WORKING TO MOVE FAST
Speedskaters set for season
The official start to winter is still 34 days away. But don’t tell that to the country’s high-performance, winter-sport athletes. They’re training and competing in high gear these days.
Let’s drop in on long-track speedskaters Isabelle Weidemann of Ottawa, Vincent De Haître of Cumberland and Lauren McGuire of Ottawa to see how their 2015-16 seasons are unfolding.
ISABELLE WEIDEMANN
A late-summer bicycle crash could have put Isabelle Weidemann’s inaugural senior year as a long-track speedskater in serious jeopardy. But one of the world’s top junior skaters in 2015 rebounded quickly from her concussion and is travelling faster than ever around the oval.
“I had severe symptoms, terrible headaches. I was sensitive to noises and light for the first two days,” recalled Weidemann, one of three national team women who have been concussed this season. “Then it turned around quickly.”
That’s a good way to describe the early part of her 2015-16 season. At the Canadian World Cup fall trials in Calgary, her times were not great, but her placings were all that counted — second to international medallist Ivanie Blondin of Ottawa in the 3,000 and 5,000 metres and fifth in the 1,500 metres.
Weidemann, a development/ Next Gen national team member, made amends for his times as the World Cup season opened last weekend in Calgary, skating personal-best times of four minutes, 6.57 seconds in the 3,000 metres to finish fourth in the women’s B final (14th overall out of 43 racers) and earning 19 World Cup points, and 1:58.67 in the 1,500 metres to place 11th in the B race.
“In the fall World Cups, I want to learn a lot and watch the older guys to see how they do it,” said Weidemann, who was named Speedskating Canada’s Rising Star athlete of the year for 201415, after winning a bronze medal at the Junior World Cup final and earning three top-10 results at the world junior single-distance championships.
VINCENT DE HAÎTRE
Maybe this season will be different for Vincent De Haître. It’s starting out that way.
Last season, the middle-distance, long-track speedskater opened strong with a World Cup fourth-place result and scored a bronze medal in the final meet. But in between, he was stressed, dealing with acclimatizing to a full season of worldwide travel on the tour as well as back and ankle injuries.
A year later, he’s starting out with medical issues that affected his World Cup opening races last weekend in Calgary. Maybe with a two-week break before resuming World Cup competition in Salt Lake City, he can begin to achieve Speedskating Canada’s goals of reaching the medal podium.
At the fall World Cup trials, De Haître had to withdraw after his second 500-metre race because of a groin injury. He was grounded for two weeks and received a medical bye from the national federation to race in the first World Cup races. Then a week leading up to the Calgary competitions, he was bothered by a cold.
De Haître, 21, had his best 1,000-metre start of the season, but admitted his execution of the rest of the race was not good, especially the corners. But his time of 1:08.11 was less than half a second off his personal best of 1:07.63, which happened three weeks before the fall World Cup trials. “I want to be a medal contender,” he stated. “So far this season, four skaters have skated 1:07 ( before the Calgary World Cup opener) world wide. That’s a motivating factor.”
De Haître also was 16th in the 1,500 metres in 1:45.70, less than one second off his best-ever time of 1:44.75.
LAUREN McGUIRE
The 2015-16 International Skating Union’s long-track speedskating season opened with the women’s division B 3,000-metre race on Friday. It would be Lauren McGuire’s one and only race of the World Cup fall season. “I put a lot of pressure on myself (at the fall trials) and it didn’t go well,” said McGuire, who raced in four fall World Cups in 2014.
But McGuire, 26, can look forward to the Canadian winter trials for the second half of the World Cup season. She’s hoping another two months training with legendary national coach Xiuli Wang in Calgary will continue to make a difference in her skating.
“She has changed the way we think about our technique and the way we skate,” said McGuire, a non-national team skater, who was 14th in her Calgary World Cup 3,000 metres in 4:13.35, missing her personal best by more than two seconds.
“I consider the opportunity to work with Xiuli a dream (come true). I can’t let it go by. She is a gold-medal factory. I am a lot stronger physically and my skating has improved. She challenges the way I skate and think. It’s important to have a coach challenge you.”
Martin Cleary’s High Achievers column appears bi-weekly in the Citizen. If you know an athlete, coach, team or builder you consider a high achiever, contact Martin at martincleary51@gmail.com.