Illinoistocht

Even if it doesn't get cold enough for the canals to freeze solid with ice thick enough to skate outdoors in the Netherlands, besides the occasional ice rink, there's a unique 5 km (3.1 mile) long outdoor ice "rink" that opened in 2007, Flevonice.  This year, the winter season is from November 14 through February 28 (although due to weather and equipment issues they just opened to the public on November 29).   Pretty amazing.   In the picture above, you can see how the track loops around a large area to make a 5 km loop.  Note the asphalt road next to the track for summer events (under the ice, the skating surface is sand).   Street lamps, spaced along the frozen pathway, allow for easy night skating.    

Another in a series looking to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada--here's a look at the host city and the venues. 

Otherwise, not a lot of natural outdoor ice to talk about as its been warm in the US this late fall.  In other news, the elite World Cup skating circuit moves on with the conclusion of the Short Track World Cup last weekend and the third installment of the long track speed skating World Cup's in Hamar, Norway, site of the 1994 Winter Olympics, this weekend.  Already, US speedskater's have done very well, with Shani Davis sweeping 1st place finishes in both the 1000m and 1500m events with track records in both Berlin, Germany and Heerenveen, Netherlands.  In short track speed skating, Apolo Ohno for the men, and Katherine Reutter for the women, have placed among the top skaters overall. 

On to Vancouver itself as the destination for the games and thoughts on attending the 2010 Winter Olympics.   Since the games are in drizzly Vancouver, much of the games will now be held indoors.  A little bit of magic will be lost moving so much inside, but as to the events, indoor ice will aid in the integrity and quality of the competitions.  The opening and closing ceremonies will be held at BC Place, a 55,000 seat stadium with an air-supported roof in downtown Vancouver.  Next door is "Canada Hockey Place", a 19,000 seat arena that will fill up with hockey-mad Canadians (as an aside, General Motors, the auto company that is now a ward of the US government,  actually has the naming rights to this NHL arena, but for the games it will be known by the neutral moniker, Hockey Place).    Short track speed skating and figure skating will take place a little bit east of downtown in the 14,200 seat Pacific Coliseum, the original home of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks in 1970, which was renovated for about $20mm for the games.   The ice sports venues represent a contrast to the 2002 Winter Olympics, where short track and figure skating were at the larger downtown arena while hockey was at a smaller facility a bit outside of the main downtown area.  For the 2010 games, it's Canada, eh, home of ice hockey!

East of the airport and south of downtown, in the suburb of Richmond, is the impressive new facility for long track speed skating.  I'll post later on this magnificent venue.  Finally, just south of downtown is 5,600 seat Vancouver Olympic Centre, home of the curling competition. 

The alpine events will take place further from Vancouver.  Snowboard, snowboard halfpipe, and freestyle skiing will be held at Cypress Mountain, which is fairly near to Vancouver, less than an hour's transit time.  The remainder of the alpine skiing events, along with cross-country skiing and biathlon, ski jumping, and the sliding sports (bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton) will be held at the mountain resort area, Whistler, for which spectators will board buses in Vancouver and travel a ride of up to 3 hours to the venues.  

Enjoy the games if you are headed to Vancouver as a spectator.  I've heard Canadians, in reference to the high cost of living of the area, have jokingly said that BC stands for "Bring Cash".   It'd be great to go, and while the travel and ticket costs (due to "secondary markets") are affordable for many events, lodging is probably a challenge.  I paid a lot for lodging in Salt Lake City, but was able to obtain tickets at face value very easily--but I don't know what the situation will be with "secondary markets" for Olympic tickets for 2010. 

The distance to Whistler may mean that two-event days combining an alpine or sliding sport with a skating event might be difficult whereas in Salt Lake City this was easy. For the games, Vancouver recently finished construction on an elevated tram line that runs from the airport and from Richmond to downtown.  From one of the tram stops, its not a long walk (about 1km or 0.6 miles) to the Richmond oval.    There are a lot of hotels in Richmond given its proximity to the airport, so that's certainly a place to stay if you are focused on speed skating.  To be in the excitement of the festivities, staying downtown and taking the tram to the oval might be a better call.  No matter where you stay, arrive early and expect to wait in a lot of fairly long lines. 

