Long Blog About a Short Track

And the sport of the week is...

(Da,da,da!)

SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATING

(Said in a deep announcer voice for full effect)

First, and foremost, I must shout to the world that, "Apolo Anton Ohno is awesome!!!!" I mean, what else is there to say, really? He's a beast. Just watch this video an you will comprehend how ridiculous his training regimen is. They don't mention it in this video, but he also goes out into the foothills with a weight vest on to run up steep inclines. Crazy man! Like he says about training in this video, "The most important stage in my mind, is this stage right here. The preparation stage. As long as I go to the games prepared... and in my mind I prepared like nobody else has." You definitely have to prepare to whiz around on ice with other skaters jostling you at 40 mph!

You know what I love most about this video? That I was just there. That's right. At this very arena where the USA team often trains and competes. The very spot the Olympics were held. How cool is that? I started watching this and saw those red and orange banners in the background and broke out into a huge smile. We actually saw people working out during our tryout. It was very distracting. This one girl skated the entire straightaway of the rink down in her crouched position on one skate. One. She didn't even wobble. I was majorly impressed! You go girl!

Through the double doors under this sign...

Recognize those banners? This piece of track you see is where we did our sprints.

 

You can't read then from here, but these are all the USA short track/speed skating medalists from the last 3 Olympics:    Salt Lake City, Turin (aka Turino), and Vancouver

Can you tell I'm excited to be where Olympians have been?

The weight room we used for the tryout is the last door you can see on the right in that hallway.

Just outside the Olympic Center is a this sign and Olympic sized pool. We saw a few water polo games going on while we were there. It's interesting how they've kept things from the Olympics, but converted parking lots and viewing areas for other uses. This is a complete rabbit trail from our weekly topic, so let me get us back on track. (No pun intended)

Definition: Short track speed skating is a form of competitive ice speed skating. In competitions, multiple skaters (typically between four and six) skate on an oval ice track with a circumference of 111.12 m. The rink itself is 60 m by 30 m, which is the same size as an international-sized hockey rink.

This was shocking to me. I knew it was smaller than the speed skating rink, but I didn't know it was so tiny. A hockey rink, actually used for hockey, and a hockey sized rink for short track skating both fit inside a the speed skating rink. It was tiny.

They have very specialized equipment. Like the video said, if their skates are off, even just a little, they will probably fall. This could likely result in major injury in such a fast paced sport. They also wear special gloves. Their inside hand they put down on the ice in the turns are tipped with metal. I remember Apolo saying in an interview that his are tipped with gold. They have to be smooth, so the friction doesn't slow them down. And like any other sport looking for speed, they have special aerodynamic body suits to cut down on air friction. Very high tech stuff that comes from lots and lots of sponsor money.

It is a relatively new sport overall. In 1967, the International Skating Union adopted short track speed skating, although it did not organize international competitions until 1976. World Championships have been held since 1981. At the 1988 Winter Olympics, held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, short track was a demonstration sport. It was upgraded to a full Olympic sport in 1992 at the Games in Albertville, France, and has been part of the Winter Olympics since. The program was expanded from 4 events in 1992 to 8 events in 2002. The events are the same for both men and women: 500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m and the relay (5000 m for men/3000 m for women).With smaller ice tracks and shorter, often spectacular competitions, short track speed skating has grown more popular than longer speed skating in many countries.

There are several actions that will result in skaters being disqualified (DQ) from a race, and having their time rendered invalid. Some of these are rather subjective, in my opinion. The judges have a lot of control in DQ situations. I've seen skaters disqualified for ridiculous reasons, that often anger the athlete and crowd.

Now, back to Apolo. Let me give you a small resume. He as won 8  medals over 3 Olympics: 2 gold, 2 silver, 4 bronze. He is the most decorated winter Olympian of all time. He also has 23 World Championship medals: 9 gold, 7 silver, and 7 bronze. That's ridiculous! Ahn Hyun-Soo, Lee Ho-Suk, and Kim Dong-Sung from South Korea are his biggest rivals. These three combine for 90 Olympic and World Championship medals. Highly impressive! Any competition with one of these three and Apolo is always crazy! I'm typically shouting, holding my breath, gasping, and screaming through the short race. The picture should explain most of these emotions.

