem, I'll send you off towards the Speed Skating Canada articles; check out Great Canadian Medal Harvest in Québec, Roberge Covered in Gold at Home, Bastille and Hamelin Win Bronze, and Canadian Skaters Break the Ice With Strenght at the Pavillon de la Jeunesse.

Here's a message board with photos; Got Apolo - Apolo Anton Ohno Fansite - Quebec - World Cup 5, Feb 1-3.

I though my pictures of the weekend were good... here's a photo from a 1000-meter semi-final- photo from David Boily/AFP/Getty Images

Men's 5000-meter relay A-final- photo from David Boily/AFP/Getty Images
hs1206 - 2007-2008 제5차 쇼트트랙 월드컵대회 2일- lots of pictures in this link, and the pictures are very good. I wonder if these characters come up as jibberish or if they come up as the real thing.

Kalyna Roberge leads the women's 1000-meter (#1) racing- photo from
You'll be able to find commentary and repoting from Short Track Australia.

I hope you get to these photos fast enough before they're taken down; David Boily, AFP, Getty Images photos posted in Yahoo Olympic Photos.

Stories From The Past Few Days: As much as the Speed Skate World lens was focused on the ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup, the great world of speed skating kept turning.

Many stories and interesting blog entries were published during the last few days- here are a few for you;

Charlie Whalig passed away as 2007 was coming to a close- Lenny linked up to a nice article in In Memory of Charles Wahlig, please read- you can find the article here; In Memory of Charles WAHLIG- 'Charlie garnered many laurels, first as an athlete and then as a coach in speed and artistic roller skating. Later, he and his wife Connie created their family livelihood from the development, ownership and successful management of roller skating rinks. At the same time, Charlie dedicated substantial amounts of time and talent to the management of programs in his roller sport federation, where he was often the one person who was most uniquely qualified to deal with the challenge. He always found it difficult to say no to any request for help that originated from his sport'.

6088km's- that's a long way to go; New Guinness Record Set for Longest Skate Trek.

'Khoo Swee Chiow arrives at finish line after 93 days of skating through Southeast Asia'- photo & caption posted on the Inline Planet
Here's an article that I like- Growing the Sport- take a look at the link; sharing. Jim White writes 'Sharing your love of skating is the key to growing the sport. It brings in new skaters, it helps events flourish, and it's a great way to make new friends'.

Here's a cool post with some history from Bont's Forum; Bont Boot History.... AccXess writes 'Boots at that time were mostly soccer boots or football boots modified and barely suitable for the task, there were some Italian boots imported but price excluded most from that option and an Australian company in melb using traditional shoe making methods which were just woeful in the wet as they fell apart so quickly. Highly unsuitable we persisted with those options for many a long year because of lack of alternatives'.

Team Levallois Sporting Club Roller Elite published an article with Alexis Contin. It's in French- I can read French so I can read it. I hope you can as wel; Interview Alexis Contin: 'je ne me donne pas de limite!' (1ère partie).

It's always interesting to read other people's thoughts on their equipment; check out MY NEW VERDUCCI CUSTOM BOOTS!.

Andrew Love's website; Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating- check out his entry Right Now in Lake Placid-. His recent entry that I like though is the ground hog dog one; see Groundhog Day??.

'Lilly has just started blowing out her winter coat, Jess doubled this pile by the time she was done brushing the dog. Note the fur flying through the air in the photo & the cat messing around in it. So it’s official; Lilly predicts an early spring this year! Cyclists & Inliners rejoice!'- photo & caption from Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating
Danny Dannels is continuing his trek across America. He is chronicling his incredible journey here. I found this entry interesting... no, painful; Texas Highway 158. He does need help to get from one side of America to the other- see CAN YOU SPARE A MEAL FOR DANNY??.

Road Rash Chronicles has a couple of entrie you may enjoy checking out; see You gotta see this. (there's a video of a nice little crash in this one), If I have to do one more crossover....., and Toronto's Bipolar Sessions- this one is an interesting comparaison of various blogs.

Listen for the smack in the video from You gotta see this.-

Candy Wong has quite a few recent entries that I enjoyed reading; A Race And A Trip, Looking At The Bright Side, and A Fantastic Practice Before My Mid-Off-Season Break.

Ok, I'm pooped- I had fun training today and it was a loooooong day at work. I had a conference call and now I just finished eating my delicious stir fry and fruit smoothie; my site's updated and now I'm hopefully going to talk to my girlfriend for a few minutes when she comes back home from the gym, and them, it's off to bed- dream land. There's lots to do tomorrow; work, training, and lots of more news to share here- G'nite everyone.

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Videos Again

2008-02-04T18:33:00.000-05:00

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Videos Again: Just in case my photos on this site show up as a white box with a red X, right click on the X and click show picture.

Ok, here are my videos (once again) from this past weekend's ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup from Quebec City- use the links below or press play-

- Saturday- driving, crowd shots, 1000-meters (#1), 1500-meters, relay semi-finals, & awards
- Sunday- training in Ste Foy, 1000-meters (#2), 500-meters
- Sunday- relay finals & podium footage

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- 2 More Videos

2008-02-04T17:12:00.000-05:00

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- 2 More Videos: Hello there Speed Skate World fans. For some of you, this is your first time browsing around my website. Don't worry, it's been around for about 9 years, and it'll probably be around for a while.

Just like a couple of weeks ago, I am 'sitting' on a plethora of links, photos, results, and gossip from many speed skating disciplines; from roller indoor to long track ice, it'll all be unleashed later this week. My priorities remain with work, training, my girlfriend, and keeping my cats from killing each other...

