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.
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Zamboni's preparing the ice at the Vancouver Olympic oval {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. Over the season, I noticed a many cycling enthusiasts with high end bikes sporting white bar tape, white saddles, and even white shoes. I was out browsing a local bike shop last evening and noticed that now even the entry level road bikes came with white saddles and white bar tape. On the other end of the spectrum, In this year's pro cycling events, it seemed most of the teams had white bar tape. To each his own, but for us amateurs who don't enjoy the an entourage of mechanics to nightly make our bikes perfect, the bar tape turns grey with patches of black over the season. I had white bar tape on a new bike and it got dingy from sweat and from grease after I'd had to put the chain back on or make other adjustments. And as far as bike seats, I think the only thing that really truly looks good in white leather or white pleather would be cowgirl boots on a country girl going dancing. I sensibly replaced my bar tape...but if you have an opinion be sure to see the poll. Otherwise its time for more topics and another round at the Village Bar.
Looks like Natalie Coughlin got voted off Dancing with the Stars Tuesday night. Kind of a bummer as I was rooting for her (my girlfriend has worked with her on a sponsorship) and she had been dancing well, but lesser players got more call-in votes. I did hear through the grapevine that she and her cohorts were sad. She's still a "golden girl" no matter what. Not sure what this winter holds as far as skating the Illinois canals. It's supposed to be an El Nino year, and that may mean that it will be warmer in the northwestern part of Illinois, according to a recent forecast from the National Weather Service. But there's always room for a cold snap followed by a spell of cold weather to make for good ice. Be sure to vote in the Google Trike / Street View for the Hennepin. Good luck to all the long track speed skaters this weekend in Milwaukee at the Petit Ice Center. The meet runs from October 21 - 25 and serves as the qualification for long track speed skating in the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics. And finally, given the emphasis on endurance sports, good luck to all the runners in the upcoming New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 1. Google just released information about its addition to the "Street View" on its website. If you haven't used this feature, in addition to a drawn map of an area, there is an option to toggle to a 360 degree photographic image of a specific spot on a map. How Google did this was they had special cars that drove every inch of a set of roads, continuously taking 360 degree photographic images. The problem was that of course they can't drive cars on trails like the Hennepin Canal trail, or the I&M Canal trail. But that changes with the inspired, trail-ready "Google Trike".
This is a great use of technology, note how I had to "manually" make my own survey of the Hennepin Canal and its trail and bridges (to assess the the canal's waterway for a marathon ice skate) see the other tabs of this website for more information and photos, or follow the link to the Flickr show http://www.flickr.com/photos/35710734@N05/sets/72157621940514333/show/ Google's off-road, trail addition to its "Street View" is a better solution. Check out the video about Google's new trike, and then follow the link to "vote" for the Hennepin and / or the I&M Canal trail. Voting continues until October 28, so vote now! Although I have still been riding my bike, its time to start thinking about the fast approaching winter. While the elite speed skaters trained over the summer with more skating specificity, have been on the ice for months, and have been competing in world class events since last month, for us amateurs, it is time to start skating.
Besides skating on ice, a variety of options exist. I commented a bit on training for a marathon skate last spring. Dryland training is great because some of the exercises can be done indoors in a gym, and an added bonus is that if you have to travel, these exercises can be done nearly anywhere (I once did a set of exercises on the grassy areas of a hotel parking lot). Here is a pretty good link to a representation of some dryland training exercises from the skate boot maker, Bont. Another source is Diane Holum's book, The Complete Handbook of Speed Skating. Following on my somewhat off-the-topic post (off-topic of outdoor skating, canals, and endurance sports) about the Olympics being awarded to Rio de Janeiro over Chicago, I'm following with a further off-topic post urging everyone to vote for 11-time Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin on Dancing with the Stars. That's in part because she's a genuine person and also because my girlfriend has recently worked with her in a public relations capacity and she found Natalie a joy to work with. So vote for Natalie!
I normally stick to the occasional post about skating, trails, or endurance sports topics, but since this website is focused on the Illinois canals, I'll weigh in on the fact that no 2016 Summer Olympic events will take place alongside or in the vicinity of the I&M or Hennepin canals (not that other than a cycling road race any events would have been anywhere near the canals) as Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games to Rio de Janeiro. While winning the Games may end up being more of curse than a blessing for not only the host city but the host country as well, and not everyone thought it was a great idea to be host, that said, the process sheds some light on the US' Olympic management.
