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October 18, 2008
Live webcast of World Cup 1 & day 2 results
Sorry to be so tardy in posting this info! You can watch the races live at Universal Sports - the schedule is noted on the bottom left and make note that times posted are EASTERN. This is brilliant!
Team USA is having some awesome performances - Jeff Simon won 1500m bronze while Kimberly Derrick took home bronze in the 1000m. All three American men made it to the A final. Allison Baver just missed the podium in the women's 1500m. Way to go!!
It was a classic men's 1000m A final as Apolo Ohno took on all three Koreans by himself. Disappointing then and kind of anticlimactic that Apolo fell. He was in great position when the ice seemed to break out from under him. A couple laps later the Koreans appeared to slip in the same spot. So frustrating! Results from Kearns:
Men's 1000m - A final
1. KWAK Yoon-Gy KOR 1:30.821
2 . LEE Ho-Suk KOR 1:30.989
3 . LEE Jung-Su KOR 1:32.009
4. OHNO Apolo Anton USA 2:06.556
Anthony Lobello won the men's B final. J.R. Celski finished 4th in his quarter final and did not advance.
Women's 1000m - A final
1 . WANG Meng CHN 1:29.766
2. SHIN Sae-Bom KOR 1:29.959
3. DERRICK Kimberly USA 1:31.218
LIU Qiuhong CHN DQ
Lana Gehring was 2nd in the B final. Katherine Reutter did not advance out of the quarter finals.
Men's 1500m #1 - A final
1. SUNG Si-Bak KOR 2:18.204
2. HAMELIN Charles CAN 2:18.254
3. SIMON Jeff USA 2:18.434
4 . SUI Bao Ku CHN 2:18.852
5. BEAN Nicolas ITA 2:19.158
6. JAYNER Travis USA 2:19.506
7. LEVEILLE Charles Ryan USA 2:25.726
Women's 1500m #1 - A final
1. ZHOU Yang CHN 2:21.445
2. JUNG Ba-Ra KOR 2:21.664
3. YANG Shin-Young KOR 2:22.647
4. BAVER Allison USA 2:22.658
5 . SUN LinLin CHN 2:24.485
DQ PARK Seung-Hi KOR
Maria Garcia was disqualified in the semifinals; Alyson Dudek skated in the B final (also dq'ed). Hey, just noticed Tatiana Borodulina is back in international competition for her adopted country of Australia (she won the B final). Was she already back last season? I don't remember...
Posted by noelle at 9:00 PM | Comments (10)
Apolo in Kearns
Many thanks to photographer extraordinaire Jerry Search for the photo!
Deseret News | Ohno cruises into next round at World Cup short-track
Speed Skating Canada | Good first day for Short Track World Cup Team in Salt Lake City
Posted by noelle at 7:43 AM | Comments (2)
October 17, 2008
Oh, short track, I miss you!
U.S. Speedskating teammates Apolo Anton Ohno and Jeff Simon share a light moment during Kearns press conference. (Mike Terry, Deseret News)
Deseret News | Ohno's long, icy road
"He's the strongest athlete in the world in speedskating," Ryan Leveille, also a member of the long track team, said. "Nobody is as strong as him. So just having him on the same ice, you learn by skating with him ... everybody wants to beat Apolo."The crowds at the Utah Olympic Oval will certainly be cheering loudly for Ohno. The fan club he's garnered over the years as a skater and dancer are as visible as they are audible and they will probably be out in force this weekend.
Apolo Anton Ohno has graced speedskating podiums as well as a "Dancing With the Stars" competition during his career. (Mike Terry, Deseret News)
Deseret News | Speedskaters ready to hit the ice
Because crashes are inevitable — ice is, after all, a little slippery — a state-of-the-art padding system has been installed at the Utah Olympic Oval. The skaters, who have already given it a few accidental tests, couldn't be happier."They say it will reduce injuries something like 70 percent," Travis Jayner said.
Whatever the actual reduction of injuries, the pad system is designed, much like a NASCAR track, to absorb and distribute the force on collision and get the skaters back on the ice soon.
Posted by noelle at 6:35 AM | Comments (14)
October 16, 2008
Meanwhile, World Cup 2 is right around the corner....