...I'm pretty sure you've come here to see my videos from this weekend's ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup- well you're in luck; I just finished editing my videos and uploading them on to Bont TV. The website You Tube seems to be in a bad mood right now, so the videos will go up there later.

You can use the links below to access my kick-ass videos;
- Saturday- 1000's (#1) and 1500's (posted yesterday)
- Sunday- 500's & 1000's (#2)
- Sunday- relay finals

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Saturday Video

2008-02-04T00:53:00.000-05:00

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Saturday Video: I put my Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track Speed Skating video on Bont TV- check it out here. I think it plays automatically on this page... I can't figure out how to make it not start playing when you go to SSW.

You'll get to see action from 1000-meters, 1500-meters, and relays as well as my perilous drive. Enjoy :)

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Sunday

2008-02-04T00:15:00.000-05:00

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Sunday: I finished the video from yesterday's racing at the Quebec City ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup. The video is not wanting to be uploaded, so I'll try tomorrow.

If you'd like to see Sunday pictures (317 of them), then click here (currently uploading)- today's distances include 1000-meters (#2), 500's, and relay finals. You can sift through the results and times here.

2008-02-03 Quebec ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup Sunday 317 photos (currently uploading)

I spent the early part of Sunday morning at the 400-meter oval in Ste-Foy. There is so much snow right now in Quebec City. I stayed at Martine Charbonneau's plac. The snow was piled up to the 2nd floor- notice the snow burried pine trees in this photo?

The outside of the arena- a brand new facility

Apolo Ohno in front of Steve Robillard in a 1000-meter semi final

On the line for women's 500's- Australia's Tatiana Borodulina came close to moving on to the final

These big lenses help the photographers take great shots

TV's and computers and all sorts of equipment were in good use for this competition

View from up in the crowd

China, Korea, Korea, China- women's 1000-meter A final

This was Canada's Guillaume Bastille first world cup event and he came home with a pccket full of medals- here he's being interviewed

Poland skaters ready for the women's relay B final

Outside of the arena

Looking out on some of Quebec City's skyline

Crowd shot with Steve Robillard somewhere in there

Women's relay B final- Russia out in front

Women's relay A final

Men's relay B final

Men's relay A final skaters watching the B final

Men's relay A final

Men's relay A final

Women's 500-meter podium- 1st- Meng Wang (China), 2nd- Kalyna Roberge (Canada), 3rd- Nannan Zhao (China)- Meng Wang skated to a women's 500-meter world record in a time of 43.286

Women's relay podium- 1st- China, 2nd- Canada, 3rd- Bulgaria

The China's gold medal women's relay team

Men's relay podium- 1st- Korea, 2nd- USA, 3rd- Canada

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Saturday

2008-02-02T21:10:00.000-05:00

Quebec ISU Samsung World Cup Short Track- Saturday: A mixture of a lots of snow, a lot of very fast short track speed skaters from all over the world, a beautiful city that lines the bank of the St-Lawrence River, and an energetic crowd can only mean one things; you're in Quebec City at the ISU Samsung Short Track World Cup.

If results is what you seek, this is the place I send you.

If my pictures are what you would like to view, then use this link to view all 333 photos. I have lots and lots of video footage to sift through. I ask you to please be patient- I'll put up it up. Between spending a few hours tonight putting the video together or hanging out in 'old' Quebec on a Saturday night, my choice is very simple to make... don't worry, I still love SSW.

I hope you enjoy my photos. I should have plenty of shots and video of the 1000 (#2 of 2), 500's, and relay finals tomorrow.

2008-02-02 Quebec ISU Samsung Short Track Speed Skating World Cup 333 Photos

Driving through 800km's of snow storm was a nightmare. Between slamming into ice boulders that flew from transport trucks thereby ripping some of my car's underbody, and getting lost in complicated Quebec, I made it to the rink in time to pick up my media accreditation and catch semi finals (and finals) of the 1000's (#1 of 2) and 1500's as well as the relay semi finals

Kalyna Roberge is fast- she won the 1000-meter A final

Korean flags in the crowd- there were many flags waving about

Women's 1500-meter A final

Men's 1500-meter B final

Men's 1500-meter A final led by Steve Robillard and France's Maxime Chataignier tucked in 2nd (NOTE- both these guys were on the same team at the Montreal 24 hours)

Kalyna Roberge up front

A packed house was on hand to catch the action. After the day's racing was completed, I noticed that some athletes waited outside the arena for their rides to their hotel. Mixed along with the athletes was the crowd, leaving for their homes. The parking lot was jammed, it took about 10-minutes to exit the parking lot. I heard that all the teams are staying at the Delta in 'old' Quebec- it has an outdoor heated pool, buffets, etc

Ready to start...men's 1000-meter A final

Men's 1000-meter A final

A cool looking Zamboni

Women's relay semi-final #1

Men's relays semi-final #1- Apolo Ohno tucked in 3rd place

Men's relay final #2

Men's relay final #2

Photographers on hand to document the event

Men's 1500-meter podium- 1st- Ho-Suk Lee (Korea), 2nd- Seung-Hoon Lee (Korea), 3rd- Charles Hamelon (Canada)

Women's 1000-meter podium- 1st- Kalyna Roberge (Canada), 2nd- Evgenia Radanova (Bulgaria), 3rd- Seung-Hi Park (Korea)

Samsung ISU Short Tack World Cup, Roller Sports Canada, Palm Beach Challenge & Miami Marathon Pics, ST America Cup #3, Seoul WIC, Weissensee

2008-02-01T13:11:00.000-05:00

Samsung ISU Short Tack World Cup: The Samsung ISU Short Tack World Cup is currently under way in Quebec City- click here for live results. I'll be reporting from Quebec City tomorrow and Sunday.