Check out the teaser video above for the forthcoming Dutch feature film about the 1963 Elfstedentocht, De Hel Van '63 (or The Hell of '63).  The ice skating marathon tour that year was famous for its brutal weather conditions.  Somebody that participated recently noted to me that of the 10,000 participants only about 100 or so made it the entire 200km to the finish, all of whom started in the first wave.  (With so many participants on a small canal, the tour starts in waves like many cycling events).  The film follows the decision to hold the race, despite the tough weather conditions, and focuses on four participants that include a farmer's son, a soldier, and a nurse, rather than the race leaders or winner that year, Reinier Paping.  The clip above concludes with the words: deprivation...willpower...love.   

I'm hoping the film gets released with English subtitles in the US to at least play at international film festivals.  I'm unsure there is a market (outside of the Netherlands) for what would appear to be a sports-themed film--unlike art house cinema foreign language dramas, sometimes sports films are notorious for being formulaic and I've more than once been disappointed by a movie that I had really anticipated.  Or maybe it will be really good and be up for awards on the international film circuit--its hard to tell from the trailer.  Watching the teaser video, the marathon skater in me gives the film an Oscar nod for at least cinematography and musical score--I love the melodramatic music in the background of the teaser clip. 

In making the film, some of skating scenes were filmed in Finland as well as in the Netherlands.  In one video I saw, for shots in the Netherlands with some landmarks in the background (such as by the waterpoort / watergate in Sneek), it appears the filmmakers had put in pontoons on the unfrozen canal to make the ice--sort of an artifical, linear ice rink.  Although there was a brief period last winter where the canals were frozen enough to support the filming, I believe the Friesland scenes were shot in the late winter / early spring. 

Looks like US Speedskating made a nice recovery after losing its sponsor, Dutch-based DSB Bank, to bankruptcy.  Not sure what DSB's slogan or risk policies were, or what, besides the global economic slowdown, brought them down (see my satirical take on some of the other bank's ad slogans and failures), but its good to see US Speedskating has a method to plug the shortfall.  Stephen Colbert, host of the American comedy satire television program, the Colbert Report, is raising funds to make up for the loss of sponsor.  You can help by making a donation to US Speedskating here or go to www.colbertnation.com and follow the link.

By the way, in the clip above, readers of this blog and watchers of Universal Sports will of course be very familiar with Meb Keflezighi and you could have watched the NYC Marathon live on television complete with commentary by the ever-present Al Trautwig.  Speaking of lesser-followed sports on television, I just watched both last weekend's short track and long track speed skating competitions on Universal Sports.  This weekend, Versus will show the short track World Cup in a highlights show (check local listings, but I have Sat. EST 10:30pm to 12:30am, Sunday 10pm - midnight).  I haven't seen it on the schedule, but Universal Sports may show a highlights of the long track event from Heerenveen, Netherlands mid-week like they showed last weekend's event from Berlin.

{Editor:  The above photo caption should read Olympia brand ice machines prepare surface at Richmond Olympic oval.  We now know that they weren't Zamboni brand machines. Feb 20, 2010.] 
 
Since the NBC networks have started their hype for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, its only time I start too.  And its about 60 degrees (15.5 C) in much of the US, so no outdoor skating anytime soon, although I note that a few places did manage some natural ice in October in Montana at the reservoirs.

Congratulations to the US Olympic Short Track Speed Skating team which was chosen (or nominated, more accurately) at the trials in September.  On the Men's side, Apolo Ohno is joined by Jordan Malone (TX), Travis Jayner (MI), and Simon Cho (MD) while JR Celski (WA) qualified but will need to heal due to a serious injury suffered near the conclusion of the event.  On the Women's side, Katherine Reutter of Champaign, IL leads the women--subsequent to the US qualifier she has gotten two golds this season at World Cup events already.  Along with Katherine, Alyson Dudek (WI), Kimberly Derick (TN), Allison Baver (PA) and Lana Gehring (Glenview, IL) round out the team.  Jeff Simon, Anthony Lobello, and Jessica Smith also qualified for the World Cup team events (but not Vancouver).   The actual roster will depend on the of two World Cup meets, the first of which concluded this past weekend in Montreal and the other will take place in Marquette, MI beginning this Thursday and concluding on the 15th of November.  According to the head of US Speedskating, for all 10 to go to Vancouver, they'd "...need to qualify both a men's and women's relay team..." (see the link above about the trials)--otherwise, 3 skaters go instead of 5.   At each individual distance, from 1 to 3 US skaters will be in any given event, a minimum of 1 (assuming they qualify for the relay) and up to 3 if they qualify individually this fall.  I also believe a 6th skater can join the team in Vancouver as an alternate.   

