Another installment in my series where you get to write the captions for pictures that are just begging to be described—
The first two images are by Tom Dinardo, recently taken in Whistler, the next two by me—
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Here is a series of images from the talented Teri Willingham, this is the first corner of a 500m race this past weekend, in blue is National sprint team member Nick Pearson, in red, yours truly.
There was a time when I could give Nick a good race in a 500m, but that was some years ago. He was moving quite a bit faster than I was here; it made for some great pictures, but we tangled up in the crossover about 5 seconds after these images were taken.
I thought this was a fascinating series because Nick is a world class sprinter, and I am at the bottom somewhere at US Nationals during the sprint races.
So what is happening to create this difference between him & me? Dissescting our technique gives some clues.
1. When I am skating well, I’m a right leg dominant skater. What I mean by that is I get a better physical & technical push from my right leg. Nick has said to me when he is going well, he feels like he favors his left.
2. Ideally, one would be equally rockstar with both, and the absolute best in the world are. But in these photos it’s clear Nick is much more balanced than I am. You can see me in a slightly more dynamic right leg push in image 3, and Nick in a VASTLY better left leg position in 2 & 4. Look how high my hips pop during a left leg push. If you could “graph” our pressure into the ice, I’d bet he would be consistent; I’d be surge-release-surge-release.
3. This is why the really good skaters look stable & have “flow” in the turns. What you are seeing is consistent pressure from both legs.
4. Nick has a much better “Cat back”, my back is flat like I am still grabbing the handlebars of a bike. A “cat back” puts more pressure through the heel of your push, making more speed, it’s also more relaxed. You are more like a “spring”.
5. Nick’s shoulders are square in every image, my shoulders are rocking slightly. They are where they should be on my right leg, on the left leg they dip.
6. Check out the very subtle difference in the direction our blades are pointing. Mine are not 100% down the track, Nick’s are. This is clearly visible in image 4. That small difference makes more pressure.
Of course, not pictured in this is all the time I spend at work or changing diapers when he is training! But yaknow, the ice does not care about that, & the few times I’ve been in the gym when Nick was there, we lift about the same amount of weight & can snap similar amounts up in an explosive lift.
Technique, technique, technique. That is why Nick is an Olympian, and so many others are not.
Ok, my lunch hour ruminations are over, back to work! Good luck Nick & the rest of team USA in the next rounds of the World Cup!
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This weekend NBC-Universal Sports Online will be recording the World Sprint Champs in Moscow, and then re-broadcasting it on Wednesday the 21st. You should be able to watch both on TV and online.
How cool is that! Here are the relevant links:
Complete Speed Skating Schedule with video links
One thing worth noting about the current broadcasts is they just added Dan Jansen to the commentating team. Dan is another person who also has a PHD in speed skating.
Here is a direct quote from him, during Sven Kramers’s final 10k at Europeans:
I had an interesting conversation some years ago with Bart Veldkamp, Former European champion, former Olympic gold medalist and current coach of the US team
I asked him what is the difference? why is it that we as Americans tend to be better sprinters, and you guys here from Holland, what is it with the distance races?
The explanation he gave was the best I have heard-
Bart said: “The only difference is what you have seen before you, when Americans are growing up, you think about how fast you can skate, we dream about how far we can skate.”
As Dan was relating this story, Sven Kramer, halfway through his 10k, threw down a 29.0 lap, then a 28.9, wow….
I think there is a lot of truth to this idea, and as an American sprinter, I will be glued to the coverage this coming Wednesday, and looking forward to his analysis.
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A few of the hands around my Thanksgiving table. Except for Jessica, evert single one of them are people I would never have met unless I had started speedskating.
Indeed, all over Salt Lake City, there are many gatherings of athletes who came here just to train on the frozen hamster wheel.
How many are there? The best guesses range between 120 & 150. Of course not all are still training daily, some came for the ice, and stayed for the mountains.
America is a mosaic of weird & fascinating subcultures. This is the one I am proud to be a part of.
And what better way to recover from a turkey-induced stupor than a crushing workout? Here is Mia Manganello, the day after Thanksgiving, lacing up for the last hard set of the day.
I was chatting with Chad Hedrick at the rink after my own workout (Chad is going to be a new father in March as well), and he said that the thing he hates the most about ice speedskating is how it often wrecks Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I agree 100%. I spent 3 years of Thanksgivings in Calgary, by choice. The Can-Am event was one I needed to keep developing. No one forced me to be a speedskater, but the stopwatch only really loves you to the ultimate when you are prepared to sacrifice & sacrifice & sacrifice (This is why my 500m is over a second slower now than it used to be).
Here are Chad’s new boots & blades; he used a pair of Simmons inline boots & L-R Maple clap arm slots for years. Now he has a more conventional long track boot, set up with Viking blades.
Even though I am not in sacrifice mode anymore, I still love going fast, and focus as hard as I can when I am skating.
Here is National Team Sprinter Mike Blumel, doing perfectly what I was working on this entire day on the ice.
