Saturday, September 27, 2008

America Cup I

It was a long day. The facility here was really nice and Greg Oly did a great job as meet director. Unfortunately, they are losing $$$ putting this on so it will probably be the last Am Cup here. Highlights today was a 1500 semi that JR Celski won. It was a crazy race behind him with passes everywhere. Best 1500 i've ever seen.
Robert Lawerence making an outside in pass in a heat with no room. There were others but I'm having troubling remembering. There were alot of crashes and a couple of stopped races. Walter Rusk hit hard and hope he is ok. I saw his bloody skate in the locker room and he was taken off the ice in a stretcher. I didn't skate my best in the 500s but at least I made it out of today in one piece.

Here's some results I found on Ohno Zone.




OK, here we go; Heat results for mens/women/s 1500m.

NOte: first and second place advance, the 2 fastest skaters of the third placers advance, so we don't have that information yet....


Ladies 1500
1st heat
Kristin Todd, Liz Burns, Maria Garcia, Jessica Smith, Kristen Beyondo, ALlison Baver

Allison first, Maria 2nd, Jessica SMith; Maria dq'd for impeding so Jessica advances

2nd race:
Cherize Wilkins, Tamara Fredericks, Kelsey Shield, Rachel Stewart, Mary Grace, Lana Goerig
Lana, Mary advance; Cherize third

3rd race:
Sade Grace, Maddie Waton, Carly Wilson, Morgan Izzy, Tina Koenig, Vicky Labordette
Tina, Carly advance, Vicky third

4th race:
Kathleen Russell, Alana Fiorenza, Kimberly Derrick, Alison Dudek, Eleanor Poore, Erin Bartlett
Kimberly, Allison, Erin Bartlett 3rd

Catherine Reutter, Sophia Milan, Erica Lanzer, Leslie Jaworski, Sara Elliott, Sarah Berg
Katherine, Leslie move on, Sophia Milan 3rd



Men's 1500 prelimns

Jonathan Sermeno, Kyle Haun, Buddy Gerr, Chris Krepling,Eddie Alvarez, Jeff Simon
Jeff, Jonathan, Eddie advances; Jonathan was dq’d

Levi Sinak, Cole Krueger, Ryan Leveille, JR Celski, Chris Mclaughlin, JUlian Wood
Ryan, JR, Julian 3rd

Nick Frank, Thomas Anderson, Kyle Urehara, Kyle Carr, Shani Davis, Michael Vertican
Shani Davis, Kyle Carr, Kyle Urehara third

Simon Cho,Derek Gray, Levi Kirkpatrick, Kevin Geminder, Dan Fiorenza, Anthony Lobello
Simon, Anthony,

Travis Jaynor, MC Scheab, Patrick Choi, Robert Lawrence, Jonathan Garcia, Barry Winslow
Travis, Robert Lawrence, Barry Winslow

Joey Lindsey , Ryan Bedford, James RWomens' 1500 Semi-finals and FINALS

Semi-finals, all top 3 advance to finals:

1st heat:
Katherine Reutter, Allison Baver, Allison Dudek, Tina Koenig, Cherize Wilkins, Lesley Jaworski
Reutter, Baver, Dudek (Tina & Cheriz both fell and both dq’d for impeding)

2nd heat: Lana Gehring, Carly WIlson, Jessica Smith, Kristen Beyondo, Mary Grace, Kimberly Derrick
Derrick, Gehring, Smith advancing

=======================

Women's 1500 Finals:
Starting with 1st place:

Katherine Reutter
Kimberly Derrick
Allison Baver
Lana Gehring
Allison Dudek
Jessica SMith

Men's 1500 Semi-Finals:
Womens' 1500 Semi-finals and FINALS

Semi-finals, all top 3 advance to finals:

1st heat:
Joey Linsey, Travis Jayner, Simon Cho, Eddie Alvarez, Kyle Carr, Robert Lawrence, Jeff Simon
Simon, Jayner, cho (dq’d for cross tracking) so Alvarez advanced

2nd heat:
Ryan Bedford, Ryan Leveille, Chris Krepling, Shani Davis, JR Celski,
Anthony Lobello
Celski, Lobello (who swooped in out of nowhere to take 2nd).
The rest of the 4 came in all together and it took quite a qhile for the officials to make the announcement. In the end:

Celski, Lobello, Ryan Bedford




500m finals (don't quote me on these results)

Simon
Lobello
JR Celski
Simon Cho?



Ladies (for sure)

Ruetter
Baver
Ruetter (crash)
Garcia (DQ)

Monday, September 1, 2008

Desert Classic

Here's a post that I started on the Desert Classic a while ago. I'm in MN for the America Cup and figured I'd update people on what's happening here.

So first here's this unfinished blog post. I skated ok in this meet. First race I was too pumped up and wasted alot of energy in my 9 lap TT. I died really really hard but went 1:36.?. My best race of that meet was with Chris Creveling and two Japanese skaters. One was Sataro Teraou. I watched him on TV in 1994 when I was still playing hockey, drinking beers and doing other bad stuff. It's amazing that I even stepped to the line with this guy.

Anyways i took the start to the apex from the awesome #2 start spot and I slowed to let one of these World Cup guys lead. They were skating what seemed like 1000m pace. I settled in and watched Terao pass from the back and his teammate just let him in. Then Chris tried an outside move and things heated up. I got dropped with two to go came in bummed. Then when I saw the Japanese guys went 44 and i was 45.8 I was pumped. For those guys 44 is slow and it was awesome to see them just control their skates so well. Goes to show that if you just chill and skate you go fast.

I proved that to myself again today at the AmCup #1 as I scratched, clawed and toe picked around in my 500m final. I was lucky to get out of the 500m heat with a 2nd place time of 47.?.

It was disappointing not in placing DFL in the A final but not skating to my potential. You know how it feels when you are "on" and when you are "off". I'll skate better tommorow I'm sure. I haven't done alot of ST racing and you cannot simulate that in practice. But Mike said I popped off a couple of 9.5s so that was good to here. I remember Appolo saying that he had a bunch of 20 lappers one day and I said what speed....he said 9.5??? Sad thing is that is cruising speed for the National Team guys in SLC. They look like they are chillin at that speed.


*****Desert Classic Post*************************
It was a wake up call racing short track first time since last season. Highlights from the weekend that I have imprinted in my brain. I didn't see Star Shin's TT but she went 1:32 which is awesome for any woman especially one that just turned 14 last a couple of weeks ago.
The Japanese guys who placed 1 thru 9 in final standings all skated their TTs very flat as did Robert Lawerence. I haven't seen all the results just the final ones. It was humbling to race with these Japanese guys and the Australians the first day. I looked up the Japanese guys and they are all top level World Cup skaters.
It was cool seeing Derek Parra racing short track. He is skating well but you could tell it was his first real short track race. The 3 Japanese guys really schooled him as he was trying to pass in one of his heats. It was exciting also with Walter Rusk making some moves. There was a lot of contact in that race.