USA's fall World cup qualifier results: The veteran and the newcomer

J.R Celski

Text: Carl Savard Photo: Tony Chung

Canada was not the only country to be in the process of selecting their short track speed skating team last week. The american skaters also had a family meeting at the Utah olympic oval  last weekend. The format was different though. While Canadians were skating nine finals, three of each distances, in five days of competition over a nine days period, the american skaters had to battle on each main distances two times during a three days weekend. Plus, while Canada’s format already confirms its team not only for the World cup circuit but also for the next Olympic games, the top skaters from the United-States will need to battle one more time on december 15-17 at the Utah olympic oval again to win their ticket to Pyeongchang 2018.

The veteran

On the men’s side, three time olympic medallist J.R. Celski was dominant. He won four of the six finals including the two 500m ones. This is not surprising considering he has been holding on to the 500m world record for five years now. The California native added a second and a third place to his final ranking, finishing more than 1500 points in front of second place finisher John-Henry Krueger who won one of the 1500m over Ryan Pivirotto and Celski. Pivirotto finished in third place overall in part because of his win on one of the 1000m final.  

Thomas Hong and Aaron Tran will complete this fall’s team on the men’s side. They finished in fourth and fifth place respectively last weekend.

The newcomer

On the women’s side, the story of the weekend was definitely Maame Biney’s performance. At only 17 years old and coming off a season that saw her performed well at the World junior short track speed skating championships winning a bronze medal on 500m and finishing in seventh place overall, Biney won three of the six finals last weekend adding a second a third and a fifth position to her resume. Lana Ghering, medalist from the Vancouver Olympics, finished second. Ghering won one of the 1000m finals while Jessica Kooreman, winner of the two 1500m distances finished in third place despite not competing on the last day after suffering a fall on 500m the day before.

Kristen Santos and Katherine Reutter-Adamek complete the women's team that will fly to Hungary to compete in the first World cup circuit event held from September 28 to October 1st 2017.

Here are the final rankings