Ronnie in the USA

Below is the protocol from the North American Short Track Championships held last weekend in Milwakee. Appearing in the Senior Division is none other than Roos own Ronnie Caldecutt - or as they would have it Ronald Caldeatt (have a look from page 24 in the protocol).

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Read this doc on Scribd: 2008nasttimes

Project 10 Camp #2

Last weekend (14th, 15th, and 16th of March) the second Project 10 camp was held at Canterbury Ice Rink in NSW. This time around Richard Nizielski assumed full coaching status and so was on hand to take the girls through their paces both on and off the ice.

The attendance for this camp was less than the full contingent of 8 that participated in the first camp held at Acacia Ridge in December last year. Lyla Abdallah-Pinney and our Bronzed Aussie Tatiana Borodulina are taking a break, whereas Tabitha Caldecutt has withdrawn from the program to pursue her coaching aspirations.

The remaining 5 girls: Krysia Child, Emma Coxon-Smith, Marissa Earle, Alix-Myra Anderson, and Sinead Foggarty joined Richard, Lisa Jensen, and Alison Throssell for a mix of relay practice, laps, imitations and the like.

If you would like to support the girls in their endeavor to qualify for the 2010 Games, you can purchase a Project 10 T-Shirt. Mine's on order!

QIRA Board

At the weekends QIRA AGM, the following were elected to their board:

President: Ian Caldecutt
shorttrack@optusnet.com.au
skaters@ozemail.com.au
(07) 3818 1602 home
(07) 3271 1663 work
0407 737 609

Vice president: Neil Lockett
nlpainting@bigpond.com
(07) 3272 4914 home
0418 726 811

Secretary: Michael Bowles
bowlesm@optusnet.com.au
(07) 3375 4797 home
(07) 3008 4671 work
0434 382 339

Treasurer: Colin Ryan
crya2157@bigpond.net.au
(07) 3273 4486 home
0410 365 350

2008/09 Schedule

A huge thanks to OhnoZone for the article on the US Speedskating Schedule! This schedule includes all World Cups/Championships for the upcoming season along with some domestic (US) competitions.

Salt Lake will host the first World Cup of the season and Vancouver will be put to the test as the ISU prepares for the 2010 games!

Also, this season brings the 2009 World University Games. China will host the games in Harbin, the location of this past season's World Team Championships and World Cup #1.


2008/09 looks like another great season!

The Carbert Report: World Team Championships & Canadian Current Events

It’s official, the 2007/08 ISU season is over. Skaters from around the world traveled to China to wrap up their international season with the World Team Championships. The big winners were China, in the women's competition, and the United States in the men's.

Looking back on the season, it is no surprise these teams ended up with their gold medallions. China, had an amazing season and showed incredible talent at almost every stop of the circuit. The United States exhibited their incredible depth this year, frequenting multiple team members in A-Finals, a swift change from the past few years where Apolo Ohno was the only member constantly making the top bracket.

For those looking for a refresher on the World Team Championship formats refer to World Short Track.


The season is definitely slowing down in Canada, with only the National Trials remaining, the off-season is quickly approaching. The Olympic Oval in Calgary has removed the long and short track ice, and will soon start to function as a exhibition hall for the spring. The Calgary Oval recently sent a team to China to compete in the Conematic Challenge. The team traveled to Harbin, the site of the World Team Championships, where they skated in massive meets with several hundred competitors! For those who met us Canadians in July & August, Megan was a member of the team selected to compete in China! She's had an excellent season, and will be skating in the National Trials this coming weekend!

As for news about the upcoming 2008/09 season... World Junior Championships will be held in Sherbrooke, Québec! I can confirm right now that I will be in the stands with my camera in hand, fulfilling my position as Canadian Correspondent.

Jim Lynch Turns 60

I received a post this morning from Jim Lynch's brother Warwick letting us all know that it is Jim Lynch's 60th Birthday today. Congratulations Jim, we can't wait to see you back at Nationals this year in Sydney.

I think I will be safe in saying Happy Birthday from the World Masters Short Track and Short Track Australia communities. Feel free to post birthday messages here for Jim.

Happy birthday to the first ever short track world champion. See 1978 World Championship post.

Frank - www.worldmastersshorttrack.com



'Just an update on Jimmy.
It's his 60th birthday & we, (His cousins, 3 brothers & our wives) are giving him a restaurant "roast" in Wollongong today.

He is still very active & loves water skiing as well.
He is so fit we're going to try & slow him down. LOL.

Regards Warwick (Lynch) '

16th March 2008

5000m Relay final - World Championships

I thought that a fitting way to end our international season is to put up some footage of perhaps the seasons most anticipated event. The Men's 5000m Relay is always the final race at the World Championships, indeed in any ISU International Short Track Event. This years race was particularly interesting for a number of reasons.