Roller Sports Canada: Roller Sports Canada's website is now seeing some regular updates. You can read some interesting comments about Design Canada!.

Palm Beach Challenge & Miami Marathon Pics: Digital Pixel Photography is the source for many very nice photos from the Palm Beach Challenge Invitational (Friday night relay photos, Saturday indoor photos), banked track racing photos at Brian Picolo track, Miami International Marathon & Half Marathon photos, and Monday road events photos.

I really like the following pictures; this one, this one, this one, this one (indoor), this one (outdoor), this one (outdoor from inside the track), this one (looks like Cheek & Mantian lying down), this one (outdoor start line), this one (Vogel & Cheek), this one (men on track- photo from inside), this one (indoor men), this one (little people), this one's really good, this is a cool indoor pic, a very nice outdoor shot, this one (indoor), and finally this indoor pic.

ST America Cup #3: The 2008 American Cup III took place in Ohio last weekend. Check out the results; points standings results, time classifications results, and class standings results. You can find a condensed version of results thanks to Ohno Zone.

Seoul WIC: Here are a couple of more resources for you to go through about Seoul's World Inline Cup cancelation- Patin Carrera in Spanish and Roller En Ligne en Francais.

Weissensee: More reporting from the ice racing on Lake Weissensee in Austria- Skate Podium posted some live udpates yesterday; see Live verslag criterium Weissensee.

You can find photos from the most recent racing thanks to Harm de Boer Fotografie; see the album 2008-01-31 Weissensee 3e criterium.

Weissensee 3rd criterium- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
There are a couple of Weissensee videos floating around out there- I can't believe some of the shots taken from far away- the skaters look like ants going from one side to the other and back- see 1. Tourtocht - 25.01.2008 / 07.00 Uhr and 1.Tourtocht 25.01.2008 Nachmittag- you can press play below.

Snow Day!!

2008-02-01T06:20:00.000-05:00

Snow Day!!: I stayed up late last night... or I should say this morning and I woke up very early this morning, looking outside my kitchen window and waiting impatiently for the white gold to start flowing from the skies.

At 4:30am, a jackpot of snow started raining down- and along with the snow, there came a flurry of school closures; the Peel District School Board- which I work for- decided to close the schools!!

That was an extremely wise decision.

Each school in the school board I work for puts together a list of staff phone numbers in the event that schools are closed. Each person on the list is responsile for calling another person on the list. Teachers, adminsitrators, and secretaries use the list to call each other when the school closure is officially official.

The person who just called me about 30 seconds ago said they were disappointed to be letting me know that the school is closed. She didn't sound very sincere though. Once I received that call, I was responsible for calling one of our fabulous secretaries. She was already awake, waiting for my call when I phoned her. She said that I am now her favourite person.

Snow daaaaayyy!!

Snow starts to fall outside of my house. I'll be shoveling this in a few hours when I re-wake up
Don't get me wrong; I love my job. The students, teachers, administrators, and parents are amazing, but we're rarely treated to a snow day. We all know that we will see each other again next week.

It's funny because as I write this, CP24 is reporting that they have a ton of cancelations coming in, hehehe. They report 'Godzilla'-Like Storm Expected To Stomp GTA With Heavy Snow'.

I wonder many students and teachers are very very excited at this very moment. I know at least one- ME!

I will be driving 800km's later today through the snowstorm to Montreal and beyond. I expect it that drive to be no fun at all. Or maybe it will be. I'll listen to audio books and tons of music.

As long as I make it safe to Quebec City, I'll be covering the ISU Short Track World Cup. Racing action begins today, and you can find all the live results here.

So what does all of this mean for Speed Skate World and why am I sharing this new with you?

You see, I work 80% of a full time teaching job making 80% salary. Of my school's 5-day cycle, I have day 5 off. Thanks to today's snow day and school closure, day 5 is now pushed to Monday which means I won't be working on Monday.

Thanks to this, I can drive home on Monday instead of late Sunday night. I'll be able to relax, work on my videos & photos from Quebec, work on my website, and train.

Rather than being sleep deprived at work on Monday and then having a jam-packed week where I neglect Speed Skate World (because my training takes priority), I can chill in Montreal and keep things in order. I'll take the opportunity to post all the videos and photos and stories from the ISU Short Track World Cup on Monday.

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

2008-01-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-30T22:20:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-29T12:35:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-27T23:03:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-26T22:49:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-25T14:23:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-24T17:23:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-23T20:21:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-22T02:50:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-20T19:21:00.000-05:00

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

Canadian Short Track Team Trials- Day 2- 500's

2008-01-20T02:41:00.000-05:00

Canadian Short Track Team Trials- Day 2- 500's: I'm in Montreal right now. I was lucky enough to watch the hot short track action today at Maurice Richard Arena- Canadian short track speed skaters were trying to qualify for the national team. I was told that the rankings for the national team will consist of 30% points from the last trials in Calgary and 70% of the points from this weekend's trials.

The 1500-meter distance took place yesterday. Today's racing action featured 500-meter races, and the 1000-meter races will take place tomorrow. Speed Skating Canada has a couple of articles; Without Surprise, Roberge and Hamelin Win the 500m at the Canadian Open Championships and Kalyna Roberge and Marc-André Monette Crowned Canadian Champions in the 1500m.

You can find additional coverage thanks to Ohno Zone- check out Canadian trials results, day 2 and Canadian trials results, day 1.

Charles Hamelin- photo from Ohno Zone
There are tons and tons of other skating news items that I want to link up to and I've got a ton of video which will make a super good presentation once I have time to put it all together. I'll link up to all sorts of articles, results, and photos from other competitions that are taking place this weekend later. Until the next update, enjoy the pictures I took.

