2011 World Short Track Championships

Sheffield, United Kingdom

*I just want to be clear that I will NOT be in Wausau for American Cup Final/US Age Group Nationals.

I also don’t know if there will be a stream running as well.

3/13/2011

I just got word of how to watch World Short Track Championships through CCTV-5! Here are the instructions:

It’s a program called Sopcast. To install this program, proceed to this link here: http://www.sopcast.com/download/

You’ll have to click on either mirror 1 or mirror 2. Either one will work. Next, install the program. Once you’ve installed the program, you’ll want to login as anonymous.

Once you’ve logged in, on top under the “Address” bar, type in either 6002 or CCTV-5 and on the right click on the big blue circle with the arrow or press Enter on the keyboard. CCTV-5 should pop up and you can start working! Racing starts at 1pm UK time (6am PST, 9am EST). ENJOY!

A BIG shoutout to Andrea Whiting for letting me know how this could be done!

3/12/11 Update 2

Fan Kexin wins the 500m Final! Arianna Fontana second and Liu Qiuhong third!

Simon Cho wins the 500m Final as well with Olivier Jean second and Liang Wenhao third! More updates soon. I gotta update my videos.

3/12/11

There was some great racing yesterday for the 1500m finals!  Katherine Reutter and Noh Jin-Kyu were literally dominant in their heats.  Reutter overtook the Koreans on the outside with literally three laps to go and maintained her speed for the win.  Noh Jin-Kyu was literally three skater lengths ahead of Charles Hamelin easily solidifying his win.  More action today in the 500m!  If the internet doesn’t die, I’ll try to update!

It’s cold here in Sheffield. It’s cold and very WINDY.  Check out the seats in my second picture!  It definitely looks clean right?  Haha.   I got a chance to catch up with a lot of the skaters here competing at Worlds.  One of the biggest concerns so far from what I’ve gathered is that the ice is too soft.  Imagine trying to skate on mushy ice.  That’s the overall consensus here.  Soft ice is definitely not favorable for sprinters as ice can break easily.  I’ve seen so much ice flying off of the skates of these skaters that I had to avoid some of the flying debris myself!  This also means that skaters will have push harder, exert more pressure and energy in order to move on the ice.  The main problem is that Motorpoint Arena is normally a hockey venue.  They basically threw the short track ice on top of the hockey ice, instead of completely melting out the hockey ice, then adding the short track ice.  Hopefully conditions will improve by tomorrow or at least by Saturday for the 500m. 

To qualify skaters, countries skate during the World Cups.  Those results are then used for qualifying spots.  The format for World Championships is completely different from World Cups.  There is no second chance or “repechage” to try and get back into qualifying heats.  At World Champs the format is exactly the same as the Olympics:  If you qualify for the next meet, that’s great! If you don’t, you’re completely out of that particular distance.

Each day will skate one distance plus relay qualifications.

Friday – 1500m + Women’s Semi Relay

Saturday – 500m + Men’s Semi Relay

Sunday – 1000m + 3000m Super Final + Women/Men Relay Finals

I’ll try to update more tomorrow from the rink itself.  Racing starts at 2pm local time (6am California PST, 9am Montreal EST).

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