MELBOURNE'S reputation as the world's greatest sports city will receive another boost when the world's largest ice sports centre opens at Docklands early next year.
The $58 million development at Waterfront City will have two Olympic-size rinks and will offer recreational skating every day of the year from 6am until late at night.
Ice Sports Australia director Andrew Shelton said....................... Click Here For More >>
Article courtesy of The Herald Sun
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
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So when will we see the first 400m oval in Australia? Are there any plans in that direction? It would be great: the first ever in the southern hemosphere!
ReplyDeleteGood luck to all Australian and NZ skaters from Marcel van Dieren (speedskating fan from Holland)!!
Btw... a pity that only Sophie Muir qualified outright for Vancouver... Ben Southee, Daniel Greig and Josh Lose were so close! But as reserves.. who knows, they might still qualify!
Hi Marcel,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the positive words for the skaters. It is my understanding that Sohpie AND Josh have qualified outright for Vancouver and that Daniel adn Ben are possible starters based on country quota which is used for the smaller countries to gain representation at the games.
The ISU granted ST Australia a men's 1000m position due to results, but it was not an outrught qualification (so I understand). Hopefully Ben and Daniel will get the same courtesy extended to them as they only just finshed outside the qualifying positions.
I personally hope to see all four LT'ers in Vancouver and it will make my Foxtel (pay TV) subscription well worth it.
I'm not sure if Sophie was aware that she was making skating history by being the first ever LT female for Australia at a Winter Games, but with two months between now and the games, I can't wait to see how much she, and the others, improve.
And I don't care where Australia's fans come from, welcome to the fold of fans following ASS2010!
Frank
Thanks for your answer Frank!
ReplyDeleteI understand from the website of Marcel Warnaar with the qualification status that Joshua Lose is no. 28 on the list, but loses his spot to Switzerland (Roger Schneider) who is entitled to this spot because of the results of last year...
It would be cruel though if this means Josh would not be able to start!
With regards to my other question: do you know whether these Docklands ice tracks are shorttrack? And are there plans, somewhere, for a 400m track?
Thanks and I also hope all 4 Australians will be in Vancouver!!
Mmmmmm, not a good situation. But i think it is more likely that Roger would be offered a country quota position based on last year's times as opposed to taking Josh's spot?
ReplyDeleteI am not aware of the decisions the ISU will make, but if Roger has been informed that he will get to skate, I will try and find out if Josh will still be given a skate.
As for a 400m oval, the Docklands complex was probably the best chance we had of making this happen, but you never know, there may be some rich business man out there who will invest in one in the coming years! The idea of the Docklands complex is to bring all elite short track, hockey and figure skating squads to there as the winter sports base in Australia.
It seems puzzling that the Docklands 'complex' includes 2x shorttrack-sized ice skating rinks. Call them shorttrack ovals, ice rinks, hockey rinks or whatever you like, they are adding 2 more ice rinks to a metropolitan area in Melbourne that has been unable to support 2 in total let alone at one facility.
ReplyDeleteAs for ice sports, it goes to show the bias toward sports given Olympic status. The level of Australian ice speedskating (ST or LT) is not comparable to that of inline speed skating (from where Australia's currently noteworthy longtrack speedskaters were taken): a sport that just missed Olympic inclusion and has been unable to secure more than one purpose-built facility in any major city in Australia.
Will the Docklands complex include a banked inline speed skating track, to ensure high-quality inline speedskaters continue to be available to Winter Olympic programmes in future?