Mike has perfect shoulder & hip position pressing into the turn. If you look at where his just-planted left foot is compared to his center of gravity, he is creating immediate pressure the moment his blade touches the ice.
Most skaters “reach” too much with that left foot, and are not creating the immediate pressure they could.
Mike is pressing his upper body into the push, but also keeping it square with the turn. Hard to do. I wonder how many Thanksgivings with family Mike has skipped, and will skip during his tenure with the National team, to skate with such precision?
Want to beat him someday? It’s easy: Be amazingly talented, twine years of excellent coaching together with willpower to suffer, and then spend a lifetime sacrificing more than Mike has.
So simple, and so hard.
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(I originally wrote this in august, and never got around to publishing it. I am going through that new dad-sleep-deprivation cycle right now, & my creativity is a bit low, I figured why not publish this now?)
Train in a group? or train alone?
what is best? it’s an age old question with many strong arguments on either side.
This is Salt Lake inliner Eric Lineback, skating up Big Cottonwood canyon, on the way to the aptly named Solitude ski resort. Thanks to Kim Kraan for the photo.
On the flip side of this, both in substance skated on, elevation gain, velocity, and companionship, here is the US sprint national team. Jen Rodriguez leads Chris Needham, visiting Japanese skater & former 500m WR holder Joji Kato, Mike Blumel, and the rest.
Train along or in a group? It’s the age old question.
You need people to push you, but other times you’ve got to be tough, and face those nasty training days on your own. Especially in long track, it’s a solo sport, and there are many athletes who are great group trainers, but wilt alone in their lane at lonely velocity.
Speaking of Japanese skaters, like the immensely talented Joji, (who I saw do a perfect Michael Jackson moonwalk on his short track blades) there are several Japanese skaters in Salt Lake right now, including the mutiple olympic medalist Hiroyasu Shimizu.
Contrary to popular stereotype, at the rink I’ve see Shimizu training on his own, and the Americans training in groups.
Individuality seems to be culturally relative term, and I find Japanese culture facinating in it’s relation to it. The same day as I took these pictures, I read this wild NYT article about the Japanese phenomenon of the hikikomori (wikipedia link).
Painting with only the broadest cultural brush, it seems that Americans “run away” from physical places and situations, and Japanese tend to “run inward” to express that same feeling.
Maybe a well balanced individual (and athlete?) can move effortlessly between social and solitary forms of life and training. Yeah, this is just speedskating, just a sport, but it’s more than that.
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The first snow of the year is something that winter sports athletes receive with joy. It is a palpable reminder that what they practice so hard for is just around the corner.
In a ski town like Salt Lake, you can almost hear the muted howls of joy drifting down from the mountaintops. Or is that the sound of dogs rolling around in city parks?
But this is the mountain west, not the east, and snow does not stay very long. It left quickly enough for a few pictures of my visiting brother and RZ outside.
If RZ were a perfect genetic copy of me, I am not sure she would create as much emotion as the fact that I see every member of my family in her face.
Her coloring, however, is certainly Jessica’s, as are the feet. Her personality is entirely her own, and that oddly adds to the appeal.
My very wise friend Susan, battle-tested mom of 2, just wrote to me;
And no beating yourself up with guilt about going to skate or on a ride or just for a 15 minute drive alone in the car to nowhere.
Like the flight attendant says: put on your own oxygen mask first.
Thanks Susan, I needed that, and sleep, I could use that too. But all good things will come in their own time.
Besides, if I am already awake at 5am, it makes short track practice so much easier to get to.
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There is an urban legend in Salt Lake City, about a Pizza that unfailingly brings pregnant women into labor.
As Jess is now quite overdue, she has tried many other home remedies like acupressure, a pedicure, extra long walks, and jumping around as the NY Giants beat the Steelers, so a Pizza sounded like a good idea.
The myth said the Pizza was located at Café Trio, so we went there & asked the staff for the “labor inducing Pizza” and they smiled, & said, “Ah, yes, we know exactly the one people talk about.”
The Menu said it was a chicken pizza with garlic, onions, mushrooms, & fontina cheese.
What the menu did not indicate is that there are at least 2 full heads of roasted garlic & fistfuls of mushrooms under that glistening cheese. Wow.
Omigosh it was good! But unfortunately, no labor; Or maybe I ate too many of the yummy garlic buds myself, & Jess did not get a “critcal mass” of garlic & ‘shrooms.
Mmmmmmmm–
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Tom DiNardo is a phenomenal photographer. I knew his pictures before I met the man, and after meeting this awesome fellow, I am honored to publish a few shots.
If you hear news about the death of the Hubble Telescope, I think Tom uses extra bits of it in his camera; he gets some amazingly high-resolution pictures.
These images he took are from the final day of training before the Vancouver world cup ST racing that is happening right now.
Here is Anthony Lobello leading Travis Jayner
Question: When was the last time you saw a Dutch national team speedskater who was not favored to “veni, vedi, vici”?
