vendredi 29 février 2008

Conematic 1500 mètres

Groupe B en matinée - 1500 mètres
1- Gabrielle Waddell monte dans le groupe 1

Liam McFarlane a terminé au second rang et Jessica Hewitt s'est vu dq en demi-finale. Les 2 ne devraient pas avoir de problème à se hisser dans le 1er groupe demain.

The other interesting thing this weekend is the qualifications from round to round. Today, it was 1+12 from the heats and 1+3 from semi to final. The fastest times had to be from 2nd-3rd-4th place skaters.
Tomorrow, it's the same thing except that it's the 2nd and 3rd place skaters who can get through on time.

GROUPE 1 FINAL A
1. Remi Beaulieu
2. Michael Gilday
3. Xin Chen
4. Yongjun Yu
5. Lei Sun
6. Zhiyu Wang
7. Guillaume Bastille DQ
Remi and Michael were out in front in the final laps by a good 5-10m with Remi passing Michael on the last lap by the outside for the win.
Guillaume was in the race for the win until about 3 to go, when he clashed blades in the straight with one of the Chinese skaters and lost the edge on his right skate. He sort of gave up but seeing that he still had a chance for 3rd, he got going again. On the last straight he was trying to negotiate a path through a couple of swerving Chinese skaters and wound up sending one of them into the boards.
Michael almost missed his race and in his haste to get ready snapped a lace in the heat box.
Remi won Price money winners: 1000 chinese yuan (approx. $150cad), Michael 600 and Guillaume 600 for having the fastest time of the day (semi).

Others:
11. Michael Friesen (semi)
13. Richard Shoebridge (semi)
16. Alex Boisvert-Lacroix (semi)
19. Cory Rasmussen (heat)

Women A Group final results
1. Linlin Sun
2. Xiaowan Sun
3. Xue Feng
4. Valerie Maltais
5. Qichao Zhang
6. Nita Avrith DQ
7. Cuijia Liu DQ
Val was in the lead with about 6 to go. Linlin Sun went by with 1.5-2 to go by the outside and was home free for the win. Zhang passed Val on the bell lap by the inside but it was a very close pass. Val tried to pass her back on the inside but Nita was coming through too and there was a little bit of contact between the two (Nita was dq'd here).
There was a mad scramble on the last half lap with lots of traffic and a bit of bumping.

Others:
21. Marianne St. Gelais (heat)
25. Marie-Andrée Mendes-Campeau (heat)
28. Gabrielle Waddell (heat)
Marianne was in one of the first heats and her race wasn't fast enough (finished 3rd).
Marie-Andrée was going well but got bumped around a little and wound up getting stuck on the outside for 2-3 laps (finished 5th).
Gabrielle was in the last heat, which was very fast as all the skaters knew the time to beat to qualify for the semis. Four 1500m races were enough for her today. She'll be in the A group for the rest of the competition.

Both men's relay teams (oval and SSC) qualified easily for the semis as did the women's team from SSC.
Lineups: Gilday, Beaulieu, Shoebridge, Boisvert-Lacroix; St. Gelais, Maltais, Mendes-Campeau, Avrith.

At one point I thought there might be a rain delay. The roof has a lot of leaks and there is water dripping everywhere, especially on the ice.
There are brown spots and little holes melting into the ice. See picture.

The ice isn't particularly fast either.
The 500m and relay semis are tomorrow. The 500m heats are drawn from the Chinese National Cup circuit so ALL of our skaters have 3 or 4 on the start line in their heats tomorrow since they are new to the circuit.

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