2008-01-19 Montreal Canadian Short Track Speed Skating Team Trials- 104 photos

And the girls are ready to start

500-meters

Steve Robillard (in 3rd) make an amazing pass a couple of laps after I took this picture- and he qualified for the semi-final and eventually made his way to a 4th place finish in the A final

Mathieu Turcotte went down in one of his 500's

Cori Rasmussen leading one of his 500's

500-meter

Pete Dykstra was amongst the fans and supporters taking in the racing action

Olivier Jean and I- he's back skating after a nasty fall last August where his blade ended up cutting through his heel to the bone... eek

I played a game of FRENCH scrabble vs Brian Jalbert and his partner Maude as well as Morgane Echardour- they all thought that my 'inferior' Ontario-French would keep me from being a threat in the game, but I am please to report that I easily won the game!

What's Up This Weekend, Ahn Is Out, CBC & ISU, Swiss News, Blog News (Andrew Kraft, RRC Responses, AA's Crazy Pills), Dump Video

2008-01-18T14:57:00.000-05:00

What's Up This Weekend: It looks like this weekend's gonna be really busy- and that's good because you'll have plenty of material to dig up- or if you have very limited time, it can be a bad thing because you'll feel overwhelmed by all the information that's available at a click of a mouse.

The long track world sprint championships are on- this weekend- in the Netherland in Heerenveen. I'm assuming that KNSB will be posting some results & more, and I am pretty sure that SpeedSkatingResults.com will be posting results. You can find lots more on the world sprint speed skating championships site.

The European short track championships are taking place in Latvia. You can find all the results here and you can click around ShorttrackOnLine.info for things like photos and results.

European short track championships day 1 action- photo from ShorttrackOnLine.info
The next event that we're treated to is the KNSB Cup finale in Alkmaar.

Another event taking place this weekend is the Canadian short track trials- click Canadian trials for more. Make sure you come back to my site on Saturday evening or night for a bit of a surprise hehehe.

Ahn Is Out: Ohno Zone is reporting that Korea's Ahn Hyun-soo injured his left knee- read Ahn is out for the season for more.

CBC & ISU: Canada's national television network, the CBC, has signed a broadcast deal- read more in CBC, International Skating Union sign broadcast deal- 'Other highlights of the broadcast deal include coverage of a 2008 short-track speedskating World Cup event and the 2009 ISU world long-track speedskating championships'.

Swiss News: Patin Carrera has posted a report with results about the Embrach Swiss Indoors. See Nicolas Iten revalidó su título en el Swiss Indoor de Embrach- as you can tell by the title, it's written in Spanish.

Blog News (Andrew Kraft, RRC Responses, AA's Crazy Pills): The first blog that I'll direct you today is Andrew's Speed Skating Blog- there are a few items that could interest you, including recent posts about the GBC titled The Stadler Racing Team(s), What is with Zepto? and Subaru Comes Back with Romani for the GBC, Skate-TV and AM-Wing's New Hub!.

Check out the response to Road Rash Chronicles' entry Things I want to know but am afraid to ask.....

I liked reading Aaron Arndt's entry called *Crazy Pills.- he talks about WIC teams and bigger wheels. About the WIC, he says 'The international scene, meanwhile, is absolutely ablaze. I almost never post links, and even less often skating links, but people, you have to follow the events of this link: Bont Message Board: World Cup Topics for 2008 This is the sport. This year’s WIC off-season has been utter chaos, with teams folding, new ones created, and athletes switching teams, signing and not signing, and a relentless supply of floating rumours'.

Dump Video: Not, it's not one of my regular typos; Skate Podium has a Podium TV Dump section. The latest video called Nieuw talent bij KNSB Oost is, well, interesting.

Love's Blue Demon Vs Wind, Portland, Miami, Powerslide Training Vibrating Thing, Trans-US, NROC News, Laser Scan Questions, Dog's Bark Into Words

2008-01-18T00:08:00.000-05:00

Love's Blue Demon Vs Wind: Andrew Love's Blue Demon vs Wind tells a great story of two mythic characters who battle on ice. A must read.

'They raced and raced, and finally ended up in hand-to-hand combat. A total contest of willpower vs windpower, muscle vs nature'- photo and caption from Andrew Love
Portland: One of my friends sent me a message; he said 'pete, are you going to portland? or just to bort land, where you get bort ( a rare type of fish excrement) shoved up your nose by the locals every 4 to 6 hours'. I hope I don't get bort!

So this is my silly way of once again plugging the Big Rideau lake Speed Skating Marathon which is taking place on January 26th

Miami: Here's a plug for the Miami International Inline Marathon taking place on January 21st- check out the event's MySpace page.

Powerslide Training Vibrating Thing: I don't know how to describe the Zeptor Training - Powerslide Team video. There's a machine that you stand on, and it vibrates, and you do skating technique on it-

Since I now have the site focused on Powerslide, check out the Kalon Dobbin Interview- you may have to scroll down or search in the archives if you're using the link a few days or weeks from today. Here's a bit of what you'll get;

'PS: You got injured last year at Worlds. How is your leg coming along?

Yes I pulled my groin muscle at the World Championships in Colombia and I have been fighting to get my body right for the past 5 months. After getting my leg better I had started training again for 1 week and found that I need surgery for a hernia, 3 weeks after my surgery I was able to race my national championships and win a few national titles so I was very pleased. I am back into full time training now and very happy about it, you never know how much you will miss skating until you can’t do it so now I am training very hard for this coming year'.