Answer: If it is one of their short trackers.
It’s great technical practice to skate short track turns with both hands on the back, you have to be really centered with your weight, and quite focused. I think this is Allison Baver, very focused.
Forza Italia, con quelli caschi blu!
I always have thought that the British short track scene must be very much like the USA one. A small number of dedicated athletes, from just a few regions of the country. Rule Britannia!
As I have said over and over, compression=speed. You can clearly see it when Apolo skates.
The great thing about speedskating is that it’s pretty clear what makes you go fast. The terrible thing about speedskating is it takes a stunning amount of work to strengthen your body & perfect your technique enough to do it.
With all the athletes pictured here, you are seeing a lifetime work shown in these brief images. Thanks Tom!
p.s. still no news… Jess is now a week late.
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World record for Meng Wang of China in the Women’s 500m. It was very impressive, powerful skating.
There was a stain on this record though, there were 3 Chinese skaters on the start line, and one Canadian, Jessica Gregg.
Off the start, Jessica slotted into 3rd place, and then the Chinese skater in 4th clearly bumped Jessica out halfway through the race. It was a professional tap, not enough to make her crash, but enough to take away any chance of winning.
Maybe team skating is part of the deal at the upper levels of the sport, but this unfortunate moment marred some beautiful & powerful skating by Meng.
The most dominant country in the whole meet was obviously Korea. There were 8 final races, with 24 individual medals on the line. Korea won 11 of them.
I wonder who this young fan was cheering for, but the energy he put into his banner shows the deep passion Korea has for short track. Anyone out there read Korean?
Here is one of their outstanding athletes, Si-Bak Sung driving out of the first corner on his way to winning the Men’s 500m. Canada’s best sprinter Charles Hamelin in tow.
These guys are getting so much straightaway compression, they look like long trackers.
There is a lot more going on at a world cup than just races. Here is Bruce Kohen, measuring out a pair of boots before molding a customer. For some reason, I think Bruce looks best in black & white.
Bruce had a good day of business, and started his long trip home with a trunkfull of feet. Well, at least the molds of feet.
National Team Long tracker Paul Dyrud had a busy day chasing blocks. Like many American long trackers, Paul is also an accomplished short track skater & will be racing the America’s cup later this year.
Chasing blocks at an event like this is very intense, as the athletes are doing 8 second laps. You only have a few moments to grab an errant block. How do they do it safely? I asked Anthony Bartell, and he said “Well, just make sure you are smarter than the blocks!”.
In many short track events, the final showdown is the Relays. The Chinese ran away with the Women’s relay early on, but the Men’s relay was a nail biter the whole way.
The Koreans set an intense pace, with the Canadians on them like glue. The USA Yo-yo’ed in and out of contact most of the race.
A world-class short track relay that comes down to the wire is one of the most exciting things you will ever see in sports. It’s like a goal line stand in the Super Bowl, or bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th.
Canada passed into the lead with 10 to go. Then Korea passed them back with 7. Canada took the lead back with 5 laps to go. Korea passed again a half lap later-
& made a small gap on US & Canada. At the bell for 1 lap to go, Ohno passed Hamelin, and the USA took second to Korea.
(amazing compression here through the lactic firestorm at the end of a relay)
All 3 teams were under the previous world record, with Korea setting the new mark. Wow….
Oh yeah, no baby news yet. Jess is still waiting, & waiting.
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Pictured below, the new Short Track-specific rink they put up for next week’s world cup.
The unique pad system keeps the athletes safe. It’s some extremely fast, nice ice. The best I have ever skated for short track.
I should have been skating at this moment. In fact, 20 minutes before this shot, I was having a lovely morning skate, But while crossing hard through a turn, with a lot of pressure on my left foot at the apex, something gave way in my back.
It felt like I had been shot where rotational muscles attach to the top of the left hip.
There is a big difference between “injuries” & “owies” and It’s crucial for athletes to know the difference between the two. This was obviously bad news, I left the ice immediately.
When I have been hurt before, it always happens during a rest week, & during moments when I am feeling fantastic… This injury ran true to that pattern, weird…
Getting in and out of my car was a slo-motion wobbly challenge with a red-hot iron poker stuck into my hip. Sitting in my office chair at work and rotating to my left while reaching for a coffee cup was very painful. Uh oh.
At my doctor’s office the very next morning; the verdict? Good & bad. I did not do anything cosmically bad to myself, no nerve damage or ligament tears, but a good chunk of rehab is in order for a few weeks.
I got a prescription from my extremely knowlegable doctor (who is an elite athlete himself) for painkillers, core-centric physical therapy, and a pilates class!! Whoo!
I want to be back on the ice in 2 or 3 weeks. But with Jess due any day now, a little break is not a bad thing. It’s funny how many skaters were kidding me, about how I can’t get hurt now, I need to be able to carry around a baby, and change diapers!
Gotta be at the top of my game for those upcoming challenges…
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