Long Track Speed Skating

(This is my third post in a series of posts on the Winter Olympics leading up to Sochi 2014.)

I’ve been following the Canadian Long Skating Selection meet that took place in Calgary over the last week.   Intact Insurance sponsored the event.

Given past results, it surprised me that there seemed to be relatively little media coverage.  Did I miss it?

Looking at Ontario athletes there are some good stories.

Christine Nesbitt, the defending Olympic 1000 metre champ, seems to be rounding back into form after a couple of months away from competition.  The London native took the 500, 1500 and her speciality event the 1000 metres.

Ivanie Blondin of Ottawa took the women’s 5 km in 7:18.45 after earlier finishing second in the 3,000.

Toronto’s Jordan Belchos took the 10,000 metres by a large margin but will need another country to give up a spot for him to make the Olympics.

Probably the biggest surprise was  Vincent De Haitre’s victory in a decent time of 1:08.37 in the 1000.  Vincent, from Ottawa, is only 19 years old and amazingly has already captured another national championship (in Clara Hughes fashion) in a different sport.  He’s the Canadian elite I km Time Trial  cycling champ.  It is always amazing to me that athletes can compete at such a high level in different sports.

Two Sport Athletes

Along that line,  Bobsleigh does seem to be getting great TV coverage these days.
This afternoon I watched Russia Olga Stulneva  finish 11^th in the two women bob event from Winterberg Germany.  She is a former Olympic track medalist having been part of the Russian team that finished second in the 4 x 100 metre relay in Athens way back in 2004.  There are a lot of track athletes in bobsleigh these days pushing sleds (American hurdler Lolo Jones was second in Winterberg) but Stulneva is the driver.

Team to be Announced

Back to Skating, the Canadian long-track Olympic team currently has the ability to send 18 athletes to the Games (10 women, 8 men).  Athletes will be nominated by Speed Skating Canada’s Olympic Selection Committee following and announced publicly on Jan. 22 at Calgary’s Olympic Oval.

I’m following some athlete's twitter accounts. You can find Ivanie Blondin at  @IvanieB while Jordan Belchos is at @jbelch89