L'Équipe canadienne en route pour le Championnat du Monde

Marc-André Monette pique un somme au milieu de la place et surprend les Asiatiques.


Au Centre d'achat Hyundai, l'Équipe se porte plutôt bien.

Su l'heure du diner, au resto

Marc-André est maintenant bien éveillé...

Suite à venir....

Competition in China - 500 meters

The 500m races were today as well as the relay semis. Again, the 1+ qualification criteria made some interesting races.
Girls
1. Marianne St-Gelais
2. Mile Zhu
3. Wei Wang
4. Wenwen Li
Marianne was strong each round, winning the start and skating out front. In the final, Zhu beat her off the start and skated all over the place at 9.8. Marianne tried inside a couple of times (first straight and later) but couldn't get by. She had the last laugh though by blowing by Zhu on the outside on the last lap. Zhu tried hard to get her though with some traditional Chinese cross-tracking.
Marianne had the fastest time of the day too, so she's 1600 yuan richer ($250 cad).

Others:
6. Valérie Maltais (2nd in semi but not fast enough)
12. Nita Avrith (quarters)
17. Gabrielle Waddell (won quarter but was dq)
20. Marie-Andrée Mendès-Campeau (heat - barely missed on time)

In the B group, Liz Dier was the only skater to make the final but she didn't win.

The girls won their relay semi. (Maltais, St-Gelais, Mendes-Campeau, Waddell)

Men
1. Michael Gilday
2. Hongyang Wang
3. Alex Boisvert-Lacroix
4. Liam McFarlane dq

Liam was dq'd on Alex early in the race. The Chinese skater stole the start and that made for a hectic race. Michael went by Alex and Liam when the two of them bumped. Alex passed was at the back but came back strong, passing Liam and Wang on the bell. But he hit a block and went down. Before he hit the 'pads', he put his hands up but that only made things worse as his hand smashed into his face on impact. Eventually, you will all see pictures of the nice black eye he's going to have. He had enough awareness though to finish the race and claim 3rd. So Michael grabbed 1000 yuan as did Alex (400 for 3rd and 600 for fastest time - 42.2 - in the semi).
Alex went to the hospital for his orbital bone around his right eye but came back with the green light for tomorrow. Somehow, he managed to get pass the eye chart in Chinese characters. 象形字

Liam skated 8 500m races today, winning the B group in the morning and going all the way to the final in the afternoon.

Others:
5. Friesen (semi)
6. Guillaume Bastille (semi)
11. Remi Beaulieu (quarter)
17. Richard Shoebridge (heat)
24. Corey Rasmusssen (heat - should have been advanced after getting slammed around a few times)

In the relay, the Oval team finished 1st in their semi and the SSC team (Gilday, Beaulieu, Bastille, McFarlane) was DQ'ed.

Remi fell right before an exchange. Liam forgot to look both ways and collided with an oncoming Chinese skater, resulting in the DQ. The guys responded well and came back to finish 2nd but the DQ rules them out of the final.
Guillaume was almost rubbed out on the boards by another skater in the last two laps. The guy saw him coming by on the outside and just started going wider and wider, hoping that Guillaume would eventually hit the wall.


At least we are taking all their money!

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.

Conematic en Chine

Suite aux poursuites qui déterminaient les groupes, seules les 4 filles du Québec (Valérie Maltais, Marie-Andrée Mendès-Campeau, Nita Avrith et Marianne St-Gelais) se sont hissées dans le 1er groupe de 30 patineuses. Les autres dont Jessica Hewitt et Gabrielle Waddell devront terminer au 1er rang du 2e groupe (compétition en avant-midi) pour avoir une seconde chance de compétitionner dans le groupe 1(compétition en après-midi). Une seule pourra monter dans le groupe 1 à chacune des distances.
Temps officiel de la poursuite 777 mètres.
3. Valérie Maltais 1:12.492
10. Marianne St-Gelais 1:13.214
25. Marie-Andrée Mendès-Campeau 1:15.095
27. Nita Avrith 1:15.181

Chez les gars, Liam devra terminer premier du 1500m en avant-midi pour se hisser dans le 1er groupe. Rémi et Michael étaient en pair de même que Alex et Liam (dernière paire).
66 patineurs en tout.
Le groupe 1 sera formé des 30 premiers à la poursuite et à chaque distance, le gagnant du groupe 2 montera dans le groupe 1.

Résultats de la poursuite 777 mètres.

1.Rémi Beaulieu 1:07.7412.
2.Michael Gilday 1:07.7523.
3.Cory Rasmussen 1:08.0055.
5.Richard Shoebridge 1:08.1918.
8.Guillaume Bastille 1:08.61529.
29.Michael Friesen 1:09.63930.
30.Alex Boisvert-Lacroix 1:09.67831.

31.Liam McFarlane 1:09.694

Olympic Gold Medallists to Miss Short Track Worlds

Sang-hee Han - The Korea Times - 29 février 2008


South Korea's short track speed skating stars, Ahn Hyun-soo and Jin Sun-yu will not make the short track world championships held here due to injuries, causing the team worries. [...]

"He had a reexamination, but the doctors said that it would be difficult for him (Ahn) to compete,'' IB Sports said. " [...] "Jin injured her ankle during a rather aggressive match with the Chinese players at the World Cup Short Track this month. She returned home in a wheel chair and wasn't even able to put her skates on," Song Jae-geun, the team's coach said to Yonhap News Agency.

[...] Meanwhile, Apolo Anton Ohno, who stunned the nation with his ``Hollywood action'' at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, will return to Seoul as a member of the United States team. [...] It will be his first visit for a tournament in 29 months, following the 2005-2006 International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup Short Track.