For Long Track Speed Skating, the World Cup team was determined in Milwaukee at a meet held in late October.  The next step to Vancouver is to determine how many spots the US team will have, which will be determined from World Cup events: Berlin (Nov 6 - 8), Heerenveen (Nov 13 - 15), Calgary (Dec 4 - 6), Salt Lake City (Dec 11 - 13) while the longer distance events will also utilize results from the event at Hamar (Nov 21 - 22).   In addition, the skaters must have met a given distance's minimum qualifying time at one of the events listed above or at an officially sanctioned competition this season.  "The US can have up to four spots in the 500m, 1000m,  and 1500m, and up to three spots in the 3K/5K and 5K/10K," according to an article in US Speedskating's magazine.   The final qualifier will be held December 26 - 30 in Salt Lake City.  (Besides the qualifiers, I don't know yet how they handle the alternates, how many per nation, etc., as these skaters still 'go' to Vancouver and may skate in the case of injury or other reason.  For instance, after a slip in the 500m and a third and possibly final missed chance at Olympic gold, Dan Jansen opted out of his spot to skate in the 1500m at Lillehammer in 1994--so as to instead focus on his last, best shot for Olympic gold, which ultimately was a famous gold / world record success in the 1000m held a few days later--another skater, in that case KC Boutiette, skated in the 1500m.) 

As with getting to the final roster for Short Track events, getting to the final roster for Long Track can make for more excitement at the World Cup meets so watch for results at US Speedskating's website, speedskatingresults.com or best of all, broadcasts of the World Cup events on Universal Sports television or news / video clips on Universal Sports website's Short Track and Speed Skating pages (the website has a lot of news features as well).    Already, Shani Davis has continued where he left off with two golds in the 1,000 and 1,500 meter events last weekend in Berlin while Tucker Fredricks won his 500m race there.  This weekend they'll journey to the Netherlands to the indoor oval at Heerenveen.   

Good luck in the World Cup and then on to Vancouver for US Long Track speed skaters:
Mens 500m:
Tucker Fredricks (WI), Brent Aussprung (WI), Shani Davis (Chicago, IL), Nick Pearson (WI), and Matt Plummer (St. Louis, MO)

Ladies 500m:
Elli Ochowicz (CA), Heather Richardson (NC), Jennifer Rodriguez (FL), Lauren Cholewinski (SC), Rebekah Bradford (MN)

Mens 1000m:
Davis, Chad Hedrick (TX), Pearson, Trevor Marsicano (NY), Jonathan Kuck (Champaign, IL)

Ladies 1000m:
Rodriguez, Richardson, Ochowicz, Bradford, Jilleanne Rookard (MI)

Mens 1500m:
Hedrick, Davis, Marsicano, Kuck, Brian Hansen (Chicago, IL)

Ladies 1500m:
Rodriguez, Rookard, Maria Lamb (WI), Nancy Swider-Peltz (Chicago, IL), Catherine Raney-Norman (WI)

Mens 5000m / 10,000m
Davis, Kuck, Hedrick, Hansen, Ryan Bedford (MI)

Ladies 3000m / 5000m
Rookard, Lamb, Raney-Norman, Swider-Peltz

A bit belated but I thought I should post on one of the last (if not the last) major running marathon of the season.  I watched the end of it live on Universal Sports television, and noticed that that the NYC weather was a cool, grey, early November fall day, complete with falling leaves in Central Park--winter is just around the corner. 

Meb Keflezighi became the first American to win the NYC Marathon since 1982.  Meb emigrated to the US with his family from Eritrea when he was 12 and now trains much of the year in the Sierras in Mammoth Lakes, California with fellow runners including Deena Kastor.  Besides the winners, roughly 40,000 other participants made their way through the five boroughs of New York City enroute to the finish in Central Park (which, by the way, happens to be about right where what was called "skater's curb" a decade ago when I lived in NYC as it was where the inline skaters congregated).  Other participants included Olympic speed skater Dan Jansen, who finished in 3 hours and 41 minutes.  A few minutes behind him was actor Edward Norton.  In an article in the NY Times, Mr. Norton mentioned he battled shin splints and tendon strain by focusing on a mantra from Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami: "pain is inevitable...suffering is optional".  The quote comes from the book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki's non-fiction essays about distance and marathon running.  I had just read this book and it brought back a lot of great memories of being a distance runner entering amateur, weekend events and finishing "somewhere in the pack".  Not a bad gift idea if you have a runner on your Christmas gift list.