Trans-US Skate: Check out the Danny, Trans-US Skate thread for pictures of Danny Daniels who is continuing with his quest to skate from one side of the USA to the other side of the USA.

NROC News: After yesterday's unveiling of the NRCO logo, we are finding out that Badger State Marathon Joins NROC.

Laser Scan Questions: If you're a skating information junkie, you'll defenitely want to check out the Q&A in Laser-scan technology- Alex Bont answers one of the questions saying 'This has been the hardest area to perfect. What we did was scan hundreds of plaster feet before and after Inze Bont sanded them to see how much plaster he sands off, and where he sands it. We then created a computer program that takes off the same amount of material that Inze would sand. The virtual Inze doesn't get tired or complain of a sore back like the real Inze hahaha. I had been working on this program for 8 years before we got the scanners, but the scanner price was previously too high'.

Dog's Bark Into Words: This is really really really cool; a new computer program can apparantly translate a dog's bark into words. See the video here. I think that if a dog could talk to me, it would say something like 'stop taking freaking pictures of me'.

Across America, Big Rideau, Subaru Bont & WIC News, NROC's Logo, SI- Sins Of A Father, Ottawa's Floor, Montreal 24 Hrs, 1,3 Heuvel..., Munoz Interview

2008-01-16T22:05:00.000-05:00

Across America: Danny Daniels' quest to skate across America continues- read his latest entry called The desert and the mountains. What a unique experience that we get to read about; he writes 'The desert is beautiful and harsh. It is elegant and unforgiving. Even the wildlife here seems to barely hold on to life. Proud and majestic cactii loom next to it's withering brethren. Mesquite trees dot the landscape with their thorny arms as if waving in defiance of the infernal sun.

I made my way up the mountain as I battled with my fatigued limbs. There must be a mining operation nearby, as giant earth movers were being shipped with the aid of local sherriffs and highway patrol. Those officers repeatedly caught us and asked us to move to the side for 10-15 minutes at a time as massive loads of equipment and parts crawled up the road'.

Big Rideau: The 5th International Big Rideau lake Speed Skating Marathon is taking place on January 26th in Portland, Ontario. Click here for more information. Here is my video from last year's event-

Subaru Bont & WIC News: Check out team Subaru Bont- they got a pretty sweet looking suit. Their 2008 line up includes Pier Davide Romani, Mauro Casu, Nicolla Canella, Tobias Beute, and Simon Strobel.

Check out World Cup Topics for 2008 because there's been more posts with lots of information that might interest you. You might also be interseted in checkout out Matter Inline Center's team- see Matter Inline Center World Team 2008 or read the original release here.

There has been recent interesting daily facts posted on Matter Inline Center's site-

Toronto Inline Skating Club's co-founders, Jocelyn Sicotte and Laurie LaFrance, competed in this championship on inlines

Aaron Arndt competed in this one (1996 jr worlds) and just missed out on winning a medal after getting pulled back near the end of a race. Four years later in the same city that Aaron competed, Steve Robillard almost won a medal at the 2000 world junior championships in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, placing 4th in the marathon (some of the medalists received 'relay' pushes
NROC's Logo: NROC's Logo has been unveiled- looks good.

SI- Sins Of A Father: SI.com has published an article called Sins of a Father. It talks about Corey Gahan story and situation- the article opens with these words; 'The kid hated needles. But it hardly mattered. About once a week he'd roll up his sleeve, expose his shoulder and feel the cold metal plunge into what little muscle he had there. He would scrunch up his face as if he had smelled something foul and often close his eyes until the contents of the syringe emptied into his bloodstream. Then he could return to his PlayStation 2'.

Ottawa's Floor: Aaron Arndt talks about Ottawa's indoor floor in Ottawa Practice. He says 'Basically, there is very little glide, and it is tough to just hold your speed, but it is grippy enough to skate reasonably fast. I think the most immediate impact is that it is really hard to hold pace. I also think that it has later concequences on your techinque; that it will inevitably cause one to have an elevated stride rate, and will likely cause one to push back too much...'.

There is a response to Aaron's entry on Road Rash Chronicles- see The Results are Flooring!.

And FYI, RRC has also posted another good entry, this one called Things I want to know but am afraid to ask.....

Montreal 24 Hours: Skatelog's thread Sign Up Now for Team Skatelog 2008 (Montreal 24 Hour) has some not encouraging news for the Montreal 24 Hours, which recently started taking registrations- the latest post by says 'Instead of 3 teams from the Toronto area like last year, there may only be 1 team

Reasons being - date change... Duluth a week later, weather... 3 teams to a paddock'.

1,3 Heuvel...: Training & News' latest entry called 1,3 heuvel...; there you can see pictures of Answer Wheels.

Munoz Interview: Click here for an interview with Andres Felipe Munoz.

Vote For Design Canada, Olympic News, RRC's Almost 1st Year, REL- 110mm & Edges, Blogs News (Arndt, Dream Chaser, Zen, Slembrouck), World Jr Vids,

2008-01-15T20:41:00.000-05:00

Vote For Design Canada: Roller Sports Canada and Il Peloton's 'Design Canada' competition features 22 submissions for costumes that you can vote for. There are plenty of sharp looking costumes, and after much thought, I voted for entry #12. Click here for all the information.

Road Rash Chronicles has put up an entry reguarding the voting; see Voting - Random Thought and GET VOTING PEOPLE!!.

Olympic News: This is interesting to say the least; [Olympic Movement] - Tell the Olympics to Add Inline Skating. Robert Burson writes 'The process of adding a comment is rather lengthy, so be patient. First you have to register; then you have to provide some personal information. Finally, you are allowed to post comments on two subjects'.

