The Dutch team is now known

The inline Dutch national team was officially confirmed with a bit more than one month to go before World championships.

Par Jackob Savard

Photo: Schaats Foto's

The host country of the 2018 World championships will have a solid team led by some veterans such as Crispijn Ariens, Gary Hekman and Manon Kamminga. They will also be joined by long track speed skating olympian Ronald & Michel Mulder and some impressive young skaters like Luc ter Haar, Elisa Dul and the Schipper brothers Rick and Kay.

Here’s the full team:

Senior men

Track & road: Crispijn Ariëns, Luc ter Haar, Gary Hekman, Michel Mulder, Ronald Mulder.

Track only: Rémon Kwant, Kay Schipper, Rick Schipper.

Road only: Bart Hoolwerf.

Marathon only: Ingmar Berga, Casper de Gier.

Senior ladies

Track & road: Elisa Dul, Marijke Groenewoud, Maya de Jong, Elsemieke van Maaren, Bianca Roosenboom.

Road only: Manon Kamminga.

Marathon only: Gerline Crediet, Elma de Vries.

Juniors

Men: Janno Botman, Merijn Scheperkamp, Harm Visser, Teun de Wit, Jordy van Workum.

Ladies: Marit van Beijnum, Anna van den Bos, Bente Kerkhoff.

To learn more about the French selection, click HERE.

To learn more about the Colombian team, click HERE.

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Team Colombia will be dangerous in 2018

The biggest inline speed skating nation in the world had their national selections last weekend in Cucuta, Colombia.

By Jackob Savard

Photos: Thomas Wendt (@freddyrace)

It’s a familiar Colombian team with a lot of world champions that will race in Heerde for the 2018 World championships later this season.

Arias and Escobar will lead the women's team

Fabriana Arias Perez, who’s already been crowned world champion 13 times and World games champion 3 times, will lead the Colombian squad in the long distances. She will have experimented skaters to help her like Johanna Viveros and Maria Camila Guerra. Yesenia Escobar Ramirez will lead the team in the sprint distances and will be joined by other stars of the sport like Andrea Canon, Geiny Pajaro and Kerstinck Sarmiento.

An experimented men’s team

The seven-time world champion Alex Cujavante will be part of the team again this season. At the 2017 World championships that were held in Nanjing, he was crowned world champion on the 15 000m elimination track race. Hamilton Patino, who’s part of team Powerslide, had awesome results in the European cup last season and will represent his country in 2018. You can add to the team Jaime Uribe and Edwin Estrada who are two dangerous sprinters, the multiple times junior world champion Manuel Saavedra and the Pyeongchang 2018 olympian Pedro Causil. Finally, Andres Felipe Munoz who has already 27 world titles under his belt will try to add more to his collection in 2018.

As always, the Colombian team will be one of the best and you will have the chance to see them race at the World Championships from July 1st to 7th.

Senior ladies team

Fabriana Arias - 13 x world champion

Johana Viveros - 11 x world champion

Yesenia Escobar - 11 x world champion

Kerstinck Sarmiento - 6 x world champion

Andrea Canon - 4 x world champion

Geiny Pajaro - 4 x world champion

Maria Camila Guerra - 0 x world champion

Senior men’s team

Andres Felipe Munoz - 27 x world champion

Pedro Causil - 16 x world champion

Edwin Estrada - 11 x world champion

Alex Cujavante - 7 x world champion

Jaime Uribe - 5 x world champion

Manuel Saavedra - 3 x world champion

Hamilton Patiño - 0 x world champion

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Livio Wenger se joindra à Arma pour 2018

Le Suisse Livio Wenger se joindra vraisemblablement à l’équipe Arma Arena Geisingen pour la saison 2018.

Par Jackob Savard

Photo: Thomas Wendt (@freddyrace)

Selon nos sources, Wenger fera partie de l'équipe de plus en plus dangereuse d'Arma Arena Geisingen pour la saison à venir. Peter Michael, son partenaire d'entraînement sur glace et coéquipier chez Powerslide depuis plusieurs années, avait annoncé la semaine dernière qu'il se joignait à cette équipe. Vous pouvez d’ailleurs lire notre article sur le sujet ICI. Tout comme Michael, Wenger est entraîné par Kalon Dobbin sur la glace et c’est ce dernier qui est l’entraîneur de l’équipe Arma Arena Geisingen.

