2. 2010 ArWG Mission Staff
The deadline to submit applications for the position of Team Alberta North Mission Staff is Monday, April 20th, 2009. Applicants must reside north of the 55th parallel. The Mission Staff play a key role as members of Team Alberta North acting as a liaison between the sports and the Arctic Winter Games organizational structure. Please contact the AASSA office for the application form.
3. Final Days of Voting
With only two days remaining in the second annual ING Speed Skating Challenge, the race has tightened between National Finalists Tori Spence of the Kamloops River City Racers Speed Skating Club and Scott MacHattie of the Oakville Speed Skating Club. Make your vote count! Go to www.INGSpeedSkatingChallenge.com now. The final voting deadline is Friday March 20, 2009 at 12 Midnight MST.
The National Finalists are off to Calgary for the Oval Finale and the winner of the title of Canada’s best speed skating story will be crowned at the ING Video Awards Party on Saturday, March 21st, 2009.
The winners, including Catriona’s Most Inspirational Award, will be announced on Monday, March 23rd, 2009.
5. How Did Canada Do?
Caution, event spoiler…
Richmond – The Canadian women were fluid unity in motion today as they took gold in the ladies’ team pursuit, leaving their nearest competitors almost four seconds behind them, in the final day of competition at the ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships.
Their win added to Canada’s total medal haul of eight, including two world titles, in the final competition of the 2008–09 ISU season, held at the Richmond Olympic Oval. Last year, Canada won nine medals at the world single distances, including three world titles.
The trio of Kristina Groves, 32, of Ottawa, ON, Christine Nesbitt, 23, of London, ON, and Brittany Schussler, 23, of Winnipeg, MB, finished the six-lap pursuit in two minutes, 58.25 seconds. The Dutch team finished in 3:02.02, while Japan clinched the bronze in a time of 3:04.06.
“Our individual skating styles are very different,” said a triumphant Groves of her pursuit teammates. “Today, we just had a really relaxed, really even race. It’s a nice way to finish the competition for sure. We know we can do that race and we finally did that today.”
“As soon as we crossed the line like that we knew that was the race we’ve been trying to put together for years. It feels awesome,” added Schussler.
The men’s team pursuit team of Lucas Makowsky, 21, of Regina, SK, Denny Morrison, 23, of Fort St. John, BC, and his 25-year-old brother, Jay, finished a disappointing sixth with a time of three minutes, 46.42 seconds after opening strong in the early laps.
The uncatchable Dutch team of Sven Kramer, Wouter Olde Heuvel and Carl Verheijen won gold in a time of 3:41.26 – more than five seconds faster than the Canadians – continuing their dominance of the event at the world single distances championship. Sweden took silver in 3:45.73 and the Americans bronze in 3:46.07.
“Eight to nine, nine to 10 medals was our goal and we’re right on target,” said Brian Rahill, Speed Skating Canada's high performance and Olympic program director, after competition ended. “I think this shows a lot of depth in our program.
“There’s even more in the reserves (and) on the bench that we expect will be back with us next year (in 2010),” he said referencing five-time 2006 Olympic medalist Cindy Klassen, who is recovering from knee surgery, and Jeremy Wotherspoon, who is sidelined because of an injury.
Earlier in the day during the men’s 500m, Jamie Gregg, 23, of Edmonton, AB, finished eighth with a cumulative time of 70.37 seconds. Muncef Ouardi, 22, of Montreal, Que., finished 14th and Vincent Labrie, 26, of Lévis, Que., placed 17th.
“I was really happy with the way I skated . . . (But) I need to get stronger,” said Gregg, who today wrapped up his first full season on the World Cup circuit. “Some of the legs on the guys out there are huge.”
Kang-Seok Lee of Korea won the men’s 500m in a time of 69.73 seconds, while his teammate Kyou-Hyuk Lee finished second in 69.92. Fengtong Yu of China took bronze in 69.97.
Tamara Oudenaarden, 21, of St. Albert, AB, had the fastest Canadian finish in the ladies 500m with a cumulative time of 79.39 seconds placing 18th, followed by Shannon Rempel, 24, of Winnipeg, MB, in 20th and Kim Weger, 28, of Regina, SK, in 22nd.
Defending champion Jenny Wolf of Germany won the ladies 500m in 75.75 seconds. China’s Beixing Wang, who trains in Calgary with coach Kevin Crockett, took silver in 75.87 seconds, followed by Sang-Hwa Lee of Korea in third with 76.39 seconds.
During the four-day competition, the Canadian speed skating team won eight medals – gold in the ladies team pursuit, as well as two medals from Nesbitt (gold in the 1,000m and bronze in the 1,5000m) two from Morrison (silver in the 1,000m and bronze in the 1,500m) two from Groves (bronze in both the 3,000m and 5,000m) and one from Clara Hughes, 36, of Winnipeg, MB, (silver in the 5,000m) – at the Richmond Olympic Oval, where medals will be decided at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games in less than a year’s time.