RRC's Almost 1st Year: I really like this entry on Road Rash Chronicles; My First Year (almost) of Skating - Lessons Learned. Some of the ones that I liked or I thought are important or make you think include the following;

'5. Even Clubs have class systems, politics and history. You will never know the full story so don't try to.

19. You will find yourself Google'ing: Double Push, Pressure Points, Heat Molding, Il Peloton, Semi Race, OISC, Dryland exercises, road rash, Speed Skate World, Eddy Metzger, Bont...etc.

22. Your need for a camel back water pack will diminish over time.

26. You will inevitably shave your legs.'

REL- 110mm & Edges: Roller En Ligne has a couple of articles that may be of interest to you; read this article if you'd like to be a tester of 110mm material. Check out this article that talks about edges.

Blogs News (Arndt, Dream Chaser, Zen, Slembrouck): According to Aaron Arndt's latest entry One step closer to (the) everything (drill)., he will be going to Ottawa again this weekend- he says '...and I am driving a dog back with me...'. I wish I could drive a dog with me. I like dogs.

I also like Aaron's description of what's taking place at the Scooter's Indoor Speed Club practice; '...during one of the two sets of relays (10mins @1lap exchanges in teams of 3, and a short Pyramid 3×1,1×2,1×3,1×2,3×1); Jacky and Eric Maas both put in vying bids for the 'pass of the night'... I still can’t decide between the two, with Eric’s being a butter smooth third to first, and Jacky’s being some sort of kamikaze 'I can’t believe he made that' kind of thing'.

Candy Wong wrote about in Winter Is Back With A Vengeance where she talks about an outdoor skate and indoor practice. She posted again today- see Better, Just Slightly. You can find some of her photos from the outdoor skate here.

Skating at Hamilton Beach- photo from Candy Wong
Andrew Love's blog Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating has a new entry called Pictures from Mexico- I love the picture of the moth on the skate. It's pretty darn big!!

'Speaking of games, during an evening practice session, a mystery speedskater swept onto the ice, in a Bont T-Shirt and traditional Mexican wrestling mask. He circled the rink daring anyone to take him on- Luckily, Olympic gold medalist Derek Parra was up to the challenge, the match was on!'- caption and photo from Zen And The Art Of Speed Skating
Martin Slembrouck's Blog has a few entries that I've been meaning to put up for the last few days- see Junior World Championships: video’s, Foto’s Speculaascup Hasselt, Junior World Championships 2008, and Speculaascup Hasselt.

World Jr Vids: Here is a selection of videos from this past weekend's World Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships- World Junior Champion Short Track Bolzano 11-13/01/08, World Junior Champion Short Track Bolzano 11-13/01/08, World Junior Champion Short Track Bolzano 11-13/01/08, and World Junior Champion Short Track Bolzano 11-13/01/08... use the links on the right for more.

2008 Worlds Track, Tampa Classic, LT Vids, KNSB Pics, Bont's Laser Technology, Across America, Kalon Dobbin, Sander De Graaff In Florida, Swiss Indoor

2008-01-14T20:26:00.000-05:00

2008 Worlds Track: Click here to view photos from the track that will be used in the 2008 World Roller Speed Skating Championships in Spain. I found the link in the thread 2008 Worlds Moreda track. Xuacu writes 'They're good if you like to see dust, concrete and machinery'.

Tampa Classic: The Tampa Classic is taking place in March. Patin Carrera has built a page with all sorts of information. There's a whole bunch of noise and typing in the Tampa Classic Updates thread.

LT Vids: Here are a couple of videos from yesterday in case you missed them or they didn't work; men's A powerplay marathon and women's powerplay marathon-

KNSB Pics: You can find photo from this weekend's KNSB #13 race thanks to Harm de Boer Fotografie; check out men's B photos, women's photos, and men's A photos.

Women's sprint- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Nefit's Arjan Smit in the lead in the men's A- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Bont's Laser Technology: This is worth checking out; Laser-scan technology.

Gavin Pollock's head was well scanned at the 2007 world champs in Colombia- photo from Gavin Pollock
Across America: Danny Daniels is continuing his trek across America- his latest two entries include Successes and Near Catastrophies and Leaving Tucson.

Kalon Dobbin: How about these two articles and posts about Kalon Dobbin; Kalon Dobbin komt met superteam (I think that means Kalon Dobbin is on a super team) and Hot Ice Times Dobbin .

Sander De Graaff In Florida: Sander de Graaff zoekt heil in Florida; I love how a part of this article translates from Dutch to English when I used Babel Fish Translation; 'A strange duck in the bijt... He travels 9 February to Florida, to train worldly most famous coach there to two months at s'. Hmmm.

Swiss Indoor: The thread Swiss indoor Masters talks about, well, the Swiss Indoor Masters.

Aaron In Ottawa, Roller Derby & Gillian Clarke On CBC, KNSC #13 Vids, Euro LT, More LT Results, World Jr ST, Road Rash Joins NROC, Blog News, ING SSC

2008-01-13T22:01:00.000-05:00

Aaron In Ottawa: Aaron Arndt made a trip from Brampton to Ottawa to skate with the Ottawa skaters- here are his thought before the practice- In Ottawa- you can read about the practice in Road Rash Chronicles' entry called Back to the grind..

Aaron Arndt leading the way- photo from Road Rash Chronicles
Roller Derby & Gillian Clarke On CBC: Gillian 'G-Force' Clarke and the Roller Derby team, Chicks Ahoy, which she plays for were featured on CBC News Sunday last weekend.

