Pictures from Ice Speedskating

After two weeks of travelling and watching several speedskating events, it was nice to be back home again. On one hand I was excited about the World Cup in Heerenveen on the other hand, I had a little bit enough about it. But, as usuall, on Saturday morning, my alarm went of and within no time, I was geared up for another speedskating weekend.

The 1.500 meters Ladies and Men would be skated this weekend and the 5.000m for Ladies and the 10.000m for Men were also sceduled. Aswell as a new event; the Mass-start. For a while now, we'd been contemplating which skaters would be participating in this mass-start.

Usually, I'm not a big fan of the longest distances for ladies, as they normally take very long to skate 5.000 meters. But this weekend, thanks to the quartet pairing in the B-group and the limited participents in the A-group, the day progressed rapidly. The 1.500 meters men is one of my favorite distances and with allmost all the skaters there, it promissed to be an excited event. For the Dutch guys there was also a skate-off in this event where tickets for the World Single Distance Championship in March could be earned.

Nevertheless, Shani Davis won the distance and the Dutch guys were no way near the podium. After the 1.500m A division, the B-group was sceduled and it was nice to see how much people stayed to watch this distance. Jay Morrison got second and after the competition he gave his flowers to me. This gesture was off course highy appreciated by me and my whole house is still smelling of them.

After a nice dinner and some drinks, we returned home. We set the alarm for the next morning at 6.30 am as the 10k B-group would start at 9 o' clock. I must admit, I wasn't fully awake during the first quartet, but after that, things moved quite rapidly and because of all the action going on on the ice, this long disctance was highly entertainingly for us. At a distance like this, the guys start in 2 pairs and due to the differance in speed or personal best, it happens a lot that a skater is passed by a skater that started either before or after him. It's costs energy and strenght to overtake somebody on the ice and skaters often lose their rythm. But for the audiance it's exciting and you have to pay attention who's skating what time.

By the time the B-division was finished it was only 11 o' clock. The normall A-division wouldn't start untill 13.30 and it felt like we had been at the icerink for 24 hours straight. Luckily for us, there was plenty to see and talk about. It wasn't really a surprise that Sven Kramer won the A-group 10.000 meters, so the 1.500 meter ladies was more exciting. Anni Friesinger skated her second international 1.500m and she won it, again! Really amazing how well she came back after her injury.

The B-group 1.500meters was also after the A-division but contained only off 6 pairs or something. I must admit that by that time, my feet were killing me, but I wouldn't want to miss the mass-start off course!! It was only for guys and was a competition over 10k. Longtrack skaters and Marathon skaters aswell as a shorttrack skater were present. The speaker introduced all the men and they started off with a slow lap. When they took off it was hard to keep track who was were but it was extremely exciting. For somebody who loves the woosh woosh of speeding men racing by, and the clap clap of the skates in the corner, I had a field day! It even motivated me to check out the calendar to see if I would be able to watch some marathon competitions live!

In my opinion it was over too soon and when I drove home, I felt a little bit sad. This was the last big international event I would watch for this season and it would take a long time before I would be able to go to the next event. Next season....