Four Continent Short Track Speed Skating Inaugural event

This past weekend I managed to get to the Maurice Richard Arena, even though I wasn't feeling particularly well, to watch the Four Continent Short Track Speed Skating competition that was taking place. This event was created because there is a European Championship world class event where only European skaters are invited to participate, leaving all elite skaters outside of Europe with one event less to participate in. So this event was created, which excludes Europeans.

Countries that participated included Canada, USA, Korea, China, Japan, and one skater each from Singapore and Columbia.

Sadly, Kim Boutin; Canada's lead female skater, was still feeling the after effects of tendinitis in one of her knees and so did not participate in this event. Almost certainly, Kim would have been competitive with Choi Min Jeong of Korea.

Below you can see the results by gender and distance.

Two Korean skaters, Choi Min Jeong and Hwang Dae Heon really dominated the races. Choi Min Jeong in particular would stay near or at the back of the pack, irrespective of the distance of the race, and then push really hard in the last lap, or last half-lap in the case of the 500m, and pull in front to win the Gold medal. How she won the 3000m was really quite something; for whatever reason, no one from the main pack followed her right at the end of the first lap of the race where she accelerated hard and sped through, lapping every other racer twice and then rejoining them.



Now that the Elite skaters have come to my city twice in the space of two months, it isn't likely that they'll come back here again soon. So it looks like for the 2020/21 season, I may travel once or twice to see and support our Canadian skaters.