'Can Chicks Ahoy beat the Gore Gore Roller Girls? With roller derby making a comeback, we take you to the championship of North America's biggest league'- photo and caption from CBC
KNSC #13 Vids: You can find videos of this weekend's KNSB #13- click here for the women's video and click here for the men's video. Here's the link to the women's Powerplay.nl marathon race. You can also use the controls below-

Euro LT: Speed Skating World Online Magazine has some reports from the European long track championships- celebration, 10k men, 5k women, 1500m men, and 1500m women.

Click here to find results and you can dig around this special KNSB site for photos, stories, and results.

Women's 1500-meter podium- photo from KNSB

Havard Bokko (Norway) and Sven Kramer (Netherlands) finished 1-2 in the 10k- photo from KNSB
More LT Results: Here are a few more long track results from this past weekend;
-American Cup 3
-North America and Oceania Regional Qualifier 2008
-Swiss Junior Allround Championship
-Japanese Junior Allround Championships
-Japanese Junior Sprint Championships

Here is another link to the results from the North America and Oceania Regional Qualifier 2008; click here.

World Jr ST: Speed Skating Canada has a few articles about the junior short track world championships- see Blais-Dufour and St-Gelais win medals at short track speed skating world juniors, Three top-six Canadian finishes in 1,500 finals at short track speed skating world juniors, and Canada concludes short track world juniors with two more medals.

You can also find coverage on Ohno Zone- check out Junior World Short Track Championships, day 1, Junior World Short Track Championships, day 2, and Junior World Short Track Championships, day 3.

You can find all the results that you want to find by clicking right here.
Road Rash Joins NROC: The Texas Road Rash has joined the National Roller Cup- see The Texas Road Rash Joins NROC for more.

Blog News: Here are a few blog items of interest;

Sigrid Ziegler's latest entry is called Another Anatomy Lesson- she talks about an injury that she suffered last Monday during practice.

Candy Wong's most recent entry is called Candy 1, Winter 0; she says '...We skated a grand total of 7km before the sky threatened to drizzle which turned to hail. But of course, the sky cleared up after I changed out of my skating gears...'.

The final blog is a new one; it's called Hope, Love, And Speedskates- looking forward for some good stuff coming from this one.

ING SSC: Speed Skating Canada is promoting a contest called the ING Speed Skating Challenge- see the latest article called The finish line is almost here. Tell us your story by January 18, 2008!.

KNSB #13 & More, Euro LT, ST Jr Worlds, Masters On Ice, More Mexico, Why A Rolling Start?, Mr Pauley, Back Pain, Begg Sponsorship, Trans USA News

2008-01-12T21:31:00.001-05:00

KNSB #13: The latest KNSB long track race took place earlier today in Heerenveen. Click here for Skate Podium's live udpates.

If you'd like to see a video of the PP Marathon in Heerenveen mens' A, click here or use the buttons below to play. You can find results from the PP Marathon here.

Euro LT: The Europena long track are taking place this weekend in Kolmona, Russia. You can find results thanks to SpeedSkatingResults.com. You can find race reports thanks to Speed Skating World Online Magazine; see 5k men, 3k women, ladies 500m, and men 500m.

Skate Podium has a couple of reports- see here (men) and here (women).

And here's a site that gives you more coverage from the European Speed Skating Championships- KNSB EK Allround. You can find pictures from the competition here.

Sven Kramer- photo from KNSB

Italy's 2006 Olympic gold medal winner Enrico Fabris- photo from KNSB

Yekaterina Lobysheva- photo from KNSB
ST Jr Worlds: The short track junior worlds are under way in Italy- click here for all of the results. You can find lots to read about the competition thanks to Skylar McKormick's blog- here's a glimpse of what she has written so far; 'The surprises of the day were Kristie from GB who not only made the final, but got a silver!All of the Korean girls either fell or got DQed as well as one of their boys. So that mixed up the overall points a bit. And in the boys, a new record was set by the Korean Han-Bin by a time of 0:42.1. CRAZY FAST! At lunch, we sat down at talked with the Great Britain skaters, which was very exciting to talk to English people once again. We talked about how chips are french fries and then well what are chips? They are Crisps. And cookies are only with chocolate chips. the rest are biscuits'.

Masters On Ice: First off, check out Ross Hanham's blog; Masters Speed Skating News. Andrew Love has posted a video of masters skating in Milwaukee in a recent entry called Masters in Milwaulkee- you'll get to see Ross Hanham at the end of the video- see the video Milwaukee Masters Skating.

More Mexico: Andrew Love posted another entry about Mexico- see Mexico City’s Mayor. I love the last line about Andrew in the Olympics!

Why A Rolling Start?: Why A Rolling Start? That's a good question. Cartainly anytime that I've competed and my time was based from a rolling start, I felt some sort of frustration- I felt like it wasn't a time that truly reflected how quickly (or slowly) I completed the race.

I remember some 10-years ago or so, there was some huge argument about which commant skaters should start- should we start on the gun? Should we start on the 'ah' of 'attention'?

Mr Pauley: Mister Pauley was recently featured in Pattinaggio Bellusco's news section- the picture comes from Andrew Hegarty's Indoor Pics - Pt 1. Looking good Mister P!

Back Pain: The latest of the Inline Planet Skate Tips is called Banish Back Pain.

Begg Sponsorship: Here's a good article for you; Speedskating Individual Sponsorship - Nicole Begg- there's lots written in this one- 'Being in a minor sport & creating a high public profile is not easy. You need to cultivate some media friendly people to your sport, supply them with regular stories & quality photo's'.