Canada had a team of 15 athletes in total at the four-day event. Canadian skaters finishing in the top 5 might be named to the long track speed skating Olympic team for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, provided Canada manages to qualify the proper number of competitors for the Games. Country quotas will be determined at World Cup events this coming fall. Team Canada has provisions to pre-select a number of athletes, leaving at least two positions per distance up for grabs at the Canadian Olympic selection event scheduled for December.
Complete results can be found at http://www.speedskatingrichmond2009.com/
Heerenveen – Canada’s men’s short track speed skating team put a good end to its season by taking the silver medal, today, at the World Team Championships held over the weekend in Heerenveen, The Netherlands. The womens’ team finished fourth after an unfortunate fall in the relay final.
The World Team Championships follow a different format, in which every member of each team must skate in a number of races to accumulate points for the team. Athletes compete over 500m, 1000m, 3000m and a relay race. Countries are split into two brackets of four. The first team of each bracket is automatically qualified for the A Final to be held the following day, while teams ranked 2nd and 3rd in their group must race a repechage to determine who will make the final.
On the first day, the ladies’ team, made of Kalyna Roberge (St-Étienne-de-Lauzon, QC), Jessica Gregg (Edmonton, AB), Valérie Maltais (La Baie, QC), Anne Maltais (Québec, QC) and Jessica Hewitt (Kamloops, BC) finished 2nd of their bracket with 35 points. Korea was first with an impressive 51 points.
The men’s team came very close to winning their group, but they finished the event with 36 points, just behind China with 39. Athletes skating for Canada were Charles Hamelin (Ste-Julie, QC), Olivier Jean (Lachenaie, QC), François-Louis Tremblay (Montréal, QC), François Hamelin (Ste-Julie, QC) and Marc-André Monette (Pointe-aux-Trembles, QC).
Both teams had to skate in the repechage with hopes to qualify for the final. The men’s team showed they were ready for the big final when they dominated their opponents, finishing with a total of 44 points, 8 more than their closest rivals, the Americans, who concluded the repechage with 36 points, enough to also make the final.
“Yesterday we had a bad start to our day against the Chinese,” said Charles Hamelin, “so later, we really wanted to come back and race the way we are able to, finish the day on a positive note. We came back strong, won many races, including the relay, which wasn’t really hard for us.”
The final promised to be exciting, with both Canadians and Koreans hungry to win after being left out of the relay final at last week’s World Championships in Austria. The Hamelin brothers started out well, each winning one race in the 1000m, while Tremblay took 3rd place and Jean 4th in their respective heats. On to the 500m, Canada’s strongest event, Tremblay and Charles Hamelin added two more victories for their country, while François Hamelin finished 2nd and Jean, who fell and dislocated his shoulder, was fourth.
Monette added points for his team when he finished fourth of the 3000m race, in which Charles Hamelin also finished 7th. It had to come down to the relay, with Canada and Korea both able to capture the gold. Team Korea crossed the finish line first in 6:50.014, Canada just behind in 6:50.216. “It was a good relay,” said François-Louis Tremblay. “We definitely wanted to win because the winner of the relay was going to win the Championship. We didn’t want to be behind, we sometimes ended up 3rd, we couldn’t pass, so in the end we were trying to catch up rather than controlling. It’s too bad, we would have liked to win.”
The 36 points were enough for Korea to win the event, closely followed by Canada with 34 points. The United States took the bronze medal with a distant 27 points. “We came today with a confident team, a team who was back in the game, and we had some really good races, even with a Korean, an American and a Chinese athlete in each race,” concluded Charles Hamelin. “The guys had amazing races, we skated really well during the final, it was all about the relay in the end. I think we’re all happy with the result.”
The women’s team also had a great showing in the repechage, tying the Americans for first place with 37 points each. On to the final, all Canadians were 3rd of 4th of their 1000m race. Both Roberge and Gregg then went on to win their 500m heat, collecting important points for Team Canada. Roberge also took 3rd place in the 3000m race, in which Anne Maltais was 7th. With the relay still to be raced, and three teams very close in points, there was a chance for Canada to take 2nd or 3rd place. But an unfortunate fall in the relay made it impossible to move up in the rankings, and Canada finished the event in fourth place with 22 points, just behind Team USA with 24. The Chinese team took gold (46 points) and the Koreans (29 points) silver.
“At the beginning of the relay, we were in control,” explained Kalyna Roberge. “But when my turn came, at the 3rd exchange, I lost contact on my right and we ended up 4th, we tried to catch up and I fell. We are disappointed because we know we could have been on the podium, it was really close and we had a chance to finish 2nd. We had some good races today.”
The World Team Championships put an end to the short track speed skating season. Athletes will now enjoy a three week holiday before they start training again early April in order to be ready for the Olympic Team Selection to be held in August at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.