With the choice of Rio, the Olympics, having already been to Latin America before, now comes to a geographic continent for the first time ever (although the other countries in South America speak Spanish, not Portuguese, so do the Peruvians really relate more to Brazilians than to 1968 host Mexico [City]?), and we'll wait-and-see about the concerns of Brazil being overextended (hosting the 2014 World Cup) and the much discussed crime concerns. Let alone a history with bouts of hyperinflation although their economy is okay for now. I guess the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been mirroring the theme of global economic growth and specifically the ascendance in the global economy of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China)--woops, where's India and its billion residents in the Olympic mix--in rewarding recent summer and winter games (Beijing 2008, Russia 2014, Rio 2016). In the post-mortem, I noticed a few things, one was a statement by a Swiss IOC member that "it was a defeat for the US Olympic Committee (USOC), not for Chicago" in a New York Times article. The article noted issues that the IOC has had with the USOC, "most notably over their stalled plan for an Olympic television network and their share of the Games' network and corporate sponsorship contracts." Further, its unclear the USOC ever really got behind Chicago's bid. The USOC should be more of an administrative, support agency that governs and guides the individual sports that it represents, the Olympic movement in the USA, and most importantly, the athletes themselves. Instead, watching Peter Ueberroth hobnob with media bigwigs in Sun Valley and fumble through an interview about starting a television network made me wonder if the executives of the USOC are more interested in empire building and making themselves feel important rather than provide service to the sports and community they are supposed to represent. The USOC has other challenges, notably that major Olympic sponsors are being hammered by the recession (Bank of America, GM, Home Depot), and the USOC felt the need for a special ad campaign to raise funds for its programs--the "America Supports Team USA" print and tv ads. Nonetheless, in this challenging economic environment, the USOC decided to go forward with the major distraction of its risky plan to launch a television network devoted to Olympic sports (at the height of a recession). The rationale was that it would promote the Olympic sports to have them on television more often. In years past perhaps this was an acceptable argument as the only outlet was maybe ABC's Wide World of Sports, but today with Universal Sports available free over-the-air in much of the US (and cable in many locales and everywhere with streaming over the interent), as well as occasionally the major networks (particularly NBC), Versus, and the ESPN family of networks, there are plenty of outlets for the Olympic sports. (Why not spend the management energy leveraging, expanding, and prodding these relationships?) It would have been one thing if, for some reason the USOC didn't truly feel the time was right for the US to be host and wouldn't have supported ANY city in the US hosting the games in the near term and didn't get behind Chicago's bid, but the aborted effort of empire-building with a television network used up any sympathy the USOC might have gotten from me on that score. The Peter Ueberroth show at the USOC has ended as has the recent David Lee Roth Radio Show, both men now live in our memories of things big in the mid-1980s, and it may be time to take a look at the direction of the USOC, as pointed out by Alan Abrahamson in his blog, Olympic Insider. Let's hope the USOC puts more energy into productive tasks such as helping the honest athletes cope with byzantine nutritional supplement rules and the Orwellian 24/7 drug policing while actually punishing the guilty dopers. Or focus on running the competitions, adding/maintaining/upgrading sports facilities, and developing junior athletes. But we'll have to see as I guess its a lot more fun to talk to Erin Burnett of CNBC about being a tv mogul instead. The journey began with a flight to Vancouver, Canada for which, while I got a great price on the ticket, United charged more for the bike (as luggage) than they did for my own ticket. Oh well, maybe if I do this again I’ll try to pass the bike off as a trade show display but the total price to fly with the bike wasn’t too bad. I stayed near the airport and got the bike ready for the journey to begin the next day. I set out the next morning from the hotel and made a short detour over to the Speed Skating oval, newly built for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic games. It’s a gorgeous facility, but unfortunately they won’t leave the ice oval after the games as the building will be modified for other uses. It was a grey day and I started pedaling away. For the first hour or so, the route followed the Fraser River, heading west, and then continued through the suburbs of Vancouver for the next few hours. I was using the Adventure Cycling Association's maps and had downloaded their route to my Garmin Edge 705 GPS training device, which reassuringly beeped and had an arrow for every turn or route change. The nice view with the mountains in the background changed as I began to head south, and I decided that the Vancouver suburbs are pretty boring. Worse, it started to drizzle and then steadily increased the further south I went. By the time I got to the US border around early afternoon, it was raining pretty hard and I had my rain gear on. I rode past the line of waiting cars to the booth, but unfortunately the border patrol person made me go inside as I didn’t have a vehicle with a license plate. After a miserable 30 minute wait in my wet gear, they took a quick look at my passport and gave me a piece of paper to give to the guy outside and I was on my way. The route went on through a pretty boring rural area and then I finished the day in Bellingham, WA, just happy to find a budget motel and get out of the rain. The next day was arguably one of the more scenic days, and excepting the Oregon coast, certainly the most scenic in Washington and it was further helped by sunny skies and no wind. From Bellingham, there were 20 or so miles of hillside road, meandering on a forested shelf overlooking the bay. As the scenery leveled out, I rode through flat farmland punctuated by the occasional slough. I encountered some road cyclists flying by on a weekly training ride complete with aero bars, which was quite a contrast to my Mack truck of a bike. The road then went on to Whidbey Island, and had a pleasing mix of bays and rolling terrain—the fishing villages brought coastal Maine to mind. Finally, it was