'...A nice shot of Nicole skating beside the car, with the sponsor driving, her name, his name & Kia all clearly visible,on the main sportspage of the Timaru Herald, then Nicole doing the car up, for an Ocean theme for the Christmas Santa Claus parade through the main street of Timaru with Nicole & Tina skating beside the car gave the sponsor great coverage'
Trans USA News: Here's an update on Danny Daniels' quest to skate from one side of the USA to the other; 'We made Tucson. I am about to cross with the guidance of my friend Ed 'Fast Eddy' Wachter'- read more here. What I want to update you on is this; in Danny, Trans-US Skate, it's written 'In two days, we've raised $600 for Danny, and that's just whats funnelling through me. On behalf of Danny and Hillary, THANK YOU'.

Help In Danny's Quest, Lots Of Videos, Bont's G4, Arndt's Great Practice, Musculation, Mexico Ice, Adjustable Wheels

2008-01-11T00:26:00.000-05:00

Help In Danny's Quest: Danny Daniels is currently skating across America. According to his latest map, he's currently South-West or Phoenix, AZ, and I like this quote from his blog which he is using to chronicle his journey; 'We skated up I-8 to the next rest stop on the smoothest shoulder I have found to date. It was like black glass'. Danny needs help with his journey; I received this important message from Glenn Koshi;'Hi All,

I've kind of taken it upon myself to try and help Danny out in his quest to skate across America. I've not met Danny and his wife in person yet, but they sure seem like great representatives for our sport. You can read his blog here: Blog

All the planning in the world can't make up for a lack in funds. Danny is currently nearing Tuscon, and funds are getting low. LET'S NOT LET THIS JOURNEY END because of a lack of funds. After all, how often is it that we find someone willing to skate 2500+ miles?

Danny has set up a donations page: www.active.com/donate/transusa

If you are not one who trusts sending donations via the internet, I can take your donations also, via credit card, and I'll forward directly to the Dannels. Just email me at glenn at bont dot com.

Please, pass this link to all you know. $5 here and $10 there will add up.

Thank you,

Glenn'. Woahoa, now that I clicked around Bont's forum, I noticed Glenn put up the exact same message from above in Danny, Trans-US Skate. Thank goodness for copy and pasting, otherwise he would have had to type that all over again!

Lots Of Videos: Get ready to watch all sorts of long track videos... if you have time that is. You can use the following links or click the play buttons below- Netherland Marathon Championships- Veteranen, Netherland Marathon Championships- women, Weissensee 2008- this one's got amazing ice- make sure you check out the trees under the ice!, genieten op de FLAES- this one's got lots of people and lots of ice.

The next two videos come from Italy. I hope you check them out because they're good. Check out Italy National Team 2008- that pace line is sweet and you get to see the Italian national team doing all sorts of stuff on ice, inside, and outside. Oh, and I like the 3rd song- a good Canadian band Nickelback from Alberta. The 2nd video is Italy Sprint Champs 2008-

Bont's G4: The Inline Planet has a new article about Bont's new G4 wheels- check out Bont Unveils G4 Inline Racing Wheels.

And while I write about Bont, check out Bont's 2008 3-point skates. I think they look sharp!

Arndt's Great Practice: Aaron's Arndt's latest post is called Great Practice.... He says '...we got straight into relays, and after just a bit of practice, we got into a relay pyramid (3×1,3×2,2×3,1×5,2×3,3×2,3×1) which was really, really tough, but absolutely great at the same time... There were still a few crashes (actually I lost count), but as far as I know there were no (significant) injuries. I know at one point, Jade and I went down and crashed simultaneously into the wall after Deano dove up the inside underneath Jesse who was passing tight a little earlier. I bet it looked way cool, and I wish I had that video...'.

Musculation: Roller En Ligne has an article about Musculation- it's called La musculation: Comment l'utiliser en roller. If you can read French, you can then read it. I put a part of the article through a translation, and this is what came out; 'It is not only the prerogative of the other sports only 'to raise cast iron'. Like any sports activity, the practice of the roller in competition requires to include muscular reinforcement with the drives. Still is necessary it to advisedly use the musculation in its preparation...'. Hmm. The article talks about plyometrics, power, and explosiveness.

Photo from Roller En Ligne
Mexico Ice: While I was on the rowing machine today at the YMCA, I noticed that one of the (many) Toronto news stations was showing a report on an ice skating rink and how some sort of record was broken- I think it's the most # of people holding hands while skating, something like 246 people needed 5 tries to succeed. As I was watching, I dawned on me that the outdoor skating rink looked vaguely familiar.

I thought and I thought while I rowed and rowed. I tried to remember.

And then ahaaa! Mexico, the video, Speedskaters International –Photos, AMAZING MEXICO!!, Mexico City/Lake Placid. That was where I had seen that outdoor rink on tv.

Well there so happens to be some recent news about that rink in Mexico City- see Speedskating on Ice in Mexcio City for more; 'Hola amigas & amigos!
Team Mexico once again arrives in Mexico city for the final days of the giant ice rink. On Saturday evening the city officials will host a gala, grand scale event, and the team will be skating for the crowds as part of the closing ceremonies, then the ice will melt under the warm sun.

This has been a dream beyond the expected to be invited for both opening & closing ceremonies to partake in the historic moment in the speedskating history of Mexico.

As I look from the roof top cafe locals gather an line up to get on the ice - it gets packed out during the day. Smiles, laughter, old, young - all gather to try the sport. from speaking with locals, this rink has been a very positive experience for the community, despite some pessimistic views from groups indicating that $1.5 mil could be spent better elsewhere. What they do not understand is that the city officials and organizers have retained sponsors to support the costs of the rink and it's 1-2 months of operation. The result is worth well beyond that figure!...'.

Adjustable Wheels: Trainin & News' latest entry- donderdag, januari 10, 2008- mentions some adjustable wheels.