The final was one of those rare 5 team relays. That means 20 skaters on the ice at once. The ice was mashed up early on in the peace - as you can tell from the slipping going on by the less experienced Brits.

It is also a sneak peak at our qualification rivals for the upcoming Olympics as both Britain and Russia qualified for the event. The teams joining them are regular starters Korea, Canada and the USA.

The race was eventually won by the Koreans who pulled away convincingly towards the end, coping better as they usually do with the bad conditions. Particularly revealing is the impressive performance turned in by the Brits who stayed in the mix until the very end!



Click HERE to see lick_10's other video footage of the comp.

Glen Rosenburg's Operation

Check out Frank Anderson's blog www.worldmastersshorttrack.com
for the gory details. Click on his link to the pre-op photo if you dare!

Don't worry Mum's and Dad's, this is a very rare occurrence.

Deaf/Blind Speedskater

Do you ever think training is just too hard and you feel you can't push through?

Surfing the net the other day, I came across an interesting site about a guy called Kevin Frost. He is a blind and deaf speedskater out of Canada and he is fighting to have deaf/blind speedskating recognised by the International Paralympic Committee. Kevin suffers from a condition known as Usher Syndrome.

On the home page of Kevin's site, there is a .wmv file showing the view that Kevin has when skating. I think it would interesting to blindfold ourselves and travel the 111m and see how we'd go. This just highlights how lucky most of us are and we should be thankful we can train hard without these worries, but Kevin obviously doesn't let it hold him back.

Kevin has an amazing number of titles to his name and there are many published articles about him on his site. Not only that, he is one of the aging Masters crew.

Let's get behind Kevin and all 'Athletes with Disabilities'.

There is an email address on his site if you would like to send an email of support to him.

Frank Anderson - www.worldmastersshorttrack.com

IRANSW Talent ID Clinic #1 Erina

The past weekend (8th & 9th of March) saw the first of the Talent ID Clinics for the year. The Sydney skaters traveled up the F3 to join their Erina based counterparts for the first time. With over 20 under 15's on the ice the clinic was a success.

The Clinic incorporated fitness testing, on ice technique work, off ice technique work, and racing. The 3 NSW based coaches: Maggie Holland, Dayong Kwon, and myself were on hand to helo the young talent through.

Here are some photos of the ice sessions taken by Erina based talent Grace Felch's Mum, Susan Felch. Follow this LINK to see the full album.

Ohno Wins First Title!

I know, I know... you already know. It is still news worthy though. It is amazing to think that the dual gold medalist has never been World Champion. This may have something to do with multiple (concurrent) World Champion Ahn Hyun Soo being unable to compete due to injury, but for Apollo it is certainly deserved.

On the home front, our two competitors came in 35th and 40th. Below is how they got there:

Lachlan Hay (40th)
1500m Quaterfinals - Race #1 4th of 6.
500m Prelims - Race #12 4th of 4 (fall).
1000m Heats - Race #9 4th of 5.

Jeremy Beck (35th)
1500m Quaterfinals - Race #2 4th of 6.
500m Prelims - Race #9 3rd of 4.
1000m Heats - Race #10 4th of 5.

For the official Protocol click HERE

That is it for the 2007/2008 Season! There are 2 more full seasons until the 2010 Winter Games so we can expect some good domestic and international action in the season to come.

Worlds News

Sung, Ohno Highlights Short Track Worlds

Korea to host world short track speed skating championship

World Championships Underway Today!

This season's blue ribbon event and final event for Australian skaters, the 'ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships' is underway in Gangneung City, Korea. 'Sportresult LIVE RESULTS' son't seem to be up and running yet but it is only the first round so I'm sure we will get to see the races as they are run in before the day is out.

The big news is that Tatiana Borodulina is absent from the Australian list again. Apparently Tatiana is taking a 3 month break back at home in Russia before launching into the next season. The short track season is long and involves lots of travel - especially coming from Australia. We hope Tatiana enjoys her well-deserved rest and can't wait to see her race in the up coming season.

Also missing is Alix-Myra Anderson despite her completing the selection criteria. This may be due to University commitments. While it would have been nice to see her finish her 1st season on the National team on the line at the Worlds, we also hope Alix-Myra enjoys a well-deserved break.

This leaves us with Jeremy Beck and Lachlan Hay as the Australians eligible to compete.

Both Lachlan and Jeremy kick the weekend off with the 1500m today - remembering that the format for the Worlds is not the same as the World Cup - requiring each entrant to compete in all distances (1500m, 500m, and 1000m), with the 3000m Super-final reserved for finals points getters.

Good luck to the boys for their final event for the season! I will post the results of this evenings session later today.

* Watching the boys from the stands this weekend is Roos skater Ronnie Caldecutt. Enjoy the trip mate!