Same Story, Different Venue - National Record!

Sophie Muir, skating in the Can-Am competition in Calgary has hit an Olympic qualifying time in the 500m and in the process, once again lowered her own national record to hit a sub 39sec, 38.99 500m. On day 2 of the competition, this placed her in second place in the ladies open division of the 500m (76 competitors).

Daniel Greig finally got to strut his stuff and skated a personal best 36.80, just .02 shy of Ben Southee's current National record, also set in Calgary earlier this year. Daniel finished a fantastic 21st out of 109 competitors in the open men's division.

Daniel Yeow also made the trek over to Calgary earlier this week and skated a 41.68 today, finishing in 67th place. Daniel had also skated the 1000m event the previous day, posting a 1:23.01, just two days after arriving in Calgary from Heerenveen to finish in 38th position.

Ben Southee and Josh Lose are in Hamar (NOR) this weekend for the long distance events, Josh skating the 10k and Ben skating the 1500m. I will post those results as soon as I am aware of them.

Having seen the Berlin and Heerenveen world cups first hand, I can say with hand across heart, there are some amazingly talented skaters representing Australia and international supporters and skaters alike are really standing up and taking notice. I can also say that all of the skaters are genuinely nice young people who represent Australia well in all areas, both on and off the ice.

The fact that the skaters are presently fighting for one position per distance, is driving all to skate the hardest they can to gain a spot for the Vancouver Olympics.

Prior to this weekend, Sophie was on the ISU list of qualified skaters for Vancouver, sitting on 32nd (of 36 places)on the ranking system. She had not skated an Olympic qualifying time until today's race. Had this time been skated in a world cup, it would now rank her in 23rd position!

Ben Southee is sitting as first reserve for 'country quota' placing (1500m) and Josh is listed as 5th reserve for 'country quota' placing (5k) for an Olympic berth. Skaters must meet the AIR/AOC standards for Olympic selection also. Ben (1500m) and Sophie (500m) are presently the only two to have met these time standards. I have no doubt that Josh and Daniel will be striving to hit the required marks as well.

Richard Goerlitz was listed to start in yesterday's 1000m event but did not start.