time to take a 30 minute ferry ride to Port Townsend, a Victorian era town with many historic buildings. I felt like riding a little more, so I went another hour or so on to the next town, Port Hadlock. Day 3 was a long day travelling south along the western side of the Puget Sound down to Shelton. From there, I left the route and utilized Old Highway 101 to get most of the way to Olympia where I stayed with an old friend. I lingered a bit the next morning before getting out of town. Now off of the Adventure Cycling route, I headed south on a combination of rail-trails and eventually crossed the route at Centralia, WA, but instead headed towards a bed and breakfast at Winlock. This was my shortest day, and also the least climbing, so my legs and other parts of my body had a chance to recover. The next day had a few highlights but also some lowlights. It was a foggy morning, and the rural area was complete with a few snarling dogs that emerged from houses / compounds that had an unruly, sprawling appearance such that I wondered if they might be meth labs. The sun eventually broke out and there I was at the Columbia River. I went westward on the Washington side for an hour or so, then took the ferry across to the Oregon side at Cathlamet. I expected the ferry to run continuously, but it ran only every hour so I had to wait a bit. The next 30 miles or so westward to Astoria was unexpectedly hilly, and by the time I rolled into Astoria I was quite tired. I made a lousy selection for a hotel and decided that Adventure Cycling tends to rely on campgrounds and non-chain budget motels. I left Astoria the next morning and headed out to the nearby coast. I first rode with a German couple for an hour or so until they stopped at Cannon Beach; they weren’t going as far as I’d be going that day and their approach was much more leisurely. Maybe next time for me. After many days riding alone, I’d continue to encounter touring cyclists the next two days, including two “funemployed” women, an older guy from California, and two younger guys who probably hadn’t packed a razor for the trip. At some point, though, I decided that I wasn’t “funemployed” (despite not feeling carefree, I was having fun this week, though) and hadn’t planned to be gone for very long, so remembering that I’d started at the Vancouver speed skating oval, I decided that I could make it to Eugene, OR, and the legendary Hayward Field track by Wednesday afternoon, making it a weeklong tour bookended by symbolic nods to other sports I’ve participated in (running and speed skating) rather riding further south to California (or spending several more weeks finishing the entire route to the Mexican border outside of San Diego) on a full-fledged bicycle odyssey. The Oregon coast was amazing. It looks a lot like the rugged coast of Northern California, but my impression was that the coastal hillsides have more pine trees and less chaparral, and there seemed to be more sandy beach than in California. Much of this route was on a wide shoulder on US 101, but parts of it went on scenic roads, especially the first afternoon where the course put me on the Three Capes Scenic route. I was happy to roll into Pacific City, OR and stay at a great hotel with a brew pub across the street. The weather had been warm and sunny so the beach was full at check-in time, then the sunset was amazing, and later the stars were gorgeous. The next day was going to be a big push to get to Florence and the weather and scenery continued to be excellent. From Florence, the final day into Eugene was pleasingly mostly flat, rolling along side a pair of rivers. After ceremonially concluding my ride at Hayward Field, I rode the few miles to the Amtrak station and boxed up the bike and checked it for the ride home. As the scenery rolled by out the train's windows, I reflected on the past week's journey of over 650 miles (1050 km) by bicycle with a feeling of satisfaction. This URL has the photos from the trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35710734@N05/sets/72157622330965197/show/ The first set of photos at the oval was actually taken the afternoon of my arrival in Vancouver as I rode there to test my reassembly of the bike. I chose the hotel for its proximity to the airport as well as a bike shop, to which I did need to make a couple of trips for some last minute adjustments. At the end of the trip, I didn't get a picture of Amtrak's box, but it was much easier given its larger size than the standard size box I used for the airline (from a local bike shop).
Mountains in eastern British Columbia. My bike tour won't have hills this big, fortunately! Another of my multiple-topic posts--another round at the Village Bar.
I'll be starting a short bicycle tour, really a journey of several days by bicycle, in the Pacific Northwest (NW-tocht?). I'm not too much a Luddite that I couldn't manage to sign up for Twitter, so I'll be able to post my progress here once I get started on the journey. On a pro cycling note, tough break for Christian Vande Velde in the Tour of Missouri as he had to withdraw after a crash, but overall Garmin's cycling team has notched some nice wins this week. Dave Zabriskie won today's Tour of Missouri time trial, while in recent days over in the Vuelta a España, Tyler Farrar finally outsprinted the field and got his first victory in a Grand Tour, while Garmin rider Ryder Hesjedal claimed Canada's first ever stage victory in the Vuelta and the first Grand Tour victory for a Canadian since 1988. Not only are the Garmin-Slipstream riders good guys, but I like the sponsor's products. My Edge 705 not only logs the speed, cadence, and heart rate of my rides, but also on select routes that I've inputted the waypoints, guides me with directions using GPS, which I'm no doubt going to like on my upcoming tour. The season has begun to change. In Illinois, this means the corn will soon be harvested and later the leaves will start to turn leading to some terrific fall color along the canals--its not too early to start contemplating a weekend tour. The change of seasons to fall reminds one that this is a Winter Olympic year. The US Olympic trials for short track speed skating are going on now (its still warm out!), watch for young JR Celski to have a breakout year while Apolo Ohno should glide to qualifying for his third Olympic team. As with cycling (where you can watch entire stages on streaming video), updates and video are available at Universal Sports. |
Editor - JimThis blog weighs in on topics such as long-distance skating, the Illinois canals, cycling, and a variety of related (and occasionally not-so-related) topics. I'd like to correspond with others interested in skating the Hennepin and I&M canals. Archives
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