World Cup #3 Preliminaries

The preliminary racing day proved to be the long endurance day we've come to expect. The support staff spent about 13 hours at the rink from warm-ups and racing to the end of the relays. The skaters took opportunities to head back to the hotel when they had enough time. Otherwise they managed to sneak in a 15 minute power nap on the stretching mats in the weight room.

The day was a rather successful day for my skaters. Other than a disqualification in the 1500m for Jessica Hewitt, all of them qualified through to the world cup rounds. This is important for the skaters as they can avoid the early morning repechage rounds and rest up for the world cup in the afternoon. All of them are gunning for A-finals and medals, so this gives them the best chance at doing so.

Hewitt came back in the 1000's making the adjustments necessary in her preparation to be competitive. She skated smart and executed well during her races. When she's pumped up and ready to race, she's definitely world class.

It was a great start to Richard Shoebridge's world cup debut. Racing in the 1500m in the morning, he showed patience and skill as he worked his way into qualifying position. He's skating very smooth and confident. Sometimes skaters show the stress of being at the world level but Shoei seems to be handling things very well. He showed everyone his quick start and speed in the 500m and passed easily into the world cup rounds.

Jessica Gregg also showed off her quick starts yesterday. She's entered in both of the 500m events this weekend. In one start, she toed in twice, almost 3 times and still managed to win the start and pull away from her opponents.

Michael Gilday had a great day of racing, skating with confidence and ease as he made passes to the front of the pack with good timing. He showed very calm reactions as one of his passes up the outside took him to the lead only in the last lap. With improved starts in the 500m as well, he'll be much more in contention, which makes for some exciting racing.

Here's Jeroen Otter taking in the view from our hotel restaurant on a clear day.

Outside the arena, there's a couple of banners with the Chinese team posing, advertising the world cup event. Our Canadian women's team decided it would be great to have some fun with it and dress up for their own photo shoot! Below is the result, which we quickly printed and posted just outside our change room at the rink! The Chinese team loved it and asked for a copy to keep. Our change room was the most popular for awhile yesterday as every team came by to check this out!
Team Canada in this photo (from left to right): Annik Plamondon, Valerie Lambert, Michael Gilday, Jessica Gregg, Jessica Hewitt, Anne Maltais and Kalyna Roberge.

As usual, the Canadian team is willing to have a little fun. Now the focus shifts to racing again as we get ready to improve on our results from the first 2 world cups.

JC