Pictures from Ice Speedskating

What a weekend it has been! I went to Berlin for the 4th time in 2.5 years and being in Berlin is always nice and strange at the same time. I still have the feeling I have not seen the 'normal' Berlin, as I only spent my time at the icerink in east Berlin. Last year, during the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, I have spent a considerable time in the city center and this gave me some historical perspective. However, the Berlin center is still not as familiair to me as the area around the Weissensee in Berlin.

This part of Berlin is just where every day normal life goes on, the tram stops, people shop for groceries, and owh yes, there is also a sportevent. For this event I was lucky enought to get myself a pressaccreditation, so instead of buying the tickets at the ticket office, I could go straight to the press center where my press card was waiting for me. For me, as an amature photographer and sportslover, this is quite a big deal for me, although I must say, it's easy getting used to.

So on thursday we drove to Berlin, and along the way, we experienced some heavy downpoor and this combined with evening traffic, made the drive into Berlin a two hour long test of our endurance. Finally, completly nackered, we arrived at the hotel near the icerink. Last year, we have found an amazing Argentinian restaurant, and after craving the argentinian steaks for over a year, this was our first stop for the evening. The food and wine was excellent and slowly I was feeling more and more like I was in Berlin.

Friday morning I could sleep in a little bit, as the B-group wouldn't start untill 11 am. Which is wonderfull after an hectic week. Arriving at the icerink, my presscard was already waiting for me, giving me all access around the rink. And I must say, it's wonderfull to be able to walk around, set your laptop up and upload some pictures in between the icebreaks.

For this occassion, I had rented a brand new, differant camera and it was a little bit tricky to set it up correctly. In the end, I'm very pleased with the pictures of last weekend and it was amazing what a differant camera can do for me. The only problem is, I have already had to give it back to the owner and now I'm stuck with my own poor little camera again. But I can't complain too much about that, because I knew this up front.

Anyways, I have the feeling the 3 days at the icerink went by in the blink of an eye. What happend to 3 full days in Berlin?? Where did they go? I was so busy with taking the pictures, and checking them afterwards, that I have to admit I have not really noted all the times and rankings. I was surprised though, as everybody else, that Shani Davis didn't win the 1.500 meter event. The time and ranking display was a litttle bit tricky, which left the icerink puzzeled for a while.

I was very pleased with the great results of the young Norwegian girls and of course, the first World Cup win for Jilleanne Rookard. Her realizing she had won the event, brought a small tear to my eye, as I'm a sucker for the underdog and love all sorts of emotion.

The hightlight of the weekend, was the teampursuit! I love this event and love to take pictures of the three skaters close together. It was a little bit difficult to shoot as I normally do, so a lot of pictures failed and came out too blurry, but after a few pairs, I think I got the hang of it, which resulted in some nice shots.

Below you can find some pictures, which in my personal opinion are the best ones. Either because of a emotional feeling with the picture or for technical reasons. I hope everybody enjoys the photos.

For Roemenia: Marian Cristian Ion skating the 5.000m

Heather Richardson from USA skating the first 500 meter

Bob de Jong, Netherlands, skating the last pair of the 5.000 meter

Marrit Leenstra, Netherlands, racing the 3.000 meter in B-division

Denny Morrison from Canada, had the race the 1.500m in B-group, because he fell last week.

Rhian Ket, Netherlands, racing the 1.500 meter

Tatyjana Mikhailova from Belarus, skating the 1.000 meter

Natasja Bruintjes, Netherlands, inner corner 1.000 meter

Philippe Riopel from Canada, racing the 1.000 meter

Jan Bos from the Netherlands, my all time favorite skater

Team France, Alexis Contin, Benjamin Mace and Pascal Briand

Milan Sablik, Zdeněk Haselberger and Pavel Kulma racing for Team Czech Republic

Team Germany: Marco Weber, Patrick Beckert and Robert Lehmann

Jonathan Kuck, Trevor Marsicano and Shani Davis as Team USA

Team Canada with Philippe Riopel, Justin Warsylewicz and Denny Morrison

All in all, I had a wonderfull weekend at the icerink, saw some great racing and took a huge amount of pictures. It took me a while to sort them all out and upload them.This blog is the last thing I 'had to do' concerning the World Cup in Berlin and this is right in time, because on thursday I will leave for Poland again. I'm not going to Hamar, but going for a short european trip to Krakow and the Junior World Cup in Zakopane. I have never been to Poland before and with my great friends of Ryanair, offering me a 5 euro plane ticket, I couldn't resist the opportunity to check this place out. So, keep an eye on this website after the next weekend for some outdoor junior skating pictures.

Naomi Schläger