Wenger pourrait jouer un excellant rôle de lieutenant pour Peter Michael mais également tirer son épingle du jeu et remporter des courses. Wenger a remporté la médaille d’argent aux World games à Wroclaw en 2017 lors de la course à points et élimination sur piste. Il est également un bon patineur de marathon et il n’a pas peur de se sacrifier pour son équipe.

L’équipe Arma sera à surveiller cette saison avec les additions de la dernière semaine.

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Know everything about short track in Pyeongchang

Short track speed skating is one of the most popular event at the winter Olympics.

By Jackob Savard

Photo: Schaats Foto’s

The favorites

Some skaters seemed to have the edge by the end of the World cup season and will look to do as good in Pyeongchang. In the men’s competition Hwang Dae Heon and Lim Hyo Jun from Korea, the new European champion Sjinkie Knegt, the Liu brothers, young Samuel Girard and veteran Charles Hamelin had a good World cup season and could end up on the podium. In the ladies’ event, Kim Boutin and Choi Minjeong fought hard on 1000m and 1500m all season long and we could see them fight again at the Olympics! Skaters like Shim Suk-Hee, Marianne St-Gelais, Suzanne Schulting, Arianna Fontana and Elise Christie are also among the favorites. Let’s keep in mind that everything can happen in short track and  many skaters not on these lists could step on the podium!

The calendar

February 10

-Qualification and finals men’s 1500m

-Qualification ladies’ 500m

-Qualification ladies’ 3000m relay

February 13

-Ladies' 500m finals

-Qualification men’s 1000m

-Qualification men’s 5000m relay

February 17

-Qualification and finals ladies' 1500m

-Men’s 1000m finals

February 20

-Qualification ladies’ 1000m

-Qualification men’s 500m

-Ladies’ 3000m relay finals

February 22

-Men’s 500 finals

-Ladies’ 1000m finals

-Men’s 5000m relay finals

Every day of competition starts at 7pm, local time and ends between 9pm and 10pm depending of the event. The races will start at 5am Montreal time and 3am Calgary time. You can also use this website to translate your time zone wherever you are.

Number of athletes

On 500m and 1000m, 32 men and 32 women will race for Olympic glory. In the 1500m it will be 36 skaters instead of 32 and there will be 8 relay teams by category. These quota places were won during the World cup season. Some details about the qualification and the link for the quota places by country are available in our Round up article  published on november 29.

Get to know some of the teams

Canada, Pays-Bas, Corée, France, Grande-Bretagne, Singapore

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Koreans are back

Korean speed skaters were in every battle in the 2017 World Cup campaign.

By Jackob Savard

Photos: Tony Chung (@SHORTTRACKHD)

The Korean men’s team didn't do so well after the Sochi Olympic games.

Sochi’s misstep

The Korean team composed of Lee Han-bin, Lee Ho-suk, Kim Yun-jae, Park Se-yeong et Sin Da-woon came back with zero medals from the 2014 Olympics. The best performance was Lee Han-bin's sixth place in the 1500m. Ironically, Viktor Ahn, who was rejected from the Korean team a couple of years prior to the Sochi Olympics, won 4 medals including 3 gold representing Russia at the Games.

The years following the Games were also difficult and the number of World championships overall podium went down dramatically.

Here's the number of times members from the men's Korean team got on the overall podium at the World championships after Vancouver and after Sochi:

A new era

A new era started at the 2017 World championships with Seo Yi-ra’s overall world champion title. Since then, young skaters like Yi-ra, Lim Hyo-jun and Hwang Dae-heon are leading the Korean men’s team.

The reigning world champion Seo Yi-ra was in every top 10 of this year's World cup season ranking and was a big part of Korea’s second place in the relay classification. Hyo-jun finished top 6 on every distances and was really impressive in his first year on the circuit. Dae-heon won the 1500m World cup ranking, finished second in the 1000m ranking and fourth in the 500m. He was one of the most dominant skater on the circuit this season.

Koreans are coming back just in time for the Pyeongchang Olympics. It will be interesting to see how this young team will handle all the pressure of the Olympics being held at home.

We would like you to predict how many medals will the Korean men’s team will get in Pyeongchang (on a possibility of 10). See our survey at the top right of this page or by clicking HERE.

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