Illinoistocht

The 2010 Winter Olympic games Opening Ceremony is now less than two weeks from now, so its time for a bunch of newsbits and miscellaneous.

I like the video from the Verizon ad with the outdoor skating oval, which looks to have been filmed on natural ice cleared of snow.  Surfing YouTube turns up several cool videos on US Speedskating's video channel. 

Found a link on CNN's website of the top 15 USA Winter Olympic moments; and I noticed that 5 of the 15 were from speed skating: Charles Jewtraw (1924), Jack Shea (1932), Dan Jansen (1994), Bonnie Blair (1994), and Eric Heiden (1980).  Pretty impressive list, and after 2010, there could likely be a Shani Davis "moment" on this list (if not the 2006 gold medal), and maybe an Apolo Ohno moment as well--although I might put Ohno's gold medal in the 500m at the 2006 games to represent his career.  But perhaps the best moments are not about gold medal counts for a country, but as the filmmaker Bud Greenspan might say, instead "stories that resonate", and speak to a universal experience--or note the Visa "Go World" television ads, or better yet, listen to the joyous exclamation by the Norwegian television broadcasters in this clip from Dan Jansen's 1994 race in Lillehammer. 

Show your support for Team USA's speed skating team in a number of ways...donate through Colbert Nation or US Speedskating.   Or to individual athletes such as short track World Cup medalist Katherine Reutter, who is raising funds for her family to attend the games by selling a nifty sweatshirt.

Finally, today was the Alternative Elfstedentocht, held on an alpine lake near Innsbruck, Austria.  Jorritt Bergsma won the 200km men's race in 5 hours 27 minutes and 7 seconds.  Interestingly, Jorritt, a Dutchman who has a Kazakh passport, passed up an opportunity to skate in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver to skate in the Alternative Elfstedentocht.  On a personal note, I'd thought of entering into one of the Weissensee skate week events this year as I left off cycling season with a high level of fitness and my training transitioned into skating pretty well in October, but other aspects of my life intruded too much into my training and my end result would have been a "just finish it" effort, which I've done in previous marathon skates--I had hoped to truly "race" this time, not among the leaders but to race at a much faster pace than I've done before. 

As editor of this blog, note that I live in California so it is impossible for me to assess ice conditions unless I'm travelling, which is very infrequent to rare.  The window for a skate on the I&M or the Hennepin Canal is very short if at all in a given winter, so chances are I'll probably miss it unless I'm very lucky.  There are several Yahoo Groups where natural ice skaters can seek each other out: a very active one for the NH - VT area, and another one for the Montana reservoirs.  Besides ice conditions, these Yahoo groups facilitate connecting people to enable a buddy system, a key facet of ice safety. 

So if you're a skater, check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midwest_ice/     

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games Opening Ceremony is four weeks from now so its time to talk about the US speed skaters headed to Vancouver. 

The men's long-track team is led by Shani Davis, holder of the current world records at 1000 meters and 1500 meters--he'll be skating in all five distances at the Olympics.  In the World Cup meets this season, Shani has dominated and won the 1000 all four times it was competed and four of five times at the 1500, finishing second on one occasion to Chad Hedrick, who returns to the Olympics to skate in three distances.  (Shani subsequently went out and broke his own world record in the final 1500 held in December.)  Otherwise, the Olympic team is pretty much the same as this season's World Cup team, except that Mitchell Whitmore will skate the fourth 500 meter spot, replacing Brent Aussprung and Matt Plummer from the World Cup team.  (Who skates what distances is a little different than the World Cup team, see US Speedskating's News section of its website for details.)  Brian Hansen will skate with fellow Illinois native Jonathan Kuck, along with Chad Hedrick and Trevor Marsicano in the Team Pursuit event. 

The best possibilities for a gold medal for a skater from Team USA are in the middle distance events.  Shani Davis has dominated this season, and barring a surprise should win gold in the 1000 and 1500m events.  Chad Hedrick and Trevor Marsicano both had World Cup victories in calendar year 2009, so there is an outside possiblity of a US sweep, perhaps in the 1500m.  The 500m event could be won by any one of 8 - 10 skaters from many different countries--for the US, Tucker Fredricks is the best bet, being in fourth place in World Cup points this season.    At the 5000 and 10,000 meters, look for Dutch skater Sven Kramer to be the gold medalist with the US skaters an outside shot for a podium finish.   

The women's long-track team is pretty much the same as the World Cup team.  Jennifer "Miami Ice" Rodriguez, a two-time medalist from the 2002 Games, returns for another Olympics and is joined by eight other skaters from the World Cup team.   The US women's team has several skaters with an outside shot for a podium finish but the medals will probably be won by skaters from other nations.  Some of the highlights: look for Germany's Jenny Wolf to duel with China's Beixing Wang in the 500m, while at the long-distance events, Czech Republic's swan-like Martina Sablikova will attempt to outlast Germany's Stephanie Beckert.

The short track team features Apolo Ohno for the men attempting to be the most decorated US Winter Olympic athlete of all-time--he's been skating well and won three medals during the World Cup circuit this past fall.  For the women, Katherine Reutter has a good chance at a few medals, having won two races (a 1000m in Beijing and a 1500m in Montreal) during the World Cup season with four overall medals won during the four meet series.  JR Celski continues to heal after his crash (see the video below).  Here's a breakdown of the short track skaters from the USA.

Since this blog is Illinoistocht, I should mention all the Illinois natives on the team: Shani Davis (Chicago), Brian Hansen (Glenview), Jonathan Kuck (Champaign), and Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. (Wheaton) will compete in long-track speed skating while Lana Gehring (Glenview) and Katherine Reutter (Champaign) will compete in Short Track.   Nice article on Brian Hansen and Lana Gehring here. 

See the preview from US Speedskating's YouTube video channel (below) or at Universal Sports.   

Follow-up to last post.  Dutchnews.nl reports that:
"this [past] weekend's snow has finally put paid to hopes of staging the 200 km Elfstedentocht outdoor skating race around the 11 cities of Friesland, the organisers said on Monday.

'The ice is far from Elfstentocht-worthy,' spokeswoman Immie Jonkman told news agency ANP. 'The ice first has to thaw and then freeze again.' Snow not only spoils the surface of the ice but acts as an insulating layer to stop it thickening.

At least 15 cm of ice is needed for the race, which attracts thousands of skaters, to go ahead. It last took place in 1997."

But here's some cool photos of the 100km marathon race held at a lake:
2010 Dutch Skating Marathon on Universal Sports.com

I'll try to get a report on the Illinois canals.  Lake Ellyn in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, IL has a track cleared of snow and is open for skating.

Temperatures have been very cold in the midwest leading to possible conditions for a tour skate on the Hennepin Canal, but the snow cover puts a tour beyond reach for the moment.  If you have an ice report, be sure to send it.   

Simultaneous with the cold in the USA, there have been fairly cold temperatures (albeit with some snow) in Europe.  It looks like the Dutch will skate outdoors this weekend.   Check out these links... http://www.knsb.nl/natuurijs/ and the "skate maps" at http://www.schaatskaart.nl/ .  Interesting to note that the 12 skating "classics" haven't been held since either 1996 or 1997, so this is something to watch.  http://www.natuurijsklassiekers.nl/