Sophie Muir Breaks 500m National Record in Berlin

Sophie Muir (here with coaches Desly and Rogina), skating in her 2nd 500m of the Berlin World Cup has lowered her own national record to skate a 40.10, placing her 13th in the field of 27 skaters, an improvement on the previous day where she finished 14th. Sophie's first 100m was slower than yesterday's but she skated a nice final 400m to take .08 of a second off the NR.

Considering that Calgary, where she set her previous record, is considered faster than Berlin, this is a great result and expect to see her skate under 40secs very soon, and to also hit the magical 39sec Olympic qualifying time by the Calgary and Salt Lake world cups.

Ben Southee skated his 2nd 500m this morning also, skating a PB 1st 100m of 10.30sec. Ben had the first outer and was much quicker than his opposition but got a little caught up in the transition, reverting back to his short track skills and jumping to the inside of the Argentinian skater. Ben had some great speed up the back straight and hit the last inner very fast and midway through the corner, he unfortunately booted out and ended up in the barrier. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that had he not fallen, this would have been a new national record also.
Famous US speed skater Shani Davis later gave Ben some helpful advise in the athlete's warm down area about how to best approach his next 500m and tips on transitioning in the back straight. It was nice that such a superstar in the sport took the time to approach a new comer and provide some constructive advise to help him develop.

Ben backed up and skated the 1500m, heading out in the 9th pairing. Ben skated his 2nd best ever time, a 1:50.29, which was still under the old national record that he broke last weekend. This placed him 20th in the field of 30 skaters and it was a nice consistent skate, with a reasonably fast opening 300m of 24.7sec.

I think all the results by Ben, Sophie and Josh are positive from this first world cup and all skaters acknowledge the areas where they can improve. I am sure that Desly, Rogina and Dayoung will be working intently over this week refining the necessary areas with the athletes, prepping them for the 2nd world cup in Heerenveen next weekend.

Stay tuned for video of the races over the coming week (fingers crossed!).