The Province | Where Games rubber meets road
The first in a series of 2010 Olympic test events kicks off Oct. 24-26 at the Pacific Coliseum, and organizers of the Samsung ISU short track speed skating World Cup are hoping to get off to a flying start.Although the sport -- sometimes called NASCAR on ice -- is new to Vancouver, PNE chief executive officer Mike McDaniel said: "We're looking for huge crowds. We're expecting that 5,000 to 8,000 range."
Ottawa's Jean Dupre, director-general for Speed Skating Canada, said those events typically play to full houses in rinks that seat just under 5,000.
"In Vancouver, I can't tell you," he said. "This is the first time we're doing a short track speed skating event in Vancouver, so the public is not educated on it. If the objective is to have 3,000 to 4,000 people each day, hopefully we'll have that. If we do, it will be fantastic." Dupre said South Korea has the most fans with crowds getting as high as 15,000. It's catching on in China, where 13,000 turned out for a World Cup in Harbin.
Efforts are being made to ensure Vancouver's Korean and Chinese communities are aware.
Posted by noelle at 7:07 AM | Comments (10)
October 15, 2008
Update: Commenting is back up!
USA Today | USA speedskating optimistic after two dim years
Things got much worse within months of the 2006 Olympic closing ceremony. U.S. Speedskating lost nearly all its coaches and sponsors, and its executive director resigned.Bob Crowley, who worked for U.S. Figure Skating, was hired in August 2006 as U.S. Speedskating's new executive director.
He didn't find out until after he took the job that the organization didn't have enough money to make payroll. He relied heavily on financial support from the U.S. Olympic Committee, he says, to get through the ensuing months.
Crowley's first order of business was to consolidate everything — administration, long track and short track — at the Utah Olympic Oval. The short trackers, who had been living at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, "came over kicking and screaming," he says.
"The bottom line is (the training center) has a lot of things that are hard to duplicate," says five-time Olympic medalist Apolo Anton Ohno, who moved from the OTC dorms to his own house in Salt Lake City and now prepares his own meals.
AP | Apolo Anton Ohno eyes Vancouver Olympics
Skating into his early 30s and the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, isn't something he wants to think about until after Vancouver."As much as I love the sport, there has to be a time when I've got to walk away," Ohno said. "It'd be nice if I could live in this fairy-tale land where I can skate and be 21 years old forever and be in great shape and never have an injury. But that's not life."
"Long time ago when he was young, it was no problem, just skating with power," said coach [Jae Su Chun], a South Korean who took over the U.S. short-track program last year. "For 2010, he really needs technique and efficient skating."
Posted by noelle at 6:43 PM | Comments (12)
October 14, 2008
Whoa - World Cup 1 is this weekend! GO USA!
Salt Lake Tribune | Ohno ready to resume quest for Olympic speedskating gold
Apolo Ohno hasn't done any dancing lately. Only skating. "It was the first time I was able to train for a long time," he said. "There was no offseason, essentially. I trained hard."... With only 16 months until Vancouver, he turned down several outside opportunities in recent months to concentrate on his offseason training - knowing that "everything is basically built this year. It's very hard to make a huge jump, Olympic year."
So Ohno spent long days at the Oval, he said, often arriving before 7 in the morning and leaving after 7 at night after performing three multi-hour workouts, interspersed with short breaks to eat or rest.
"Any athlete at this level, an elite level, knows when they should really turn the light switch on and when they should turn it off," Ohno said. "And it's been on all summer."
That doesn't necessarily mean that Ohno will tear it up this weekend; he said he's "not looking to blow anybody's doors off," but rather to simply start strong, stay consistent throughout the season and experiment with different strategies and tactics against his top rivals.
Deseret News | U.S. short track skaters are ready
And yes, Apolo Anton Ohno will be there. And he has every intention of standing on the winners' podium at the end of the competition. "I don't think motivation is ever a factor," Ohno said. "Once you get out there, you just want to win."The event will show how far the U.S. teams have come in recent months.... Challenging the top teams, such as Korea and Canada, is something the squad thinks is well within reach.
"We are so much closer," said Katherine Reutter, who enjoyed a breakout season last year to become the top contender on the team. "We have such a strong women's team. It made (the recently completed national team) trials much more competitive."
Also:
Vancouver Sun | No place like home
World Cup 2 in Vancouver is right around the corner.
Canadian Press | Canadian short-track speedskaters getting ready for World Cup season
Posted by noelle at 7:00 AM | Comments (1)