ISU World Cup Long Track Speed Skating

Speedskating certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, but if you’re for speed and have never tried it, simply put – you  should!

If you think you can play hockey or figure skate you should definitely give this sport a try as it’s not as easy as one might think.

Canada’s Ted-Jan Bloemen (Calgary) proved to be the top Canadian managing a 12th-place finish in the men’s 5000 metre race on the opening first day of the ISU World Cup Long Track Speed Skating in Nagano, Japan.

Bloemen managed to skate to an impressive time of 6:25.64, while Dutch skater Sven Kramer went on to win the race in a time of 6:15.17.

Jorrit Bergsma (6:15.70) and Douwe de Vries (6:17.65), also from the Netherlands, respectively collected silver and bronze.

Bloemen finished 8th last weekend in the 5000 metre which was held in Harbin China went on to mention to the media “My race today was really disappointing.”

He continued “I’m not able to skate up to my potential right now, and that’s very frustrating. Saturday will be the team pursuit and I’m really proud to be part of that team and I believe we will be strong together.

Following this he will have two weeks to get back on track and to win medals in the 5000m and 10 000m.”

The Women’s side saw Ottawa’s Ivanie Blondin withdraw from the 3000m after waking up ill in the morning, but last week she managed to capture Bronze.

She also bowed out of Saturday’s 1000m after having qualified for the A group in that distance last week. However, she is still considering for the time being taking part in Saturday’s mass start semifinals.

Ottawa’s Isabelle Weidemann was 15th in the women’s 3000m A group with a time of 4:09.58.

Group B races saw Toronto’s Jordan Belchos place fourth in the 5000m (6:25.52) and during his time in Harbin, China he (Belchos) had also managed a fourth-place finish in the men’s mass start.

On the Women’s side, Airdrie Alberta’s Brianne Tutt finished 6th in the 3000m (B) race with a time of 4:11.28.

In the group A races Quebec’s Alexandre St-Jean and Vincent de Haître (Cumberland, Ontario) will be skating in the 1000m.

The three-man teams of Bloemen, Belchos and Denny Morrison (Fort St. John) and that of Laurent Dubreuil (Lévis Quebec) and Montreal’s Christopher Fiola and de Haître will represent Canadian pursuit and men’s team sprint events respectively.

Quebec skaters Ivanie Blondin and Béatrice Lamarche as well as Lachenaie Quebec Belchos and Olivier Jean will take part in the men’s mass start semi-finals.Fe

Their goal is to finish among the top-8 in their respective heats in order to qualify for Sunday’s final round event.

More details are available on Speed Skating Canada’s website at http://www.speedskating.ca/