The sport has been dominated by teams from Asia and North America, namely South Korea, China, Canada, and the United States. Those four countries have won 104 of 120 medals awarded since 1992. South Korea leads the medal tally (and gold medal tally), with 37 medals including 19 golds since 1992. All but 8 medals (including 4 golds) that South Korea won at the Winter Olympics came from Short-track speed skating. Similarly, 24 of China's 44 Winter Olympics medals are from the sport. I also find it interesting that Apolo has almost half the US medals ever won, standing at 8 of the 18 medals. Nice work! He hasn't ruled out competing in Sochi in 2014, which is amazing to me. Check out this article: Ohno in Sochi? Apolo not ready to say Oh-no yet

A new up and coming skater competed in Vancouver that I really liked: J.R. Celski. What a cutie! He just started on the world circuit in 2008, and he won a bronze in the 1500m in Vancouver. I was cheering really loud. These 2 Korean skaters were fighting for 2nd place and knocked each other down, so J.R. skated past for the bronze. He also got another bronze as part of the team relay event. I'll explain that in a second. He began inline skating at age three and switched to short track in 2002. He became interested in short track after watching Apolo at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. He moved to from home to California at age 14 for better training facilities. That definitely shows some dedication! He missed the minimum age requirement for competing at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin by 17 days. So sorry, J.R. That really stinks. He graduated from high school in 2008 but deferred enrolling at university to concentrate on preparing for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. After Vancouver, he planned on enrolling in business or architecture at the University of California Berkeley. I guess that extra dedication really paid off for him.

J.R. Celski is best known for his triumphant return to short track speedskating after a gruesome injury during 2010 Olympic Trials. The video below pretty much sums it up. I remember the interviews they did with his family NBC showed during the Olympics. They were in shock, as any parent would be, to see your child laying on the ice with blood spurting out. It was bad, but they were there to support his dream all the way. He went from possibly never walking again to skating in the Olympics in a matter of months. That is a picture of dedication if you need some inspiration.







He is very impressive young man. I'll wrap this post up with the most fascinating part of short track to me: The Relay. Four team members compete together to win. With 5 teams in each race, that totals 20 people on the ice at one time. It is pure insanity if you ask me. I love it when they "switch" skaters. One is circling on the inside of the oval and moves out onto the track. The competing skater comes up behind and shoves them to add some extra momentum. I'd have a hard enough time just staying upright as it was, without anyone trying to push me. I love to watch any and all short track events, but I think this is on the top of my list. Craziness!



I think that's all I've got for today. I am now an official patron of Zoom. John and I worked out a sweet deal that I couldn't refuse. Not that I wanted to. I really like it there, and I'm glad I am able to stay. The Beast and I had quite a go this last week. It was one of the shortest treadmill workouts, but the ending was brutal. I had to run high-knees for 20 seconds while John kept speeding the treadmill up. Yuck! I had to do that twice at the very end. It was not fun. Then I moved on to leg exercises and some arms. I finished up doing med ball exercises combined with pushing a weight sled for three rounds. I was not a huge fan of John at that very moment. At the end, my legs were shaking, and I was more than ready to go home. Now, I'm ready to do it all again tomorrow. I better get to bed and rest up for my next big workout. Hope you enjoy learning about short track as much as I do!

FYI: It's Tuesday, and it just hit me today that I didn't post our Olympic re-enactment picture. I was sitting at work, and I thought, "Oh no! I've robbed the world of a good laugh because I forgot about the picture. I've got to take care of that right away!" I'm not sure what triggered it, but I am now ready to share. This was Day 1 of 14, officially the first day of competition. It was the first sports picture we took. I was trying to channel Apolo, but it definitely didn't work. At least I still medaled, right? I was so good, in fact, that they gave me the medal before I even started the race. As you can see, I wore it the whole time. Why not throw an extra hazard into an already dangerous and crazy sport? Maybe my swinging medal will take out some of my competition...that is if any are left standing after they see my stellar skating skills.